Vacation Spanish

It should be noted that “False Cognates” do exist between English and Spanish. However, there are only a very small number, and the majority have meanings very close to their English or Spanish counterparts. For example, actual in Spanish means current, asistir means to attend, while atender means to assist, and pariente means relative. There […]

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 […]

The following are examples of Exact Cognates (words with identical spellings in both English and Spanish). They simply require a change in accent. They include: actor, bar, cereal, color, director, doctor, final, general, horror, idea, material, motor, natural, origin, original, personal, picnic, and terror.

Over half of all English words are directly derived from French and Latin. Most of the polysyllabic words in English are of French/Latin origin, while the vast majority of monosyllabic words are of Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) origin. Spanish is a Latin language with a vocabulary closely related to French. Thus, there are tens of thousands of […]

The following is a list of common “Romance Language Cognates” which exist in Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese with exact or similar spelling. However, pronunciation differs greatly according to language. They include (Spanish spelling): chao (bye), vino (wine), toilet, mañana (tomorrow), romántico (romantic), amigo (friend), super, delicioso (delicious), centro (center), café (coffee), clima (climate), lago […]

The following is a list of “Universal Cognates” most derived from English, that are understood in just about every corner of the earth: auto, bus, taxi, airpplane (nearly universal), motorcycle, bicycle, airport, train, hotel, cinema, football, bank, dance, music, whiskey, beer (nearly universal), dollar, telephone, television, radio, program, menu, passport, sport, post, kaput, central, photo, […]