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think
pensive
calor
heat
calorie (warms you)
tarde
late
tardy
amigo
friend
amicable
beber
to drink
beverage; imbibe
padre
father
paternal
libro
book
library
azúl
blue
azure
rojo
red
rouge
nuevo
new
new, novelty
avión
airplane
avionics
mirar
to look at
admire, mirror
cuánto
how much
quantify
levantar
to raise
levitate
escuela
school
school
seguro
sure
secure
agua
water
aquatic
palabra
word
palaver
árbol
tree
arbor
ventana
window
ventilate
enfermo
sick
infirmary
    How did you do on this group of words? Are you getting the hang of it? Actually, I deliberately didn't choose many of the words that are almost exactly like English. I wanted to give you slightly harder ones to make you stretch a bit.
    Did you notice a few other things? A lot of the words were similar to words we had listed in French—not surprisingly—since the languages are closely related: arbre-árbol; penser-pensar; fumer-fumar; ami-amigo; soleil-sol; neuf-nuevo; rouge-rojo. A lot of Spanish words began with the letter “e” that were just like an English word beginning with “s” plus consonant: escuela, estado, estudiar. This is another “linguistic law” in relationships between many Spanish and English words.
    When you can't find obvious—or even not so obvious—connections, look for any kind of connection. Even make one up. We've been talking about real linguistic connections so far. But remember, you're not primarily interested in linguistic laws. You're just looking for ways to remember words. If you can develop some crazy association in your mind with a given word—that's fine.
    -Let's take the Spanish word “boleta”, which means “ticket”. You may not be able to think of any word in English related to this word. But maybe the word reminds you slightly of the word ballet. (It actually has nothing to do with the word ballet.) But if you can remember the idea of “ballet-ticket” the chances are you will be able to remember that the word “boleta” means “ ticket ”. After using the word a while you may not need this memory device much longer.
    -One more example: the Spanish word “ladrón” means “thief”. You might associate this word with the word “ladder”. (The Spanish word “ladrón” actually has nothing to do with the English word “ladder” but you can remember it because thieves use ladders.)
    I need to be honest with you. You'll only be able to make easy connections between English and the Romance or Germanic languages. When we look at words from other sub-families of the Indo-European group the process of making connections gets much harder. It takes a lot more knowledge of linguistic rules to spot any connections if you are studying Russian, any other Slavic language, or one of the Indian languages. That's one reason why those languages are considered harder for us than Romance or Germanic languages.
    So the more remote the language you're learning is from English, the more you'll need to use your imagination to make connections. Otherwise it will be verydifficult to memorize and use thousands of words that you can't get a “memory handle” on.
    The whole point of imagination is that you have to make the connections in your own mind if your memory tricks are going to work. This is true even if the connections are totally phony, or even wild. Let me give you a few more examples of how I, at least, might go about trying to remember a number of Russian words that have no obvious connections with their English equivalents—by making “phony connections.”
    derevo means “tree”: reminds me of “derive” alcohol from wood.
    tratit' means “spend”: reminds me of “treating” a friend.
    yazyk means “language”: vaguely like “music” of language.
    nebo means “sky”: a “nebbish” has his head in the clouds.
    Look, I know I'm really stretching a point here. Some of these word associations I made up are almost absurd. But they do serve to give me a way, however tortured, to remember the word