The word multiplier

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There many strategies you can apply to learning vocabulary. In my view, the only thing you should not do is learn isolated lists of words detached from all context. If you do that, you’ll trick yourself to think you know lots of words, but they will never come out in conversation and will have no impact in your command of Spanish.

In one word, it’s not an effective strategy.

The word multiplier will train you in the magical wordbuilding process.

This tool is a useful and reliable way of making many words out of one. It works with adjectives, nouns, verbs and adverbs and after you get used to using it, it’ll help you master suffixes and prefixes and navigate your way through new words by recognizing what type of word you are dealing with.

The idea is really simple. You only need a print out of this chart or draw one like the one below with as many rows as you wish.

Ok, let’s say you’ve just learned the verb ESTUDIAR. The question you should ask yourself is ‘Do I know any words related to this?’ If you do, include it/them. (Don’t skip this step, as it gives you the opportunity to scan through your memory.)

Base
word		ADJECTIVENOUNVERBADVERB
ESTUD-estudioso/aestudio
estudiante		estudiarestudiosamente

Note that there is a base word, from which all forms stem. Bear in mind that not all words transform into other word types.

The key to getting this right is to have an idea of what suffixes do to the base word.

Here is a useful reference:

ADJECTIVES

  • -able
  • -ible
  • -ado | -ido (consider if it can be a participle)
  • -ador
  • -al
  • -ano
  • -ante
  • -ente
  • -ar (check if it’s not an infinitive)
  • -ento
  • -dor
  • -dizo

NOUNS

  • -ción / -sión
  • -or
  • -ista
  • -ía
  • -ura
  • -dad
  • -ismo

VERBS

  • -ar
  • -er
  • -ir

PARTICIPLES

  • -ado
  • -ido
  • or is it has an irregular partciple?

GERUND

  • -ando (for -AR verbs)
  • -iendo (for -ER/-IR verbs)

ADVERBS

  • ADJECTIVE + mente

Also, don’t forget that for verbs, adjectives and adverbs you can create the opposite by adding a prefix:

  • a-
  • anti-
  • des-
  • i-
  • im-
  • in-

Hope you enjoy using this tool. Let me know if you have any questions, or contact me for a lesson!

Happy Spanish learning,

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