Cognates

Cognates are words that share similar meaning, spelling, and pronunciation in two languages. While English shares very few cognates with a language like Chinese, 30% to 40% of all words in English have a related word in Spanish. For ELL Spanish speakers, cognates are an obvious bridge to the English language. Cognates definition and examples

Not surprisingly, researchers studying first and second language acquisition have found that students benefit from recognizing cognates. Cognates recognition is the ability to use mother tongue cognates as a tool for understanding a second language. It is possible to teach the use of cognates to children already in preschool. As students progress through the school grades, they may be presented with more sophisticated cognates and cognates that have multiple meanings in both languages, although some of those meanings may not overlap. An example of a cognate with multiple meanings is attend, which means to assist (same meaning) but also to attend (different meaning).

Now, regarding the etymological origin of the word cognate, it is known that it comes from the Latin term cognatus , which comes to mean “words with a similar ancestor” or “of similar birth”. Cognates can be presented in two different languages, and they are related by having similar spellings, pronunciation, and meanings.

Cognates that occur in the same language are called doublets. A case of this type is the one represented by the words “full” and “full”, which originate from the Latin plenu .

Characteristics

Cognates are characterized by the following aspects:

– They have the same birth and etymological evolution, however, throughout linguistic history they have had phonetic variations.

– Cognates are words from two different languages ​​that are similar in pronunciation and spelling. Besides this, its meaning is the same. Cognates characteristics and examples

– This phenomenon within linguistics is also known under true cognate names or transparent semantic unit of a text. In other words. This is due to the link and kinship they have with the same etymological ancestor.

– Cognates are often used by language teachers so that their students create links between different languages ​​and learn more easily.

– There is a variant within the cognates called doublets. These include those words that belong to the same language and that share their etymological origin. Cognates definition and examples

False cognates

Just as there are true cognates, there are also false ones. These are represented by those words belonging to different languages ​​that may have a certain similarity in phonetics and spelling, but are not related in terms of their origin or their meaning evolved in a totally different way.

A clear example is represented by the words “arma” (Spanish) and arm (English). At first glance it seems that they are related, but nothing could be further from reality. “Weapon” in Spanish refers to an object that can be used to defend or attack, while arm means “arm”.

The perfect cognates

Within the cognates are the so-called “perfect cognates”. They share exactly their spelling in both languages. Among the most common examples in English and Spanish we have: Actor, admirable, agenda, alcohol, altar, animal, area, artificial, auto, balance, banana, bar, base, brutal, cable, coffee, channel, cancer, canon, capital .

The only differences present between the words in both languages ​​are the variants in pronunciation and the presence of accents typical of the Spanish language. These are the preferred cognates for teaching English-Spanish and vice versa. Cognates definition and examples

Examples of cognates

True Cognates in Spanish and English

By the “A”

1. – Abstraction – abstraction.
2. – Action – action.
3. – Adaptation – adaptation.
4. – Adoption – adoption.
5. – Admiration – admiration.
6. – Association – association.
7. – Actor – actor.
8. – Admirable – admirable.
9. – Agenda – agenda.
10. – Alcohol – alcohol.
11. – Altar – altar.
12. – Animal – animal.
13. – Area – area.
14. – Artificial – artificial.
15. – Auto – auto.

By the “B”

1. – Balance – balance.
2. – Banana – banana.
3. – Bar – bar.
4. – Base – base.
5. – Brutal – brutal.
6. – Bank – bank.
7. – Bus – bus.
8. – Basic – basic.

By the “C”

1. – Cable – cable.
2. – Car – car.
3. – Channel – channel.
4. – Cancer – cancer.
5. – Central – central.
6. – Celebration – celebration.
7. – Civilization – civilization.
8. – Chocolate Chocolate.
9. – Club – club.
10. – Combustion – combustion.
11. – Collection – collection.
12. – Combine – combine.
13. – Composition – composition.
14. – Concentration – concetration.
15. – Condition – condition.

By the “D”

1. – Decoration – decoration.
2. – Description – description.
3. – Determination – determination.
4. – Discrimination – discrimination.
5. – Direction – direction.
6. – Delicate – delicate.
7. – Detail – detail.
8. – Director – director.
9. – Doctor Doctor.
10. – Distance – distance.
11. – Divide – divide.

