Signs of progress in Spanish
I’m starting to make connections. One problem with making your own deck (using Anki) is the presence of typos. I had pretty well learned “el echo” (ceiling) when Veronica, my cleaning lady, told me it was “techo” not “echo“. Oops. But now: do I ever know that word.
I just was reviewing the words in our textbook (all review now, no new words to learn, so I’ll start on the next book in the series), and this morning reviewed the word for “referee”: “el/la arbítro/a” when I got to looking at that accent mark. First, the word was difficult to say—as though it didn’t fit the pattern of the words I was learning (but it still could be correct: “fácil” is still somewhat difficult to say well and fluently). More important, the accent mark (written) makes no sense, since that is the syllable that would normally be accented (though sometimes an accent is written even if the syllable would be accented anyway, the reason is usually obvious: the word “él” (“he”) bears an accent to distinguish it from “el” (masculine definite article).
So I looked it up, and it was a typo. The correct spelling is “árbitro/a“, and now the word is easier to say and the accent makes perfect sense: if the antepenult is accented, it must be a written accent.
I’m pleased that I could tell that something was wrong. And now, of course, I know that word quite well. 
