June 11, 2026

Valeria Carrillo, Ed.D.

Cognates in Spanish and how to learn from them

Cognates are a great tool for boosting your Spanish vocabulary!

Did you know that English and Spanish share 10,000 to 15,000 cognates? That means that you already know the meaning of around 10,000 to 15,000 words in Spanish! ¡Qué fascinante! (You might recognize the Spanish word fascinante, which means fascinating in English!)

But… what is a cognate anyway? And how can recognizing cognates help you communicate in Spanish? Read on for tips for using cognates to boost your vocabulary!

In this post:

• What is a cognate?
• How can cognates help me learn?
• Patterns in Spanish cognates
• Examples of cognates in Spanish and English

What is a cognate?

The word cognate can have two different meanings, depending on who you ask!

In its strictest sense, cognates are words in related languages that descended from the same word in a parent language. For example, Spanish and French both descended from Latin, and ocho and huit (both meaning eight) are cognates, since they both came from the Latin word octo—even though ocho and huit don’t look or sound anything alike!

However, when we talk about cognates in terms of language learning, we usually mean something a little different: In general, a cognate is a word that looks similar in two languages and has similar meanings in both. It might be the result of the two languages being related, or it might be because one language borrowed a word from another. English has borrowed many words from French, which is one reason why we find so many similar words in English and Spanish!

In this post, we’ll focus on the second meaning of cognate, and talk about words with similar spelling and meaning, regardless of whether they were borrowed into one of the languages.

How can cognates help me learn?

Cognates are a fantastic tool for increasing your vocabulary, especially in languages that share as many as Spanish and English do. Since they have the same meaning in both languages, learning to recognize them is like getting a better vocabulary in your new language for free!

While some cognates are easy to recognize, others rely on knowing certain patterns—and some lookalike words don’t mean the same thing at all!

Perfect cognates

Some words are spelled exactly the same in both languages, and have the same meaning! These include:

• animal
• chocolate
• error

Near-perfect cognates

These Spanish words share enough letters that you could probably guess their meaning without seeing the English translation, but they aren’t identical:

• family
• dinosaur
• telephone

False cognates

These words look similar but don’t mean the same thing. (They’re also sometimes called false friends.) One of the most infamous examples is embarazada: It means pregnant, not embarrassed! Other false cognates include:

• assist
• exit
• rope

Patterns in Spanish cognates

Sometimes, a word doesn’t look like a cognate until you’ve learned to recognize some common patterns in the differences between Spanish and English. Learning these will help expand your vocabulary even more!

English ‑tion and Spanish ‑ción
Examples include:

• information
• direction

English ‑ty and Spanish ‑dad or ‑tad
They include:

• necessity
• liberty

English ‑ous and Spanish ‑oso
Some of the most common examples of this pattern include:

• famous
• generous
• ambitious

English s‑ followed by a consonant and Spanish es‑ followed by a consonant
Examples include:

• special
• stomach
• scandal

English ‑ly and Spanish ‑mente
Here are a few:

• exactly
• finally
• probably

English ‑ic and Spanish ‑ico
You’ve probably already noticed that Spanish words tend to end in a vowel more often than English words do. That’s also the case with this pattern:

• panic
• basic

English ‑ant or ‑ent and Spanish ‑ante or ‑ente
For example:

• restaurant
• accident

Examples of cognates in Spanish and English

Since cognates have similar meanings and are pronounced similarly, English speakers might be able to guess the meanings of these Spanish words—even if you’ve never learned them before!

Improve your vocabulario, one cognate at a time!

Understanding cognates and the common patterns behind them can help you feel more comfortable and confident in Spanish, whether you’re a new learner starting out or an advanced learner looking to level up your skills.

Cognates in Spanish and English