Vacation Spanish

The following are examples of Near Cognates words which require only a very small change in spelling and change in accent:

actriz (actress), artista (artist), americano (american), demócrata (democrat), escuela (school), especial (special), estudiante (student), música (music), político (political) republicano (republican), and televisión (television).

The following is a list of English word groups with common suffixes, which can be easily changed to Spanish:

Words ending in -tion can be changed to Spanish by simply removing the ‘t’ and replacing it with a ‘c’, (with an added accent mark over the ‘o’). Examples include:

atención (attention), condición (condition), comunicación (communication), dirección (direction), imitacíon (imitation), nación (nation), posición (position), situación (situation), recreación (recreation), relación (relation), and revolución (revolution).

Words ending in -iable or -able are spelled similarly, but are pronounced differently. For example:

admirable, culpable, probable, posible and sociable.

Words ending in -ty can be changed to dad sometimes with a slight spelling change in the stem. For example:

realidad (reality), dificultad (difficulty), facilidad (facility), facultad (faculty), libertad (liberty), and sociedad (society).

Words ending in -ly can be changed to mente. For example:

directamente (directly), naturalmente (naturally), rápidamente (rapidly), and usualmente (usually).

Words ending in -ry can be changed to rio sometimes with a slight spelling change in the stem. For example:

diccionario (dictionary), funcionario (functionary), necesario (necessary), documentario (documentary), and vocabulario (vocabulary).

Words ending in -ent can be changed by adding a ‘e’ at the end, sometimes with a slight spelling change in the stem. For example:

accidente (accident), diferente (different), evidente (evident), excelente (excellent), frecuente (frequent), incidente (incident), inocente (innocent), inteligente (intelligent), permanente (permanent), presidente (president) and urgente (urgent).

Words ending in -ment can be changed by adding an ‘o’, sometimes with a slight spelling change in the stem. For example:

argumento (argument), documento (document), elemento (element), instrumento (instrument), monumento (monument) and suplemento (supplement).

Words ending in -ence or -ency can be changed to encia. For example:

diferencia (difference), emergencia (emergency), existencia (existence), experiencia (experience), paciencia (patience) and tendencia (tendency).

Words ending in -id can be changed to ido. For example:

líquido (liquid), plácido (placid), rápido (rapid), and tímido (timid).

Words ending in -el or -al generally keep the same spelling with a different pronunciation. For example:

artificial, general, gradual, material, sensual, sexual and universal.

Words ending in -ular stay the same with a different pronunciation. For example:

muscular, popular, regular, secular and singular.

For words ending in -ic simply add an ‘o’. For example:

automático (automatic), básico (basic), doméstico (domestic), eléctrico (electric), elástico (elastic), público (public), pragmático (pragmatic), realístico (realistic).

Sometimes there is a slight stem change. For example:

científico (scientific), sistemático (systematic), único (unique).

Words ending in -ous can be changed to oso such as:

delicioso (delicious), fabuloso (fabulous), famoso (famous), furioso (furious), generoso (generous), and misterioso (mysterious).

Words ending in -tor change to dor, such as:

elevador (elevator), moderador (moderator), refrigerador (refrigerator).

Words ending in -ism change to ismo, such as:

bautismo (baptism), comunismo (communism), turismo (tourism).

Words ending in -ry change to rio, such as:

monasterio (monastery), santuario (sanctuary).

Words ending in –ry change to ria or ría, such as:

categoría (category), enfermería (infirmary), memoria (memory).