Faith Tong (Week 3) - hola amigos!

 Hola Amigos! 

By Faith Tong 

    Currently this school year I'm taking Spanish 3 (kind of regret it) and I've learned tricks here and there to help me remember vocabulary and grammar rules better. While head empty thinking about what to write for this week's blog post, I thought about how I have a Spanish test this Friday and how I'm supposed to pass with an A...Then I made the realization that I could talk about my experience in Spanish 3 in relation to my memory (how smart of me). 

    At first when I started taking Spanish 1, I thought it would be an easier language since it's similar to English in numerous ways, and I was half right on that assumption. To prove myself right, I decided to search it up and turns out, Spanish is one of the seven easiest languages to learn according to Jumpspeak. Apparently "everything from writing, grammar, and speaking will come more naturally to the English speaker because of the similar rules, structure, and Latin roots" (Jumpspeak). 

    I found it really interesting how our brain can easily make connections from English to Spanish. For me, if there is a Spanish word is similar in spelling to a word in English, I remember it easier and faster. For example, while doing a vocabulary list for Spanish, I easily recognized the words "analizar" or "consecutivo". I bet you probably thought it was analayze and consecutive, due to the similar structure and rules it has to English words. 

    These types of simple connections with similar looking words help me remember Spanish vocabulary words better, therefore improving my memory for my Spanish vocabulary tests. On the other hand, I will still have to use effortful memory to memorize the Spanish words that don't look nor sound like English words, which will take longer to remember (very sad). Anyways, I hoped you learned something new about how the similarities of different languages actually connect to how fast we learn! 

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