'Buenos días' is how Spanish says 'good morning' - except, word for word, it's 'good days', plural, for a single morning. That plural is a small mystery.
Two ordinary words - 'good' and 'day' - and one odd thing: the plural, where French, Italian and English all stay singular. Nobody is quite sure why Spanish does it, and the cards lay out the two honest theories side by side rather than pretend there's a settled answer.
• An illustrated black-and-white word-history in comic form - stage panels, one idea to each, following 'buenos días' back to its Latin roots, plural and all
• The word-history breakdown, Latin to modern Spanish, with a date at each stage the record allows
• A sources page listing where every claim comes from
• A short guide for the adult on how to use the cards
The PDF prints two ways, and you choose which suits you. The large cards - one idea to a page - are made to be laminated and clipped onto a single binder ring, so a child can handle them, turn them over and lay them out in order. You print, laminate, trim and bind these yourself; the cards are numbered, so a loose deck goes back in sequence. The single sheet at the end holds the whole word on one page - print it and it's ready, no laminating or cutting - for the pencil case or the middle of a lesson. You'll need a printer; a laminator and a ring are needed only for the deck.
Because the large cards come apart, there's more to do with them than read. Rebuild the timeline in order. Lay the two theories for the plural side by side and ask which one your child finds more convincing - there's no wrong answer, because the sources don't settle it either. Hold up the English-cousin cards and sort them back to their half. If you own more than one word from El Taller Raíz, clip the shared cards onto one ring and put the day-words together. It's the same cards, talked through and handled differently - adult-led, a few minutes at a time, never a drill.
'Buenos días' is easy to say and easy to get slightly wrong, because it doesn't behave the way a beginner expects - a plural for one morning. Rather than smooth that over, the cards make the oddity the point: two honest theories for the plural, laid side by side, and the two ordinary words - 'good' and 'day' - underneath it.
Made for secondary Spanish learners at Key Stages 3 and 4, but it suits a wider range:
• Anyone who likes where words come from
• Spanish learners in Key Stages 3 and 4, and GCSE students meeting 'buenos días'
• Home-educated children
• Learners who find vocabulary hard to hold when it's taught as isolated words - including dyslexic and working-memory profiles
• Parents brushing up their own Spanish, or studying alongside a child
• Adults coming back to Spanish after school
This isn't a first step into Spanish. A learner should already be meeting 'buenos días' in lessons - the cards explain a greeting a child is already saying, they don't introduce the language from scratch. If a child hasn't started Spanish at all, this will come too early.
Related resources
• In El Taller Raíz: 'día' and 'hoy' are the nearest neighbours - 'días' here is the plural of 'día', and 'hoy' comes from the same day-family.
• For anyone who likes the links across languages: 'buongiorno' (Italian, L'Officina Radice) pairs the same 'good' and 'day', but keeps the greeting singular.
• In the Compendium: the post on why word origins help dyslexic learners with modern languages.
• Free in The Wordhord: the English cousins from the two roots - 'bonus' and 'bounty' from 'buenos', 'diary' and 'diurnal' from 'días'.
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
Available now as a PDF download.
'Buenos días' is how Spanish says 'good morning' - except, word for word, it's 'good days', plural, for a single morning. That plural is a small mystery.
Two ordinary words - 'good' and 'day' - and one odd thing: the plural, where French, Italian and English all stay singular. Nobody is quite sure why Spanish does it, and the cards lay out the two honest theories side by side rather than pretend there's a settled answer.
• An illustrated black-and-white word-history in comic form - stage panels, one idea to each, following 'buenos días' back to its Latin roots, plural and all
• The word-history breakdown, Latin to modern Spanish, with a date at each stage the record allows
• A sources page listing where every claim comes from
• A short guide for the adult on how to use the cards
The PDF prints two ways, and you choose which suits you. The large cards - one idea to a page - are made to be laminated and clipped onto a single binder ring, so a child can handle them, turn them over and lay them out in order. You print, laminate, trim and bind these yourself; the cards are numbered, so a loose deck goes back in sequence. The single sheet at the end holds the whole word on one page - print it and it's ready, no laminating or cutting - for the pencil case or the middle of a lesson. You'll need a printer; a laminator and a ring are needed only for the deck.
Because the large cards come apart, there's more to do with them than read. Rebuild the timeline in order. Lay the two theories for the plural side by side and ask which one your child finds more convincing - there's no wrong answer, because the sources don't settle it either. Hold up the English-cousin cards and sort them back to their half. If you own more than one word from El Taller Raíz, clip the shared cards onto one ring and put the day-words together. It's the same cards, talked through and handled differently - adult-led, a few minutes at a time, never a drill.
'Buenos días' is easy to say and easy to get slightly wrong, because it doesn't behave the way a beginner expects - a plural for one morning. Rather than smooth that over, the cards make the oddity the point: two honest theories for the plural, laid side by side, and the two ordinary words - 'good' and 'day' - underneath it.
Made for secondary Spanish learners at Key Stages 3 and 4, but it suits a wider range:
• Anyone who likes where words come from
• Spanish learners in Key Stages 3 and 4, and GCSE students meeting 'buenos días'
• Home-educated children
• Learners who find vocabulary hard to hold when it's taught as isolated words - including dyslexic and working-memory profiles
• Parents brushing up their own Spanish, or studying alongside a child
• Adults coming back to Spanish after school
This isn't a first step into Spanish. A learner should already be meeting 'buenos días' in lessons - the cards explain a greeting a child is already saying, they don't introduce the language from scratch. If a child hasn't started Spanish at all, this will come too early.
Related resources
• In El Taller Raíz: 'día' and 'hoy' are the nearest neighbours - 'días' here is the plural of 'día', and 'hoy' comes from the same day-family.
• For anyone who likes the links across languages: 'buongiorno' (Italian, L'Officina Radice) pairs the same 'good' and 'day', but keeps the greeting singular.
• In the Compendium: the post on why word origins help dyslexic learners with modern languages.
• Free in The Wordhord: the English cousins from the two roots - 'bonus' and 'bounty' from 'buenos', 'diary' and 'diurnal' from 'días'.
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
Available now as a PDF download.
