Lingoflyla cuerda
- la cuerdarope
“la cuerda” — rope in Spanish. Noun, level A2, topic — home and things. A rope, a guitar string and the winding of a mechanical watch: dar cuerda al reloj. The clothesline is la cuerda de tender; a shoelace is el cordón. In a live sentence: “Ata los palos con una cuerda” — Tie the sticks together with a rope. You can hear how it sounds right here. One of 191 words in the set “home and things” in the Spanish course.
In short
| Written in Spanish | la cuerda |
| Translation | rope |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
A rope, a guitar string and the winding of a mechanical watch: dar cuerda al reloj. The clothesline is la cuerda de tender; a shoelace is el cordón
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.
- Ata los palos con una cuerdaTie the sticks together with a rope
Nearby words: home and things
Room, key, water, electricity. You will need them on your first day in a rented flat.
- la casahouseEn casa without the article means at home; en la casa means inside the specific building. Your ear learns the difference
- la viviendahousingFrom vivir, to live. The official word for housing: listings, contracts, the news
- la habitaciónroomThe h is silent: ah-bee-tah-SYON
- la cocinakitchenThe kitchen, the stove and the skill of cooking in one word: cocinar is to cook
- el bañobathroomThe ñ is a soft ny: BAH-nyoh
- el balcónbalconyEnglish borrowed balcony from the same root. Stress on the last syllable
- la plantafloor (story)A floor of a building. Careful: in Spain el piso is a flat, not a floor — Latin America has it the other way round
- el ascensorelevatorIn Latin America the sc is a plain s: ah-sen-SOR. In Spain the s is followed by the th of 'think', as in cena
- la escalerastairsStairs in a building and a stepladder. Por la escalera — on foot, no elevator
- la mesatableAny table: dining, desk, or the one at a bar
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “home and things”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “rope” in Spanish?
A rope, a guitar string and the winding of a mechanical watch: dar cuerda al reloj. The clothesline is la cuerda de tender; a shoelace is el cordón
- How do you say “floor (story)” in Spanish?
A floor of a building. Careful: in Spain el piso is a flat, not a floor — Latin America has it the other way round
- How do you say “room” in Spanish?
A room and a hotel room. All -ción words are feminine
- How do you say “table” in Spanish?
Any table: dining, desk, or the one at a bar
- How do you say “balcony” in Spanish?
English borrowed balcony from the same root. Stress on the last syllable
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 “rope” in Spanish?
«la cuerda». In a live sentence: “Ata los palos con una cuerda” — Tie the sticks together with a rope. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Noun, level A2, from the set “home and things”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
A rope, a guitar string and the winding of a mechanical watch: dar cuerda al reloj. The clothesline is la cuerda de tender; a shoelace is el cordón. 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 this 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.