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Five Simple Mnemonics for Spanish Learners

1) Este, ese, esta, esas… This, these, those… Get them confused?
Just remember the simple phrase "this and these have t's". The Spanish words for this/these (este, esta, estes, estas) contain the letter "t" while the Spanish words for that/those (ese, esa, eses, esas) have no t's.

2) You can learn some of the irregular command verbs with the sentence "Vin Diesel has ten weapons, eh?" This can help you remember Ven / Di / Sal / Haz / Ten / Ve / Pon / Sé.

3) Sixty and seventy sound alike?
Try associating 60 (sesenta) with 6 (seis) and 70 (setenta) with 7 (siete).
Just remove the letter "i" in each case (seis = ses = sesenta / siete = sete = setenta)

4) You can use the acronym WEIRDO to remember which situations require the subjunctive tense in Spanish. W.E.I.R.D.O. stands for Wants or Wishes, Emotions, Impersonal Expressions, Recommendations, Doubt/Denial, and is used after the word Ojalá. Another suggestion is WEDDING where the letters stand for Will, Emotion, Desire, Doubt, Impersonal expressions, Negative and Generalized Characteristics.

5) For Spanish gender, you can try the mnemonic used by a lot of Spanish teachers: "Guys are LONERS and girls like DIJON mustard" to remember that words ending in l, o, n, e, r and s tend to be masculine and words ending in d, i, a and -sión are feminine. Of course, there are always exceptions (such as el día and la mano), but it's a start.





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