Transparent Cognates

Welcome to our blog post about English to Spanish cognate hacks. What is a cognate you might ask? As we mentioned in our previous post, cognates are words that are “born together” or share a common history. If you haven’t already, check out our other post on cognates in a more general sense.

Of the top 5,000 words in Spanish, 2,700 are cognates to words in English and 1,000 are words derived from other words. This means you only need to learn 1,300 words to hit that 5,000 mark.

in theory

But how do you recognize cognates, and take advantage of these 2,700 free words? 
You just need to learn a few sound or spelling correspondences!

The charts below don’t need to be memorized, just go over them and prime yourself to recognize the relationship between sounds and changes in your immersion.

Y – > I	Ph -> F	Th -> T	-tion -> cion
mito myth	telefono telephone	teatro theater	ficcio￳n fiction
cinico cynic	farmacia pharmacy	atleta athlete	opcion option
sicofanta sycophant	alfabeto alphabet	matematico mathematics	situacio￳n situation

-ize -> izar	-ous -> oso/a	-ble -> -ble	add -o, -a, or -e
organizar organize	nervioso nervous	responsable responsible	moderno modern
autorizar authorize	curiosa curious	memorable memorable	grafico graphic
especializar specialize	famosa famous	favorable favorable	importante important

sion -> s￭on	-ity -> idad	-sim -> ismo	-ist -> ista
exclusión exclusion	sociedad society	racismo racism	artista artist
decisión decision	responsabilidad responsibility	turismo tourism	ortodoncista orthodontist
agresión agression	comunidad community	organismo organism	optimista optimist

-ary/ory -> -ario/orio	-ate -> ato/ado/ar	-cy -> -cia	-age -> -aje
categoria category	privado private	agencia agency	coraje courage
diccionario dictionary	validado validate	fluencia fluency	porcentaje percentage
enfermario enfermary	inmediato immediate	urgenci aurgency	mensaje message
alegoria allegory	lobulado lobate	relevancia relevency	masaje massage

-fy -> -ficar	-ance/-ence -> -ancia/-encia	-er -> -ador/edor/idor/ero	No Change (-al/-ar)
identifica identify	corespondencia correspondence	mensajero messenger	nacional national
clasificar classify	licencia license	socializador socializer	ordinal ordinal
justificar justify	importancia importance	organizador organizer	particular particular
rectificar rectify	pacencia patience	encubridor cover	original original

Obscure Correspondencies

Up to this point, we mostly covered correspondencies that were very clear and easy to understand. Just as English has borrowed from Latin and French, Spanish also borrowed from Latin! Words directly from Latin are called cultismos, and words that are partially borrowed from Latin are called semicultismos.

However, unlike English, Spanish not only borowed from Latin but also descended directly from it! This means that it has a large bank of vocabulary that underwent hundreds of years of sound changes. These words can be much trickier to identify, but being aware of them can be a huge boon!

Below you’ll see a list of English cognates, the inherited Spanish form, and the Latin borrow or semiborrowed forms if they exist:

Latin in Italics
Learned Borrowings Underlined

Sound changes in bold

F ~ H	T ~ D	C ~ G	P ~ B
fungus fungus hongo	minute minuto menudo	aqua aqua agua	super- super– sobre-
furnace furnus horno	delicate delicado delgado	lake lacus lago	people populus pueblo
ferrus ferrus fierro hierro	fate fātum fado hado	sacred sacrātus sagrado	opera opera obra
folia folia hoja	Peter Petrus Pedro	state (e)status estado	lupu slupus lobo

P ~ W	CT ~ CH	D/R ~ L/N	Dipthongization of Vowels
baptist baptista bautista	noct– i.e. nocturnal nocturno noche	coda coda cola	port portus puerto
capital capital caudal	oct– i.e. octopus ocho	anima alma	feast fiesta
		anchor ancora ancla	terra tierra
		arbor arborem arbol	record recuerdo