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Learning Spanish & Etymology Pattern-Matching for Nerds

Cola and Coward

Cola — Spanish for “tail” and, more informally, “ass” — comes from the Latin for the same: coda.

Coda itself has come into English in two ways. First, coda is a music term meaning… the end! The tail is the end of the animal!

More interestingly, from coda we also get the English, coward. The Latin coda became coe– in French, dropping the -d-; and an -ard is just a person, put negatively (bastard!). Thus, a coward is literally: someone who turns his tail and runs!

what is the etymological way to learn spanish?

Nerds love to pattern-match, to find commonalities among everything. Our approach to learning languages revolves (the same -volve- that is in “volver”, to “return”) around connecting the Spanish words to the related English words via their common etymologies – to find the linguistic patterns, because these patterns become easy triggers to remember what words mean. Want to know more? Email us and ask:
morgan@westegg.com

patterns to help us learn spanish:

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For Nerds Learning Spanish via Etymologies