CIU: Cognates Lesson

Cognates

Don't get overwhelmed as you learn vocabulary words in Spanish this semester. Let's take a look at cognate words.

Cognates are words from different languages that have similar spellings, pronunciations, and meanings. For example, the word accident in English is very similar to the word accidente in Spanish. The spelling and pronunciation of both words are similar.

Let's take a look at a few cognates that are spelled exactly the same in English as they are in Spanish.

Exact Cognates

English	Spanish
animal hotel decimal hospital metal	animal hotel decimal hospital metal

Now, let's take a look at a few cognates that are spelled almost the same in English as they are in Spanish:

Close Cognates

English	Spanish
dinosaur human evidence bicycle family	dinosario humano evidencia bicicleta familia

From looking at these lists, you might conclude that you know more Spanish than you thought. In fact, there are about 20,000 Spanish-English cognates!

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