How many Spanish words do you know? Are you willing to learn new ones faster? In this case, take a look at our blog about Spanish prefixes. Our Spanish school El Rincón del Tándem will tell you how to take full advantage of these grammatical elements 🙂
Spanish prefixes are a really important topic for all Spanish learners. Knowing their use and meaning will help you to increase your Spanish vocabulary faster.
Do you want to know how?
If so, let’s start!
First of all, prefixes are letter or a group of letters that we find at the beginning of a word.
Prefixes and suffixes are both affixes. That is, word elements that do not have any meaning by themselves and that only exist in a word, preceding (prefix) or following (suffix) the base word.
Their use in grammar is to change and modifying the meaning of the base word, creating a new one.
As in the case of compound words, prefixes and suffixes provide us with the chance to understand the meaning of unknown words. Therefore if we know the meaning of affixes, we can easily guess what an unknown word means, starting from the meaning of the base world.
Today we will focus on the Spanish prefixes. So, let’s see together what the most common ones are and what they mean.
Ante-
It basically means “before” and expresses anteriority in time and in space.
Anteponer = put something ahead or before of something else
Antebrazo = forearm
Anteayer = day before yesterday
Anti-
Meaning “against”. In English it is exactly the same.
Antibiótico = antibiotic
Anticuerpo =antibody
Antidisturbios = antiriot squad
Antiarrugas = anti-wrinkle
Bi / bis-
This prefix expresses double amount/quantity of the base word. Its means “twice” or “double”.
Bilingüe = bilingual, able to speak two languages (as native)
Bípedo = biped, two-footed
Bisemanal = biweekly
Contra-
Expressing opposition. The English equivalent would be “counter” or “contra”
When it comes with verb, contra means against or in disagreement.
Contraponer = to counter
Contradecir = to contradict, disagree with
Contrapeso = counterweight
De- / des-
Also in this case, these prefixes are placed before the base word to deny its meaning.
When it comes with verbs, they turn the original meaning of the base verb into its opposite. In many cases the resulting meaning refers to the action of undoing or diminishing the action or process that the base verb expresses.
Degenerar = to degenerate into
Desaparecer = to disappear
Deshacer = To undo
Desanimar = To discourage
Descubrir = to discover
Entre- / Inter-
The two prefixes mean “among” or “between”. In both verbs and words, they also refer to an intermediate state or situation.
Entreabierto = half-open (not completely open)
Entremeterse = interfere, intrude
Entrecejo = the space between the eyebrows
Interdental = interdental
Ex-
Meaning “outwards” or “out of”. When we find this prefix before verb, the derivative meaning usually concerns the action of pulling or drawing something out from something else. Let’s see some examples below:
Extraer = to extract
Exprimir = to squeeze out
Exportar = to export
We hope that this post will help our student of the Spanish course to increase their vocabulary, by taking advantage of the Spanish prefixes.
If you want to learn more about prefixes, we will soon publish a second part of this post.
Finally, if you want to learn or to improve your Spanish faster and in a friendly environment, we will be more than happy to welcome you at our Spanish school El Rincón del Tándem 🙂
Stay tuned!
