True False Cognates

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Morning on the terrace

I’m presently enjoying life deep in the highlands of Guatemala. It’s why I haven’t been posting regularly and fanatically. All things at their own time and pace but I’ll be back in the new year – loud, clear, full of posts!

I’m taking Spanish and will post many regular entries about my travails. It is fascinating as I “watch myself” learn a language and sit on the other side of the table, so to speak! All teachers should constantly put themselves mentally in their students’ shoes but this is even better. Lots to report.

Only a small item today, false cognates. Cognates are great for teaching language, especially lower levels. It doesn’t take students much brain power to remember and use these lexically similar or identical items between languages. For example in Spanish, there are many: Terrific/terrifico Casual/casual Basic/Basico Muscular/Muscular Here is a nice list of the main ones.

However beware of false cognates! There are a number for Spanish, the most famous being “embarrassed” which in Spanish is “pregnant”!
Today in my gym, I saw a gem and used my phone to capture it. A great example – here it is for you….

false cognate

If you liked this you might like – Funny Newspaper Mistakes

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ddeubel

Teacher trainer, technology specialist, educational thinker...creator of EFL Classroom 2.0, a social networking site for thousands of EFL / ESL teachers and students around the world.

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