la mala hierba
“la mala hierba” — weed in Spanish. Noun, level B1. Literally 'bad grass'; la hierba the course knows. There is a saying: mala hierba nunca muere — bad weed never dies — said of a stubborn survivor. In a live sentence: “Hay que quitar las malas hierbas antes de que crezcan” — The weeds must be pulled before they grow. You can hear how it sounds right here. A word from the everyday Spanish course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Spanish | la mala hierba |
| Translation | weed |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | B1 |
- la mala hierbaweed
Why it looks that way
Literally 'bad grass'; la hierba the course knows. There is a saying: mala hierba nunca muere — bad weed never dies — said of a stubborn survivor
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.
- Hay que quitar las malas hierbas antes de que crezcanThe weeds must be pulled before they grow
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 timesKim & 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 timesAdesope, 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 timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “weed” in Spanish?
«la mala hierba». In a live sentence: “Hay que quitar las malas hierbas antes de que crezcan” — The weeds must be pulled before they grow. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Noun, level B1.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Literally 'bad grass'; la hierba the course knows. There is a saying: mala hierba nunca muere — bad weed never dies — said of a stubborn survivor. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how it sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.