By the “E”

1. – Huge – enormous.
2. – Essential – essential.
3. – Excellent – excellent.
4. – Exhibition – exposition.
5. – Exclamation – exclamation. Cognates characteristics and examples
6. – Exclusive – exclusive.
7. – Express – express.
8. – Extreme – extreme.
9. – Economic – economic.
10. – Electric – electric.
11. – Erotic – erotic.
12. – Exotic – exotic.
13. – Special – special.
14. – Structure – structure.
15. – Exact – exact.

By the “F”

1. – Factor – factor.
2. – Family – family.
3. – Fantastic – fantastic.
4. – Fiction – fiction.
5. – Training – formation.
6. – Famous – famous.
7. – Furious – furious.
8. – Photo – photo.
9. – Famous – famous.
10. – Furious – furious.

By the “G”

1. – Glorious – glorious.
2. – General – general.
3. – Guide – guide.
4. – Glossary – Glossary.
5. – Generic – generic.
6. – Genetic – genetic.
7. – Geometric – geometric.

By the “H”

1. – Hospital – hospital.
2. – Hotel – hotel.
3. – Heroic – heroic.
4. – Historic – historic.

By the “I”

1. – Important – important.
2. – Identification – identification.
3. – Information – information.
4. – Inspection – inspection.
5. – Interruption – interruption.
6. – Introduction – introduction.
7. – Investigation – investigation.
8. – Invitation – invitation.
9. – Individual – individual.
10. – Infinite – infinite.
11. – Interactive – interactive.
12. – Invention – invection.
13. – Illusion – illusion.
14. – Island – isle.
15. – Ironic – ironic.

By the “L”

1. –Letter – letter.
2. – Lion – lion.

By the “M”

1. – Machine – machine.
2. – Material – material.
3. – Melody – melody.
4. – Memory – memory.
5. – Miserable – miserable.
6. – Moment – moment.
7. – Music – music.
8. – Mercenary – mercenary.
9. – Magic – magic.
10. – Doctor – medic.
11. – Mosaic – mosaic.
12. – Mysterious – mysterious.

By the “N”

1. – Nervous – nervous. Cognates characteristics and examples
2. – Numerous – numerous.
3. – Nation – nation.
4. – Natural – natural.
5. – Necessity – necessity.
6. – Nostalgic – nostalgic.
7. – Note – note.

By the “O”

1. – Organic – organic.
2. – Objective – objective.
3. – Objection – objection.
4. – Operation – operation.
5. – Ocean – ocean.
6. – Opinion – opinion.
7. – Option – option.
8. – Order – order.
9. – Original – original.
10. – Ordinary – ordinary.

By the “P”

1. – Paper – paper.
2. – Park – park.
3. – Personal – personal.
4. – Primary – primary.
5. – Panic – panic.
6. – Plastic – plastic.
7. – Poetic – poetic.
8. – Public – public.
9. – Pine – pine.
10. – Plant – plant.
11. – Possibility – possibility.
12. – Possible – possible.
13. – President – president.
14. – Problem – problem.
15. – Project – project.

By the “R”

1. – Religious – religious.
2. – Radio – radio.
3. – Real – real.
4. – Reason – reason.
5. – Receive – receive.
6. – Reduce – reduce.
7. – Relationship – relation.
8. – Repeat – repeat.
9. – Reservation – reservation.
10. – Restaurant – restaurant.
11. – Romantic – romantic.
12. – Rosa – rose.
13. – Route – route.
14. – Revolutionary – revolutionary.
15. – Rosario – rosary.

By the “S”

1. – Secret – secret.
2. – Sex – sex.
3. – Sensation – sensation.
4. – Silence – silence.
5. – Simplification – simplification.
6. – Secretary – secretary.
7. – Systematic – systematic.

For the T”

1. – Telephone – telephone.
2. – Television – television.
3. – Terrible – terrible.
4. – Traffic – traffic.
5. – Tragic – tragic.
6. – Tedious – tedious.
7. – Tesseract – tesseract.

By the “U”

1. – United – united.
2. – Urgent – urgent.
3. – Usual – usual.

By the “V”

1. – Vacation – vacation.
2. – Verb – verb.
3. – Violence – violence.
4. – Violent – violent.
5. – Visit – visit.
6. – Victory – victory.
7. – Vocabulary – vocabulary. Cognates