Introduction. Like anything else, learning to read a new language can be somewhat discouraging in the beginning.  And we often make it more difficult for ourselves by approaching the material with the same expectations that we have for something written in non-technical English: that is, we expect to understand every word.  When we don’t, we often try to read while referring constantly to a Spanish-English dictionary.  Few things can be more tedious and unproductive.  By depending on a bilingual dictionary, we often ignore the many advantages that Spanish offers readers.  For example, compare the following sentences:

In the English sentence, there is no apparent relationship between the underlined words.  On the other hand, the Spanish words cocinero, cocina and cocido all share the element coci  (also known as a stem in linguistics). Note that the Spanish verb for “to cook” is cocinar and the noun for “cooking” is cocimiento or cocción.  For historical reasons, English has both Germanic and Romance words (which derive from Latin).  This is why so many words appear unrelated although they share a conceptual meaning, for example tooth (from Germanic) and dentist (from Latin).  Although Spanish also has palabras extranjeras (for example, el bistec), it is generally much easier to detect semantic relationships between words.  Consequently, when you learn one Spanish word, you’re also committing to memory several other ones without having to refer to a dictionary.  This is the idea behind the “Expansión léxica” activities in your workbook.  You should already know that mesa means “table.”  What word from the Spanish sentence above is related to mesa?

Verbs.  Before looking at some of the most common prefixes and suffixes in Spanish, let’s consider the verb.  Some verbs are the source of many others.  For example, poner means “to put” or “to place.”  However, by simply adding different prefixes one can create many different verbs: deponer: to depose; disponer: to dispose; entreponer: to interpose; exponer: to show, expose; imponer: to impose, interponer: to interpose; posponer: to postpone; proponer: to propose; reponer: to replace; sobreponer: to superimpose...  You can see that by simply learning the conjugations of poner, your vocabulary can grow exponentially.

Prefixes.  The following are some of the most common prefixes in Spanish and, where appropriate, their English equivalents or translation.
    Prefix                             Meaning                           Example                       Eng. equivalent
 Ab-, abs-                    separation or privation                 abdicar                              to abdicate
 Ad-, a-                      toward, in the direction of              acercar                            to bring close
 An- a-                                 negation                              apolítico                             apolitical
Ante-                                     before                               antecesor                            ancestor
 Anti-                                 opposition to                   anticonstitucional                   unconstitutional
 Con-, co-                     with, together, jointly                 colaborar                          to work together
 Contra-                              opposition to                       contraceptivo                      contraceptive
 Des-, de-                privation, negation, separation            deshacer                   to undo; to take apart
                                                                                        degenerar                        to degenerate
 Dis-,di-                     take apart, separate; exclude           disculpar                     to excuse, to pardon
                                                                                        disgregar                     to break up, disintegrate
 Entre-                                     between                            entreacto                          intermission
 In-, i-                                      negation                              ilógico                               illogical
 Pos-, post-                           afterwards                           posponer                          to postpone
                                                                                          posdata                             postscript
 Pre-                             prior to, prerequisite to                presuponer                        to presuppose
 Pro-                                before or instead of                   pronombre                            pronoun
 Re-                                repetition or intensity                   reaccionar                            to react
 Sobre-                          superiority or excess                     sobresalir                   to stand out, to project
 Sub-, so-                            underneath                            subconsciente                    subconscious

Suffixes.  The following is a list of common Spanish suffixes and their English equivalents.
 Suffix                    English equivalent                      Sp. example                              Eng. trans.
 -acio                                (-ace)                                      prefacio                                    preface
 -ador                               (-ator)                                      senador                                    senator
 -aje                                  (-age)                                   peregrinaje                                pilgrimage
 -ante                                 (-ant)                                   coagulante                                  coagulant
 -ente                                 (-ent)                                    continente                                  continent
 -gio                                   (-ge)                                      prestigio                                    prestige
 -ista                                   (-ist)                                        artista                                        artist
Abstract noun suffixes:
 -ción                                 (-tion)                                   educación                                  education
 -dad                                  (-ity)                                       ciudad                                          city
 -encia                        (-ence or -ency)                          contingencia                               contingency
Adjective suffixes:
 -cial                                  (-tial)                                       parcial                                        partial
 -ivo                                  (-ive)                                        pasivo                                       passive
Suffixes with special meanings:
 -ería, -ía  Can indicate a place where something is made or sold; can also refer to a profession or field of study:
   zapatería =  shoestore; colchonería = a place that sells mattresses (colchones); ingeniería = engineering
 -mente  The adverbial ending used with feminine singular adjectives (-ly in English).
    cuidadosa + mente =  cuidadosamente  (carefully)
 -mento, miento Used to form abstract nouns from verbs.
       conocer  conocimiento (knowledge)
       sentir  sentimiento (feeling)
 -ito/ita  A diminutive, used to indicate smallness (or something cute or charming).
       perro  perrito (a puppy)
 -ón  An augumentative, used to indicate something larger or to exaggerate.
       nariz  narizón (a big nose)
       rata (mouse) ratón (rat)
 -izo  “Somewhat like” the root word:  rojo  rojizo (reddish); enfermo  enfermizo (sickly)

Spanish Pronunciation.  Spanish pronunciation is really much easier than English pronunciation.  All five Spanish vowels (vocales)—a, e, i, o, u—are basically pronounced in a consistent way in every word.  The difficulty for native English speakers is that they are accustomed to slurring the pronunciation of vowels when they are unstressed.  For example, think about how you pronounce the word “beverages”.  The last three vowels are pronounced in the same way (known to linguists as the schwa); the first e is phonetically distinct only because its syllable is stressed.  In the Spanish word, bebidas, all the vowels are pronounced differently in spite of the stress on bi.  Native English speakers must pay special attention to words such as inteligente, obligatorio and universidad because they tend to schwa the first vowel.
 Spanish words tend to divide in V-CV and CV-CV syllables (where V is a vowel and C is a consonant).  In regard to stress, there are three simple rules to follow:

1. For words that end in a vowel, n or s, the stress falls on the next-to-last (penúltima) syllable:
    Ex.  Es-pa-ña      man-za-na      cie-go      a-gu-do
    (Note that this rule covers all conjugated verbs that do not carry an accent mark.)
2. For words that end in any other letter, the stress falls on the last (última) syllable:
    Ex.   ciu-dad      lle-var       per-spi-caz     vo-cal
    (Note that this rule covers all infinitive verbs and words that end in –dad.)
3. For any exceptions to the first two rules, or for any words that carry the stress on the third-to-last syllable (called an
    esdrújula), it must carry a written accent.
    Ex.  in-glés     á-ra-be       lá-piz      can-ción

Some words carry accents to differentiate themselves from others:  te (pronoun) vs. té (drink); si (if) vs. sí (yes); el (the) vs. él (he); mas (but) vs. más (more); tu (your) vs. tú (you); ve (he/she sees) vs. vé (Go!).