A m a z i n g C o g n a t e P o e m s
Now you start on new proyecto
Get a dose of intelecto
You'll speak Spanish soon correcto
(Or some other dialecto.)
For this method necesario
Study short vocabulario
It might help increase salario
You'll be linguist honorario
Say it slow, with claridad
You'll be glad eternidad
When you speak with variedad
Gives you more seguridad
You see, you know it, the definición
You know the root, by cognición
Now learn the ending by repetición
Soon you'll speak by intuición!
It's really not so complicado
All these words that I've aislado
The best, the easiest, the most apropiado
It's really not exagerado:
Spanish words ilimitado
This new method atractivo
Something new educativo
Results are in, they're conclusivo
You'll learn fast, I'm positivo
You don't believe? It's just promotion?
Can't be so fast, such locomotion?
But you see, I'm a magic marciano...
Puf ! You're reading Italiano !
(read cognate in Italian)
Another language! It's incredíbile!
( in cre DEE bee le )
This is really impossíbile!
For the teacher the soluzione
( so lu TZION ne )
A Second Language Revoluzione!
You want to start, you're impaciente
That's very good, it's excelente!
But you've already started, it's evidente
This was your first lesson equivalente!
© copyright 1987, Ellis Toussier-Ades Bigio-Antebi
I give you permission to reproduce this poem in any way, on condition that you send me a note saying that you are going to use it and that you will always include my name, e-mail address, and URL, as shown here:
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5000/
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There are more than 7000 words in English with Latin roots. These words are known as "cognates". The terrific thing about cognates is that you don't have to know any Latin in order to be able to use them instantly in Spanish or French or Portuguese or Italian. As I have written in my book, "Toussier's Cognate Words," all you have to do is learn a rule to translate the word intuitively, according to the ending in English. You can learn these rules very, very easily, because all the words in English that follow the rule rhyme with all the other words with the same ending... and they usuallly have the same ending in the foreign language! For example:
...idad / ...ité / ...itá / ...idade
So we could have written the fourth verse of the above poem to
end with a cognate in Portuguese, like this:
Say it slow, with claridade (clar IDA gee)
You'll be glad eternidade
When you speak with variedade
Gives you more seguridade
Now... As an excercise, YOU re-write this same stanza, rhyming in French and Italian, using the table above.
Verbs are probably some of the most useful words to learn in a foreign language, and there are several hundred cognate verbs in English... so you can learn them quickly in Spanish, French, Italian, or Portuguese. Here is a rule that will give you about 50 verbs:
In this way, using just 20 different rules which are shown
in my book,
"Toussier's Cognate Words"
you could learn about 4500 words in any of the above languages
in less than one hour !!!
Toussier's Cognate Words
A Cognate Fanatico
My longest and funniest poem is given by me, personally, to whoever asks me for it. Read about
Spanish in An Instante
.
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