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Cognates are words in two languages that look and sound the same (or similar) and they usually have the same meaning too!

Having taught English as a second language for over 20 years now and having taught Brazilian students in my classes during this time, I have learnt that Portuguese and English share many cognates. For example: comfortable/confortável, platonic/platônico (often comes up when referring to platonic love), impossible/impossível.

Cognates are not just limited to English and Portuguese; Spanish, Italian and French speakers would no doubt be looking at the above words, thinking that similar words exist in their languages.

Although the pronunciation and spelling may be slightly different, it can be helpful to be familiar with a good number of cognates when learning English as a second language.

Play to your strengths, use cognates and the knowledge you already have, to improve your ability when using English as a second language.

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