English-Spanish transformations, cognates

This page contains a summarization of transformations and cognate rules from Michel Thomas course and from spanishcognates.org page.


Spanish words that are ending with -ar are usually the same in English:
particular - particular
dollar - dólar
interstellar - interstelar


-y to -io
testimony - testimonio
necessary - necesario
contrary - contrario
vocabulary - vocabulario
diary - diario


-ile to -il
hostile - hostil
textile - textil
fragile - frágil


Words ending with -ble are basically almost always the same, just with different pronunciation
(acceptable, possible, terrible, realizable, navigable, probable)


Words ending with -al are also usually the same, just with different pronunciation:
(capital, central, general, personal)


-cal to -ico
logical - lógico
political - pólítico
practical - práctico


-ic to -ico
academic - académico
ethnic - étnico
fantastic - fantástico


-id to -ido
fluid - fluido
rapid - rápido
valid - válido
solid - sólido


-ive to -ivo
active - activo
native - nativo
attractive - atractivo


-ous to -oso
ambitious - ambicioso
famous - famoso
precious - precioso
curious - curioso


-ly to -mente
absolutely - absolutamente
totally - totalmente
normally - normalmente
perfectly - perfectamente


Some English verbs can be transformed into their Spanish equivalent by just adding -ar or -r at their end:
exist - existir
adapt - adaptar
form - formar
export - exporter


 -ate to -ar
activate - activar
estimate - estimar
administrate - administrar


-ify to -ificar
clarify - clarificar
unify - unificar
modify - modificar
notify - notificar


Nouns ending with -or are usually equivalent:
accumulator - acumulador
actor - actor
author - autor


-ct to -cto
act - acto
conflict - conflicto
effect - efecto
contract - contracto


-ty to -dad
necesidad - necesity
sociedad - society
novedad - novelty
actividad - activity


-ence, -ance to -encia, ancia
difference - diferencia
importance - importancia
influence - influencia


-ism to -ismo
fatalism - fatalismo
organism - organismo
patriotism - patriotismo


-tion to -ción - there should be around 1200 of these words  (with a couple of exceptions, like translation = traducción or explanation = explicación), all are feminine nouns
information - información
situation - situación
position - posición
condition - condición
reservation - reservación
formation - ...
construction - ...


-nt to -nte
different - diferente
important - importante
evident - evidente
urgent - urgente
tolerant - tolerante
permanent - permanente
incopetent - incopetente


-ture to -tura
culture - cultura
temperature - temperatura


-ist to -ista
artist - artista
dentist - dentista
optimist - optimista
pesimist - pesimista


-y to -ia
irony - ironía
astronomy - astronomía
economy - economía


-ment to -mento
document - documento
element - elemento
experiment - experimento
monument - monumento

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