Jennyfer Monsalve
Jennyfer is a graduate of Universidad de Antioquia in Early Childhood Education and a passionate educator from Colombia. With a focus on teaching Spanish as a second language, she brings creativity and cultural richness to their classrooms. Outside of teaching, she enjoys painting.
The verb tener is one of the most useful and versatile verbs in Spanish. Tener comes from the Latin verb tenēre, which means to hold or to possess. The Latin root ten- is found in various Romance languages and retains similar meanings related to possession or holding. The Indo-European root ten- means to stretch or …
I once heard someone describe Spanish as a beautiful language because it’s filled with emoción. While I can’t say for sure if that’s true, it did get me thinking about the word itself. Emoción comes from the Latin emotio, which is derived from emovere (where e- means “out” and movere means “to move”). This idea …
There’s nothing I enjoy more than spending time with my friends, chatting for hours about all kinds of topics. In Spanish, we’d call these gatherings tertulias, which perfectly captures the lively, meaningful conversations we share. The word tertulia is believed to have originated from the name of a Roman philosopher and Christian writer, Tertullian (Tertuliano …
It has been raining non-stop in my city this week, and it seems like the perfect weather to apapachar my husband and my dog. The word apapachar has a rich cultural significance, originating from the Nahuatl word papatzoa, which means to soften or caress with your fingers. This indigenous language, spoken by the Aztecs, has …
There’s no better time to talk about today’s word than Halloween. The Spanish word muerte (death) comes from the Latin mors, mortis, which also means death. This root is shared by many other languages in the Romance family, including Italian (morte), French (mort), and Portuguese (morte). The transformation from mortis to muerte is part of …
If there’s a word that comes to mind when thinking about Halloween, it is disfraz. This word comes from the late Latin term disfrazare, a compound of the prefix dis- (which denotes a negation or separation) and fraceare, from fraces meaning rags or clothing. Essentially, the idea of disfraz was to alter or hide one’s appearance, …