anoche last night. From Latin ad noctem (literally “to night”), meaning “at night”, referring to the time between yesterday’s sunset and this morning’s sunrise.
anteojos glasses, gafas, lentes. From ante- (“before”, “in front of”) + ojos (“eyes”). Note the meaning is very different from antojo (“whim”, “craving”). To remember which is which, as a mnemonic, consider that ante- fully spelled out literally refers to a concrete object while ant- refers to an abstract concept.
cometa kite; comet (cognate). It’s rare for a word to be of different origin in each Romance language, and one example is the word for “kite” (not “comet”, which does have the same origin in various Romance languages). For example, in Spanish, a kite is likened to a comet; in French, a flying stag or male deer; in Italian, a big eagle; in Portuguese, a parrot or cask (wooden barrel). The Spanish analogy between a kite and a comet is quite appropriate, but note the genders: la cometa for “kite” and el cometa for “comet”. (As a mnemonic, imagine a girl flying a kite and a boy watching the comet with a telescope.) Not to be confused with comité (“committee”), cometer (“to commit”).
corral pen, animal enclosure, barnyard, farmyard. This word has entered English vocabulary. Cognate with courier, current. From Latin currus (“chariot”). Huevos / pollos de corral in Spanish is often translated as “free-range eggs / chicken”, which may sound counter-intuitive. In practice, a “free” range almost always has to be within an enclosure, in which farm animals can freely run, unlike those in a crowded industrialized cage. So the word is connected to run. Not to be confused with coral. But if you like an absurd image, as a mnemonic, imagine a chicken pen built on a coral island.
ensayo essay (“literary composition”) (cognate); try, attempt, test, assay (cognate); rehearsal. The English word essay no longer has the meaning of “attempt” or “test” when it was borrowed from Middle French as the French thinker Michel de Montaigne wrote his Essais (meaning literally “experiment”, “attempt”), which made essai a general word referring to the genre of literary writing. The English doublet assay still means “test”, specifically, “testing of chemical composition”.
expediente document, record, file, dossier, certificate. This word, often seen in legal context, is a false friend of English expedient, in spite of cognation. Imagine such paper work is urgently needed and must be expedited in delivery.
heroína heroin; heroine. As in most other Romance languages, this word can mean either “heroin” or “heroine” depending on the context.
honra honor (cognate), honor. honrar to honor (cognate). honrado honest; honored. honradez honesty (cognate). honesto honorable, virtuous. From Latin honorare. Spanish dropped the second syllable vowel while English honor cut short after the second syllable. Note that honrado has the additional meaning of “honest”, honradez only means “honesty”, not “honor”, and honesto does not mean “honest” in the sense of “not telling a lie on a specific matter”. Honor and honesty are two related human qualities in both Spanish and English. If it’s not easy to remember all the connotations at once, just remember these words could have either of the two senses and see which one fits better in actual reading or listening.
marchar to go, to march (cognate); (reflexive) to leave. Note the meaning of the reflexive usage, just like irse (“to leave”). Normally the meaning of a verb used reflexively can be guessed (action to oneself, passive voice, or indefinite person like English one). But sometimes they acquire a new meaning that does not follow the said rules, as in the case of marcharse or irse.
mozo boy, young man. There are various etymological theories about this word, including one that connects it to muchacho (“boy”). Alternatively, we know that the Biblical name Moses, according to one theory, means “child of” in Egyptian (see Wikipedia for Moses and its reference that states “Moses is derived from the common element in names such as Thutmosis (‘Thoth created him’)...)”. For lack of definitive proof, we can at least take Moses as a mnemonic for mozo and imagine him as a young boy or young man.
ocasionar to cause, causar, to bring about, to occasion. English occasion can indeed be used as a verb meaning “to cause”, “to induce”, but this usage is far rare compared to Spanish ocasionar, which in turn is less common and more formal than causar.
prórroga extension, deferment. Cognate with prorogue (“to discontinue”), which has an outdated sense of “to defer”. The pró- prefix means “forth”. Note the double r, so it’s pronounced as a trill instead of a tap or flap; think of the difference between perro and pero. See also rogar.
puntuación punctuation; score (given on an exam). Note the second meaning. As a mnemonic, imagine the teacher punctures holes on a card as a way to record the student’s score on the exam. Sacar buena puntuación means “to get a good score”.
