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The girl, the boy and the dog. The story of ‘AR’!

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This week I decided to learn 10 regular AR verbs. I felt about as excited and motivated as if facing my tax return on 30th January. I reluctantly searched for a list of regular AR verbs on the net, and decided to look for really easy ones. The web site that I found http://www.spanish2go.com/ had a list of 70 verbs beginning with the letter ‘A’. To my great delight, I knew about half of them already because they are basically the same as the English words – with the odd consonant chopped off and ‘AR’ added on to the end.

Words that are the same in both languages are called COGNATES – and words that are similar are called NEAR COGNATES. The more of these there the language you want to learn and your mother tongue share, the easier it will be to learn.

It was a piece of cake to translate them from Spanish in to English, but the next day, without a list to look at, I could only remember one or two of them and I wouldn’t have been able to use them in a conversation. So I did a bit of story-telling. This is a great way to memorise new vocabulary. Please note that the verbs are not in the correct tense as I haven’t learned how to do the past yet – but it makes sense to me and gives meaning to the words. I need to learn verbs in a meaningful context.

An old man abondona his dog which he abusa. The dog acelera to escape and met a girl. The dog aclama a steak but acepta a bone. The dog acompana the girl. They acumulan strawberries. The girl acusa the dog of eating the strawberries and asked him to adaptar his behaviour. He did, so she administra a strawberry as a treat. The girl admira the dog so much that she adopta him. They adoran each other. The dog afecta not to need the girl but she afirma her love for him every day. Her devotion agita his heart and it agranda. But it also agrava his sorrow for the years of abuse at the hands of his master. One day the girl met a boy. They aprecian each other very much, decided to agrupan and carry on their adventure together. Their love alarma the dog. It is hard to alimentar all three of them and it altera their mood. Soon, they don’t aman each other anymore, and they anulan their relationship and anuncian that it’s over. They argumentan over who should keep the dog. The girl and the boy arman themselves and the police arrestan them. The judge articula his judgement very carefully. He aparta the couple from the dog and asigna separate cells for the boy and the girl so that they can’t asocian with each other. They aspiran their last breath of freedom and atrapan the bars of their cell windows and watch the dog run away – back to its master?

My verbs (just in case you didn’t understand the story)

  1. abandonar to abandon, leave, forsake, give up
  2. abusar to abuse, misuse
  3. acelerar to accelerate, hasten, hurry, speed
  4. aceptar to accept
  5. aclamar to acclaim, applaud, shout, hail
  6. acompañar to accompany, go along
  7. acumular to accumulate
  8. acusar to accuse
  9. adaptar to adapt
  10. administrar to administer
  11. admirar to admire
  12. adoptar to adopt
  13. adorar to adore, worship
  14. adornar to adorn, decorate
  15. afectar to affect, feign, pretend
  16. afirmar to affirm
  17. agitar to agitate, stir up, wave, shake up,
  18. agravar to aggravate, make worse, burden
  19. alarmar to alarm
  20. alterar to alter, change, disturb, upset
  21. anular to annul
  22. anunciar to announce, foretell, proclaim
  23. apartar to separate, divide, part
  24. apreciar to appreciate
  25. argumentar to reason, dispute
  26. armar to arm
  27. arrestar to arrest
  28. articular to articulate, pronounce clearly
  29. asignar to assign, allot
  30. asociar to associate

And remember the endings …

O (vino)
AS (manzanas)
A (playa)
AMOS (huevos)
AÍS (kiwis)
AN (pan)