What do you think?
Rate this book
Learning Spanish Words Through Etymology and Mnemonics
Learning Spanish Words through Etymology and Mnemonics makes use of etymology to help you remember Spanish words and, failing that, suggests a mnemonic. Combination of these two approaches in one book separates it from other books on the market. The amount and depth of etymology is carefully chosen to be practical and not overwhelm an average reader. The suggested mnemonics aim to help an educated English-speaking person. An adult or young adult who likes learning vocabulary with some word analysis instead of rote memory will find this book to be helpful and a joy to read. With about three thousand words selected from fifteen thousand in the Real Academia Española corpus sorted in frequency order, this booklet can be used either as a dictionary or for leisure reading.
For more information and book errata, please visit
For more information and book errata, please visit
286 pages, Paperback
Published February 12, 2016
11 people are currently reading
20 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 23, 2017
I was offered a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The preface explains the format of the book clearly and in detail. The book is meant to be used both by adults and teenagers, and in my opinion both groups should have no problems with it.
The main part of the book is essentially a word list. The words are not given alphabetically, but according to their frequency. There's an alphabetic index in the end. I found this decision surprising, but I consider it a good idea. It can help one figure out where to start, and if one opts to learn the words directly from the book, this minimizes the anchoring effect. A beginner can use this book over a long period of time in order to build a vocabulary base from scratch. Someone who's into "natural" learning can use it to consolidate their knowledge. I found myself doing that as well.
It's impossible to review this book without comparing it to "Spanish vocabulary: an etymological approach" by David Brodsky. For many people, they're equally good. As Yong Huang points out, his book is unique in combining the etymology approach with mnemonics. It may be more useful to a first-time language learner who has no experience with Latin, French or Italian. It's more concise and to the point. (And as of now, it's more readily available) The suggested mnemonics are optional, and I didn't find them distracting at all.
To be fair, Brodsky's book is more detailed, likely more useful to those learning several Romance languages, and possibly more academically accurate (clearly distinguishing between cognates and borrowings). It has a more complicated structure, and it's less suitable for randomly browsing and picking words to learn.
On a personal note, I'm finding this book fun enough that I'm reluctant to skip anything, whereas in Brodsky's book I skipped several sections that were quite easy for me. I like that on any page you'll see some obvious words and some not-so-obvious ones. Perhaps the best recommendation I can give is listing this book among the most "fun" resources out there.
Finally, if you like mnemonics but aren't used to creating them, Yong Huang will teach you. There are some tips in the appendix, including computer scripts for finding similar-sounding words in two languages.
"Learn Spanish Words through Etymology and Mnemonics" does exactly what it says on the tin. Unlike so many language learning resources, it doesn't promise fluency in a week or instant improvement. You are still responsible for the learning part - and this book will help.
The preface explains the format of the book clearly and in detail. The book is meant to be used both by adults and teenagers, and in my opinion both groups should have no problems with it.
The main part of the book is essentially a word list. The words are not given alphabetically, but according to their frequency. There's an alphabetic index in the end. I found this decision surprising, but I consider it a good idea. It can help one figure out where to start, and if one opts to learn the words directly from the book, this minimizes the anchoring effect. A beginner can use this book over a long period of time in order to build a vocabulary base from scratch. Someone who's into "natural" learning can use it to consolidate their knowledge. I found myself doing that as well.
It's impossible to review this book without comparing it to "Spanish vocabulary: an etymological approach" by David Brodsky. For many people, they're equally good. As Yong Huang points out, his book is unique in combining the etymology approach with mnemonics. It may be more useful to a first-time language learner who has no experience with Latin, French or Italian. It's more concise and to the point. (And as of now, it's more readily available) The suggested mnemonics are optional, and I didn't find them distracting at all.
To be fair, Brodsky's book is more detailed, likely more useful to those learning several Romance languages, and possibly more academically accurate (clearly distinguishing between cognates and borrowings). It has a more complicated structure, and it's less suitable for randomly browsing and picking words to learn.
On a personal note, I'm finding this book fun enough that I'm reluctant to skip anything, whereas in Brodsky's book I skipped several sections that were quite easy for me. I like that on any page you'll see some obvious words and some not-so-obvious ones. Perhaps the best recommendation I can give is listing this book among the most "fun" resources out there.
Finally, if you like mnemonics but aren't used to creating them, Yong Huang will teach you. There are some tips in the appendix, including computer scripts for finding similar-sounding words in two languages.
"Learn Spanish Words through Etymology and Mnemonics" does exactly what it says on the tin. Unlike so many language learning resources, it doesn't promise fluency in a week or instant improvement. You are still responsible for the learning part - and this book will help.
Displaying 1 of 1 review