If you have been learning Spanish and have a basic comprehension of the parts of speech, the pronunciation, verb tenses, and spelling rules, you may wonder how you can continue to expand your knowledge and ability to understand, speak and read Spanish.  It's important that you continue to grow your understanding so that you will be able to place words in context in the same way you do when you run across an unfamiliar word in the English language. 

 

Learning Spanish vocabulary in many ways is the easiest of the languages for an English speaker to learn.  That's because there is a tremendous cross fertilization between the Latin words and phrases that became the Spanish language and their English word cousins.  Word similarities or word cognates are a tremendous head start when a person is  learning Spanish vocabulary.  However, you must be cautious about assuming that similar words have migrated in the same way.  Even amongst Spanish language countries the same words can be a swear word in one country and mean something entirely different in another.

 

Some words mean exactly the same thing in both English and Spanish.  A good example is the word 'actual'.  It has the same meaning in Acapulco as it does in London. A point of interest is that the word in English is pronounced much differently that it would be pronounced in Spanish. Other words in Spanish have very different meanings than English words spelled the same way.  In English we talk about an 'arena' such as a riding arena or sports complex building, but in Spanish, 'arena' usually is talking about 'sand'.

 

Another way to grow your vocabulary is to expand the words which you do know by taking advantages of prefixes and suffixes.  Latin prefixes are common in both English and Spanish.  For example, in English the prefix 'mal' has a negative connotation.  For example, 'malady,' 'malevolent,' 'malfunction,' and 'malice.  Spanish words such as 'malévolo' (malevolent), 'malformación' (malformation), and 'malvado' (malignant} all begin with the same prefix.

 

Suffixes are not quite so simple or obvious either in English or learning Spanish,.  Spanish has two main types of suffixes, the augmentative which is related to the size of an object such as an 'arbolete' (a large tree),  a 'mujerona'  (a tough woman) or a 'perrazo' (a vicious dog); and the diminutive suffix which can also connote the sense of affection as in 'casita' (little house), 'abuelita' (dear grandmother), and 'gordito' (chubby).

 

Learning Spanish as you find new words in context is probably the most effective way to retain new words.  Many sites online provide Spanish language words right from publications used by native speakers so the words are current speech.

 

Probably the least fun ways for learning Spanish is to simply memorize words.  This is also the hardest way to retain them, so if you are forced into learning Spanish by memorization, use lists which group like words which may help a little.  For instance, a list of body parts, weather conditions, air travel words, dining or eating terms and shopping in Spanish are ways to help you associate like terms so you can build your vocabulary in that way.