...or not!

[ysobel]

Yesterday I chugged through two lessons of the animal unit -- relatively easy, since I sort of knew most of them already somehow. (cat, dog, elephant, turtle, horse ... the only one I hadn't known was duck, el pato, which I filed away as "sort of like pâté but with -o".

Today, I was all set to chug through more, and ... well ... one I knew (bear, el oso), and two were fairly straightforward (animals, los animales, and penguin, el pingüino). The others not so much. I can do Spanish-to-English translation somewhat readily for some (araña, spider, is sort of similar to arachnid, and cangrejo, crab, starts out similar to cancer), but I am hopeless for pájaro, bird, and can't really do E-to-S for those. (ara*mumble* and can*mumble* doesn't really cut it.)

Sigh.

ETA: cerdo, pig. ratón, mouse. mono, monkey. toro, bull, is ok. conejo, rabbit, sort of.

Also: palabras, words. las llaves, keys. How to remember, argh.

Comments

[asciident]

You sing, so I'm going to assume you're familiar with "clef"? It's French for (musical) key. Door key is clé. They all stem from the same Latin word.Most cl- words got changed in Spanish to start with ll-. clef, clave, llave.

I don't know if that helps, but maybe.

[ysobel]

It does, actually! Gracias.

(still can't retain cerdo -- no, iPad, not credo -- for longer than 10 minutes at a time, but I think I can survive that. )

[krait]

Well, I can think of two nice mnemonics for "conejo" offhand!

First, and most academic: a "coney" is a rabbit, and they sound similar. Second, if you know "cojones"... well, what are rabbits famous for doing? :D

Oh, and for "palabras", think "palaver" (flattering or congenial words).

Can't help with "keys", though; that's an odd one. *stares it down*

[asciident]

coney and conejo both share the same Latin word as well :)

[ysobel]

*nod* Even though I couldn't come up with coney, that's what was in my head that made it ok.

Palaver doesn't help much, unfortunately; my head keeps going to paladin instead.

[rainbow]

dunno whether it will help, but there's a place in calif, pajaro dunes, that's famous for birdwatching. http://friendsofpajarodunes.org/galleries/bird-gallery/

my mom loved the place <3

palabras... would connecting it to library help?