Nouns, verbs, adjectives

Stage one is single words: nouns, verbs and adjectives, one at a time. Not phrases, not sentences — just the words themselves, because a word you own is a word you can drop into anything you learn later.

Start with the ones you already half-know

Cognates are free words: same look, same meaning, shared roots. French and Spanish grew out of Latin. English borrowed from the same well, so thousands of words are already yours.

Watch the endings. English -tion stays -tion in French, becomes -ción in Spanish. -ble barely changes: possible, table, terrible. Same with -ent: différent, excellent, intelligent.

• Scan for -tion/-ción, -ble, and -ent endings first.
• Guess out loud before you look it up. You'll usually be right.
• False friends exist: actuellement means 'currently', not 'actually'.

Good to know: ignore the spelling

Reading first is a trap: your eyes apply English sounds and the wrong version sticks. French makes it worse with silent endings everywhere.

Let your ears lead. Hear it before you read it.

• Play the audio before you look at the text.
• If you must read along, listen first.
• Never drill from text alone.

Then collect by part of speech

Past the free words, go after nouns, verbs and adjectives deliberately rather than whatever crosses your path. Nouns give you things to talk about, verbs give you something to do with them, and adjectives are what turn a label into an opinion.

• Nouns first: the things actually in your day, not a textbook list.
• Verbs in the plain dictionary form. Stage two is where they get bent into shape.
• A handful of adjectives goes a long way: good, bad, big, small, hot, cold.