Professor Dave here, let’s go through some cognates.
When comparing two languages, if they are closely related, as Italian and English are,
there will always be some cognates.
The word cognate comes from Latin words meaning together and born, so these are words that
were born together, implying a common origin.
Cognates are therefore words in two different languages that have similar pronunciations,
spellings, and meanings.
In Italian, these are called parole simili.
In terms of learning a brand new language, the cognates will always be the easiest to
remember, since they already sound like words you know, and mean the same thing too.
To make things even simpler, there are patterns that can be identified among these cognates,
which will allow you to accurately guess words in Italian that you didn’t know before.
Let’s take a look at some of these similarities now.
Words that end in TION in English will end in ZIONE in Italian.
Condition becomes condizione.
Conversation becomes conversazione.
Station becomes stazione.
Preparation becomes preparazione.
Words that end in ENCE will change to ZA.
Difference becomes differenza.
Essence becomes essenza.
Apparence becomes apparenza.
When words end in ITY, this becomes TA, with an accent.
Words that end in OSE or OUS will become OSO.
Words that end in IST simply become ISTA.
Words that end in IVE will become IVO.
And lastly, LE will become ILE.
So as you can see, if you know these patterns, it becomes easy to take a word in English
and immediately know what the corresponding Italian word must be, without ever having
seen it.
See if you can guess how to translate the following words into Italian.
If you got some of those words right, great job!
You’re catching on.
But whenever we talk about cognates, we must also discuss false cognates.
These are words in Italian that look like words in English, so you would expect them
to mean the same thing, but they don’t, and we will have to learn these on a case-by-case
basis.
Here are some common and important examples.
Fattoria does not mean factory, it means farm.
Libreria is not a library, it’s a bookstore.
Estate means summer.
Patente means driver’s license.
Firma means signature.
Morbido means soft.
Commozione means not commotion, but emotion.
Domanda means a question.
Pretendere means to demand.
Parente means relative, while genitore means parent.
Educato means polite.
Ingiuria means insult.
And tremendo means terrible.
So as we move forward and begin to develop our Italian vocabulary, we should remember
that while cognates give us a fun and easy way to expand that vocabulary, it’s important
to take note of false cognates as they arise.
Don’t worry too much about it, we have to start building a vocabulary at one point or
another, so let’s move forward and learn some basic Italian words.