Overcome the difficulties one by one

Having known the difficulties of learning etymology, several strategies are provided here to combat these difficulties

1. Start from an easy word

Whenever I encounter a new prefix, root or suffix, I will pick a known word with the etymology part in it. For example, to memorize "progress, regress and transgress", choose the progress to connect the meaning of "gress" to meaning of "progress". In this way, I gain the benefits of knowing these prefix, root or suffix with minimum effort.

2. All the variations sounds alike

When I was a newbie of etymology, the fact that "fac, fec, fect, fic, fy, feit" is actually one root get me confused then I started to think about why there are so many variations of one root. My conclusion so far is: To make a word easy to pronounce.

Let me list several word with root fac/fect/fic

fac: fact, factory, factor.

fect: defect, effect.

fic: fictitious, efficacious.

See any clue here? The longer the word, the lighter the vowel . Vowel goes from a->e->i as the words prolong.

It will be impossible to pronounce a long word with many a's in it