Spanish Cognates: Unlock Hundreds Of Words You Already Know

One of the fantastic things about learning Spanish as an English speaker is that before you even begin studying the language, there are hundreds of words that you already know.

It’s simply a matter of unlocking the Spanish within.

Introducing: Cognates.

A cognate is a word in your native language that shares the same origin as a word from a different language, making it easy to recognize even if you don’t speak the other language.

In this case, Spanish and English share Latin roots, and so there are a plethora of words that are the same or very close in both languages, meaning, by extension, that there are hundreds of words that you already know even if you never studied Spanish before.

What Are The Spanish Cognates?

Now that we have established what we mean by cognates, we can look at how to identify them. Remember, cognates tend to look quite similar, and often (but not always) mean the exact same thing.

Once you are aware of the pronunciation rules of Spanish, learning cognates is a fantastic hack to boost your Spanish vocabulary overnight.

There are three different types of cognates that you should be aware of.

• Perfect cognates are words that are identical in both English and Spanish.

• Near perfect cognates are words which look similar in both languages and mean the same thing, but require a simple formula to convert from English to Spanish.

• False cognates, also known as “false friends”, are words that are spelled the same or similar, but have a completely different meaning.

“False friends” is a fitting name for the last category, as these cognates are the ones that are most likely to cause you some confusion, and when used incorrectly, make you look a bit silly.

For example, a common mistake among Spanish students is confusing the Spanish word “embarazada” for “embarrassed”, when in fact it means “pregnant”.

You can see how that false friend could create easily create an awkward situation for you.

Now that we know about the different types of cognates, we’re going to list the most common vocabulary for each category.

Perfect Cognates

These words are the exact same in both languages.  

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 Near Perfect Cognates

Near perfect cognates are words that mean the same thing, and can be converted from English to Spanish by applying a simple rule – although the rule is not applicable in every single case.

Below we are going to review the most common rules, and the words that you can apply these rules to.

But first, let’s see an example of each rule in action:

• information (tion) to información (ción)
• anniversary (ary) to Aniversario (ario)
• basic (ic) to básico (ico)
• curious (ous) to curioso (oso)
• abstract (ct) to abstracto (cto)

Words ending – tion

English words ending ‘tion’ can be converted to Spanish by replacing the ending with ‘ción’,

Words ending -ary

Words ending ‘ary’ can be converted to English by replacing the ending with ‘ario’.

Words ending -ic

The same idea.

These English words ending in ‘ic’ can be converted to Spanish by replacing the ending with ‘ico’.

Words ending -ous

Convert English words ending ‘ous’ to Spanish by replacing the ending with ‘oso’.

Words ending -ct

And finally, we have English words that can be converted to Spanish by replacing the ending ‘ct’ with with ‘cto’.

Near Perfect Cognates: Best Of The Rest

There are also some near perfect cognates that don’t follow the aforementioned rules, but look similar and carry the same meaning as their English equivalent.

False Cognates In Spanish

Let’s talk about false cognates, also known as “false friends”.

Until now, we learned about English and Spanish words that share the same meaning and also look very similar – making them easier to remember.

False cognates are words that also look similar in writing and pronunciation, but have a completely different meaning.

We are going to outline the most common false cognates that you should be aware of, along with their correct English translations and what they are commonly mistaken for.