Spanish for Beginners | Lesson 3: Learn Spanish Vocabulary Without Memorizing

Before we really dive into the course, I want to first build up our vocabulary a little with a collection of words that we can use. The title of this lesson is No Memory Vocabulary because essentially we are going to unlock hundreds or possibly even thousands of words in Spanish that require no memorization. We'll do this by looking at cognates. These are words that are identical in English and Spanish. Sometimes so, they share the exact same spelling. This will allow us to build our vocabulary very quickly and easily, without the need for memorizing or studying. In this lesson, we'll look at four very powerful cognates. Here's the first one. You can take just about any word in English that ends in I-B-L-E and Spanish will also have that exact same word with the same spelling. This is the key to instantly unlock this wide range of words. We're keeping the same spelling. It's simply a case of changing our pronunciation so the sound becomes ible. For example, the word possible clearly ends in I-B-L-E. Now, to say it in Spanish would be posible. We're really just changing our pronunciation. You can see that we've dropped an S in the spelling and that's because there are no double S's in Spanish but that doesn't really affect how you think you would say the word when going from English to Spanish. So, we're going from possible to posible. Let's run through more examples. When you see the English word on screen, I want you to say it out in Spanish. Visible. Visible. Terrible. Terrible. Accessible. Accessible. Incredible. Incredible. Flexible. Flexible. Horrible. Horrible. Compatible. Compatible. Inevitable. Inevitable. Irresistible. Some of the words you find in this cognate can be quite tricky when it comes to the pronunciation like here, but if you break it down syllable by syllable it becomes a lot more manageable. Irresistible. Irresistible. Convertible. Convertible. Impossible. Impossible. In this second category of words we'll be looking at words ending in A-N-T and the key to unlock this category of words is by simply adding an E onto the end of the spelling. So, we can take a word like important and to convert this word into Spanish all we need to do is add an E, so it becomes importante. The words in this cognate tend to be a little longer. Let's look at these syllables. Im-por-tante. Importante. What about elegant? Elegante. Relevant. Relevante. Brilliant. Brillante. Assistant. Tolerant. Tolerante. Constant. Constante. Ignorant. Ignorante. Observant. Observante. Confident. Confidente. Instant. Instante. Occupant. Ocupante. Restaurant. Restaurante. Elephant. Elefante. Distant. Distante. Vibrant. Vibrante. Next we have our third cognate. This is all about words ending in A-L. Once again, just like the first cognate we looked at, there's no change to the spelling which makes this category of words another very easy one and it gives a lot of very useful vocabulary that we can use. When taking these words into Spanish, we're keeping the same spelling. All we need to do is change our pronunciation and for these words you'll hear the stress come more on the end. Let's take the word formal as our example. In Spanish it would be How would you say Musical. Tropical. Global. Principal. Initial. Intentional. Optional. Natural. Local. Local. Potential. Potencial. Special. Especial. Personal. Personal. Hospital. Hospital. Moving on to our fourth cognate, these are words ending in T-I-O-N. There's a lot of very useful words here. The key to unlock this group of words is by taking the word ending in T-I-O-N and changing that ending to C-I-O-N. This is how you convert the word into Spanish. Right, there's only a slight change in the spelling here and you can see this accent appearing above the O which is Spanish telling us that this is where we need to stress the word when speaking. It's important you do this so that you're properly and easily understood. Solution is a word ending in T-I-O-N, therefore in Spanish the word becomes What about the word lotion? How would you say it in Spanish? Limitation. Vibration. Nation. Production. Motion. Situation. Action. Selection. Attention. Even a word like information, what would that be? Conversation. Emotion. So, there you have it. Just like that you now know a solid group of Spanish words without needing to memorize anything new. That's the magic of cognates. Words like posible, solución, elegante and animal already exist in your brain. You just need to know the key to unlock them and for two of these cognates, that being the words for I-B-L-E and A-L, it's very straightforward as it's just a case of changing our pronunciation of the word. Then for words ending in E-N-T, these will take on the sound of ante. These cognates instantly add a ton of power into your Spanish by giving you access to thousands of words. And this is a huge confidence boost because it means you're already carrying around way more Spanish vocabulary than you realized. In the next lesson, we're going to put this vocabulary into action and start building some simple sentences.