rentar-se

In short

Why it looks that way

Reflexive: to wash oneself — em rento. Without -se the same verb washes the dishes: rentar els plats

A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.

In a live sentence

A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.

• Em rento les mans abans de dinar

  I wash my hands before lunch

Nearby words: everyday life and routine

Work, home, rest, errands. The words the answer to “how are things?” is made of.

• el treball

  work

  The double ll is one fused ly sound: truh-BAL. Work as the place, and tinc treball — I'm busy
• treballar

  to work

  To work on something is treballar en; to work as something is treballar de
• despertar-se

  to wake up

  Reflexive: to wake oneself — em desperto. El despertador — the alarm clock: the same family
• aixecar-se

  to get up

  Reflexive, Latin 'to lift upward': to lift oneself — m'aixeco. About prices rising, the same verb without -se
• pentinar-se

  to comb one's hair

  Reflexive, from el pentinat, the hairstyle: em pentino. With el cabell it combs the hair — still about oneself
• afaitar-se

  to shave

  Reflexive: s'afaita al bany — he shaves in the bathroom. Stress the last a
• vestir-se

  to get dressed

  Reflexive: to dress oneself. Em vesteixo — I get dressed: mind the -ixo, as in començo
• despullar-se

  to get undressed

  Reflexive, from la pell, the skin: literally to un-skin. Es despulla abans del bany — he undresses before the bath
• seure

  to sit down

  To sit down and to sit are one word: seure. Seu aquí — sit here: the verb is both the pose and the motion
• ficar-se al llit

  to go to bed

  Literally 'to get oneself into the bed': no ceremony. El llit — the bed: a word of its own

Test yourself

Five questions from the same set — “everyday life and routine”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.

How not to forget this word

Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.

• This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many times
  Kim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
• Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many times
  Adesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
• An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many times
  Bertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.

Next

• Everyday life and routine11 words on the topic
• pentinar-se — to comb one's hairverb
• afaitar-se — to shaveverb
• vestir-se — to get dressedverb
• despullar-se — to get undressedverb
• All Catalan wordsIndex by topic