soler to be accustomed to (doing something), to do often. The word is followed by a verb infinitive and the combination is translated as “often (action of the verb)”. Cognate with solace (“comfort” or “consolation”), with the root of insolent (“rude”, from Latin insolens, “unusual”). To do something repeatedly or frequently and you can do it comfortably. Note the stem change in many forms of this word, e.g., suelo, sueles, suele, solemos, soléis, suelen, of which suelo is not to be confused with suelo (“floor”). The rule is that when there’s a stress on any syllable other than the first, the conjugated form begins with so-, otherwise sue-, which is the stressed form of so. See also insólito (“unusual”).
Appendix 1: Other basic Spanish words The following are basic Spanish words gathered from various sources not occurring in the first few thousand of the RAE (Royal Spanish Academy) frequency list.
§1a Selection from The Usborne First Thousand Words in Spanish. The words in this section are grouped by category. Within each category, the words are alphabetically sorted. Many basic words in their categories are omitted since they are already listed in the main body of this book. [Note: On this webpage, the sample words here are listed alphabetically.]
cartel poster (picture posted on the wall). Related to carta (“letter”), cognate with card. While English cartel (as in drug cartel) ultimately can be traced to the same origin, the meaning differs too much. Consider them false friends.
cremallera zipper. Cognate with cremaster (“muscle covering testis and spermatic cord”), through French and Latin from an Ancient Greek word meaning “to hang”. Use a mnemonic such as “The coroner pulled up the zipper of the bag that held the dead man and the body was cremated.”
grifo faucet, tap; griffin (cognate, “a mythical beast having the body of a lion and the wings and head of an eagle” according to Wiktionary). The turning handle of some faucets resemble the wings of a griffin.
guisante pea. From Latin pisum sapidum (literally “tasty pea”). English pea is from Latin pisum. If you already know guiso (“stew”), think of a stew of peas. Or use a mnemonic such as “Santa likes to eat gooey, thick soup made of peas” and think of “gooey for Santa” (but remember gui- in Spanish is actually pronounced like ghee /gi/). Peas are small so it’s easy to make thick soup. In Mexico, peas are called chícharos, cognate with the first element of chickpea.
loro parrot. From a native American language spoken in the Caribbean. Use a mnemonic such as “Laura has a parrot.” (If you have a friend named Lori or Laurie, that name can be used too.) Or imagine you say lo, and a parrot mimics the sound but says ro because he has difficulty distinguishing l and r, as people speaking certain languages do, notably Koreans and Japanese. Note a parrot is not a parakeet (periquito in Spanish), which would be smaller.
malabarista juggler. From Malabar (“a region in southwestern India”) + -ista (“person doing something”). It’s said that people in Malabar have the talent of juggling. It’s amazing that this skill is given a Spanish name related to a people of South Asia, probably through Persians. Use bad (mal) acrobat or bad (mala) barista as a mnemonic; a barista is a person preparing and serving coffee (think of bar + -ista). Note this word form can be for either gender in spite of the -a ending.
moqueta carpet. From French moquette, which has entered English. According to one theory, a moquette was originally the carpet in a mosque, which at least serves as a good mnemonic. Moqueta refers to the big carpet covering the whole or big area of floor, while alfombra covers a smaller area and may be translated as rug.
noria ferris wheel; water wheel. Arabic origin. Use a mnemonic such as “Riding a ferris wheel make me feel nausea.” This word has entered English meaning “water wheel”.
reno reindeer. Traced to Old Norse, cognate with the first element of reindeer. (Incidentally, the second element is not deer, but is from an Old Norse word meaning “animal”.) Not to be confused with English rhino (rinoceronte in Spanish), Spanish riñón (“kidney”).
tenedor fork. From tener (“to hold”) + -dor (suffix to form a noun). A fork can firmly holds something.
tiovivo merry-go-round, carousel, carrusel. Literally “uncle alive”, this word is used in Spain. Legend has it that in 1834, Esteban Fernández (Tío Esteban, “Uncle Esteban”), owner of a merry-go-round, died of cholera. When his funeral procession passed by his business, people heard him shout Estoy vivo (“I’m alive”), which sounded like el Tío Vivo. From then on, people called him and his merry-go-round tiovivo.