Today I wanted to share with you a quick infographic that explains a common set of cognates in English and Spanish. Remember that not all cognate rules apply 100% of the time. Because of this, I recommend using your knowledge of cognates to decipher what a word means, but not necessarily to make a word up on your own (because it's easy to ''invent'' new words by accident this way).
Many words in English and Spanish share a common base, or root. The beginnings and endings (prefixes and suffixes) can give us more information about what the word means, and the prefixes and suffixes in English and Spanish can be very different sometimes. So today let's look at words that end in LY (English) and how they relate to words that end in MENTE (Spanish)!
Hello,
ReplyDeleteThis is great to have up at the beginning of the year to remind students that they already know a lot of cognates. There is a small error, however. Eventualmente is a false cognate; it does not mean eventually. It actually means luckily or by chance (or more rarely, "occasionally"). Eventually is actually finalmente.
Gracias!
Hey ProfeSpain8!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great comment! I had to go back to the textbook I work out of, and check several online resources, but you're right! What a scary thing about textbooks, huh? There can be tiny mistakes everywhere that make a difference. I'm not an expert in Spanish, as it's my second language, but I really appreciate the correction! I'll have to update the graphic to show more correct information! And you're right, it's a great motivation to students to show them that they do have a head start in vocabulary when they start classes! Thanks for visiting!