Spanish Cognates

Learn all about cognates in Spanish; also includes false cognates (Spanish false friends)

Understanding grammar will help you on your way to foreign language fluency. When learning the Spanish language, it’s important to understand cognates and false cognates.

Cognates are words in different languages that have similar orthography and the same or similar meaning. Sometimes the pronunciation is very similar too. However, as English and Spanish have similarities, it’s not surprising that they have words with almost, if not the same orthography and, of course, the same meaning.

For instance, we have the word “calculator” and in Spanish we find it is “calculadora”. As well we can find the adjective “important” or “importante”.

Common Spanish Cognates

While cognates have the same orthography and meaning, near cognates have some variation in their orthography but they have the same meaning.

For instance, the word “action” in English does not have the same orthography as “acción” in the Spanish language, but they have the same meaning.

Common Spanish near cognates

Near Cognates endings.

Near cognates, the words in different languages that have some variation in their orthography but they do share the same meaning. Some of them have certain ending patterns that can be appreciated in other languages as well. This phenomenon is given because of the same Latin root found in both languages.

Endings – tion, -ción.

The following near perfect cognates follow the rule for nouns ending ‘tion’ in English can be converted to Spanish by replacing with a ‘ción’.

Endings –ary, – ario.

The following near cognates follow the rule for English nouns ending ‘ary’ can be converted to Spanish by replacing with a ‘ario’.

Endings – ic, -ico

The following near cognates follow the rule for English adjectives ending ‘ic’ can be converted to Spanish by replacing with a ‘ico’

Endings – ous, – oso.

The following near perfect cognates follow the rule for English adjectives ending ‘ous’ can be converted to Spanish by replacing with a ‘oso’.

Endings – ct, – cto.

The following near perfect cognates follow the rule for nouns ending ‘ct’ in English can be converted to Spanish by replacing with a ‘cto’.

False Cognates or False Friends

False cognates or false friends are words with a common root in English and Spanish, mostly Latin, but with different meaning, and sometimes they mean the opposite. This happens because the languages evolved differently.

For instance the word “Assist” in English means to help someone while the world “Asistir” in Spanish means to attend. It is easier to remember false cognates by heart.

Do watch out for words that appear or sound the same to English words but aren’t. Here are a few interesting words that you should know so that you do not make the mistake of misunderstanding what someone is saying.