Speak to the Future - 1,000 Word challenge

Learning to speak Spanish, or French or Italian brings with it a certain advantage over learning, say Japanese, or Korean.
The advantage is vocabulary,
Thanks to the Romans, the Normans, and the Catholic church's  long affinity for Latin, many words in these languages share roots, or are virtually identical.

This will give you a big headstart if you decide to take up the 'Speak to the Future' 1,000 word challenge. (http://www.speaktothefuture.org/1000-words-challenge/)

As the site's creators put it

Not everyone will become a fluent linguist, but the aspiration for EVERYONE to have 1000 Words in another language is realistic and achievable.

They put forward a number of reasons why we lazy English speakers should take up the gauntlet, from improved Trade (& job) opportunities, to intellectual growth, to improving our reputation internationally.

But, how difficult would you find it to reach the 1,000 word target.
You might be surprised at how wide your vocabulary is, already.

Let's start with the word 'vocabulary'
In Spanish, it's 'vocabulario'
So, all we did was remove the 'y' and replace it with 'io'
I've heard some Brits on holiday, who obviously think that's all there is to Spanish, I shudder at the memory of 'I-o want-o a drink-o' ;¬p

But there are other words it works with.
Dictionary- diccionario (OK, the 'ct' becomes 'cc', but the sound is the same)
Commentary- comentario
Estuary- estuario
Salario- salario
Mortuary- mortuario
And the list goes on.

But wait, there's more
How about all the words, in English, ending in 'tion'
Easy, just replace it with 'ción'
So
Education - educcación
Organisation (organization in the U.S.)- organización
Realization - realización
And so on.

How about
legislation - legislación
and, from that
legislative -legislativo
leading on to
imperative - imperativo
punitive -punitivo
And there we have another case -
if an adjective ends in 'ive', change it for 'ivo' or 'iva' depending on the gender of the noun.

Finally, lets look at a short list from a large selection (selección - getting the hang of it?) of words which are spelt the same, just pronounced slightly differently.
Simple
Probable
Possible (OK. just one 'S' in Spanish)
Inevitable

All of a sudden, the 1,000 word target begins to look a little more achievable.
From the Speak to the Future website, you can click through to the Vocab Express site (https://www.vocabexpress.com/speaktothefuture/) where you can sigh up for a free account which will give you access to the list of the 'best' 1,000 first words to learn.
As the site is new, the lists aren't complete yet but, in the meantime, you can access a vocabulary list and online tests at GCSE level (that's the General Certificate of Secondary Education, if you live outside the UK)
Once the new lists become available, you can practice towards achieving an electronic certificate for your efforts.

Who knows, you might be inspired to try learning an additional language.
Meanwhile, spread the word and tweet about it #1000words

Finally, I found a great little link on the site, to  http://www.languagegames.org/ where you can play Word Search, HangMan and do Crosswords, in your chosen Language.

¡Hasta la próxima!