How to Supercharge Your Spanish Vocabulary using Helpful Cognates

Cognates are extremely helpful when learning a new language since they provide enough familiarity that can help you fill in the blanks.

English shares some words with Spanish since both languages developed from Latin to some extent.

Examples of cognates

There are too many cognates to make an exhaustive list but here are some common ones you might come across:

Notice these words are identical or similar in both languages.

False friends

Although cognates can seem like a breath of fresh air, it's important to keep in mind that not all words that look like English are cognates. We'll call these false friends.

For example, embarazada in Spanish looks like embarrassed in English, but it actually means pregnant.

Words that look similar but have different meanings are known as false friends. This article from MentalFloss has lots of examples:

50 Spanish-English False Friend Words

Sometimes words with the same origin take a separate path in each language, or words with different origins resemble each other by coincidence. That can mean trouble.

Mental FlossJudith Herman

Next steps

As you read more Spanish writing, try to find words that look familiar and see if they're false friends. Also, check out our other articles to take your Spanish to the next level.