Lesson Five: Starting to use the Thinking Method

How to know what you don't know by following the rules we've learned so far

The Thinking Method of this type of learning is to dicover things for yourself or follow a logic to get the right result. This is slow at first but it will bring you to your ultimate destination faster.

In this lesson I'm going to demonstrate one part of the Thinking Method.

Our first aim is to find the Spanish for "I want to Celebrate" so:

• Does Celebrate in English have a 'tion' version? Yes, celebration.
• So we drop the 'tion' and add 'r' to give us the to version of the Spanish verb celebrar (to celebrate)
• We know I want is Quiero so now we have the full sentence:

Spanish	English
Quiero celebrar	I want to celebrate

OK! Let's do that again. This time we want the Spanish for "I want to illustrate" so:

• Does Illustrate in English have a 'tion' version? Yes, Illustration.
• So we drop the 'tion' and add 'r' to give us the to version of the Spanish verb ilustrar (to illustrate)
• We know I want is Quiero so now we have the full sentence:

Spanish	English
Quiero ilustrar	I want to illustrate

What makes this method so effective is that even if you don't know how to say a particular sentence you can often think yourself to a solution. So if you were trying to say "I want to draw" but you don't know "to draw" then with a few moments thought you might stumble across 'illustrate' as an alternative word. Following the Thinking Method steps you could then find the Spanish verb 'to illustrate' and make yourself understood.

Right, let's try another - "I want to find out"

• We don't know find but 'inform' is an alternative word which as a 'tion' version' - information
• Drop the 'tion' and add an 'r' and we have informar (to inform)
• We need to make clear that we want to inform ourselves, not someone else, so we add 'me' to the end of the verb - informarme

Spanish	English
Quiero informarme	I want to find out / inform myself

You and te

One of the ways to say 'You' in Spanish is 'te'. I say one way because you'll see other forms like 'tu' later but for now we'll just concentrate on 'te'.

Spanish	English
Te	You / Yourself

Te can be seen as an informal way to say 'you' but also of a way to say 'yourself'.

OK, let's add this to a sentence we want to thing out: "I don't want to oblige you" - by breaking the sentence down into blocks

• We're very familiar now with No quiero (I don't want)
• Obligation exists in English so from there we can find the Spanish verb Obligar (to oblige).
• We need to say who we don't want to oblige so we add 'te' to the end of the verb to get obligarte

Spanish	English
No quiero obligarte	I don't want to oblige you

And here is another one you could get to via the same method.

Spanish	English
No quiero provocarte	I don't want to provoke you

Introducing it - 'lo'

There are several ways to say 'it' in Spanish because words have genders (masculine, femenine) but the default word is lo so if in doubt use this. Lo is also used when the it being described has no gender, such as when lo refers to a situation, experience, relationship, etc.

The next sentence we're going to think through is "I want to cancel it"

Now instead of referring to 'me' or 'te' as the subjects we'll use 'lo' to get:

Spanish	English
Quiero cancelarlo	I want to cancel it

The Spanish 'r'!

A popular question by Spanish learners is how much to roll the 'r' so here are a few pointers:

• Roll the r more if it is at the start of a word (e.g. 'real').
• Give it a good old roll if there are two rr's together (one of the very rare times you find double lettering in Spanish)

Spanish	English
Regular	To regulate
Real	Real
Arroz	Rice
Pero	But
Perro	Dog

Some people find this really hard but its not something to get hung up about. You will be clearly understood in any Spanish speaking country even if you can't roll your r's, just as many Europeans struggle with the 'th' of the English language.

The rolling r comes when the tongue is fully relaxed so this becomes one of those things where the more you try the less likely you are to achieve it.

Be aware of it and one day without you noticing your r's will start to roll.

Introducing him ... also 'lo'

lo refers to both 'it' and 'him' in Spanish so using the Thinking Method how can we find the sentence "I want to save him"? Let's break it down.

• We're very familiar now with quiero (I want)
• We don't know save but there is a word in English "Salvation" which has a similar meaning so we'll try that.
• It ends 'tion' so we can take this off and add an r to get the Spanish verb 'Salvar' (to save)
• We know the subject gets popped on the end of the verb so that gives us 'Salvarlo'

Spanish	English
Quiero salvarlo	I want to save him

Of course the sentence above could equally mean "I want to save it" but which it is would be clear from the context.

A few more Thinking Method examples

OK - here are a few more 'tion' words from which you can get Spanish verbs.

Spanish	English
Situación	Situation
Situar	To Situate (to position)
Participación	Participation
Participar	To participate
Creación	Creation
Crear	To create
Experimentación	Experimentation
Experimentar	To experiment

Its worth taking a bit of time now to look up a few words ending 'tion', finding what should be the Spanish verb and running it through Google Translate to see if you are right. Stick with words that relate to actions (participation) rather than things (station) as things sometimes act slightly differently and it might be confusing at this point.

Remember these are general rules and they won't work 100% of the time but even so with this method you now know hundreds of Spanish verbs and if you were to use these steps but get it wrong you will almost always be close enough that a Spanish speaker will understand you and be able to correct you.

Also take some time to experiment with adding 'me', 'te' and 'lo' (e.g. how do you say "I want to create it") to help these concepts sink in.

Words ending 'ence' and 'ance'

Another quick rule relates to words ending 'ence' or 'ance' which simply need to have the last 'e' replaced with 'ia' to get the Spanish.

Spanish	English
Diferencia	Difference
Influencia	Influence
Existencia	Existence
Consistencia	Consistence
Inconsistencia	Inconsistence
Incongruencia	Incongruence

One of the great things about learning another language is that you discover your own one a little better. I knew 'Incongruence' existed but I had to go and look it up to check its exact meaning so I learned some Spanish and some English here!

Lesson Six: Intento and Spanish H and V