2b - Cognates

In this lesson you will learn about the cognates between french and english.

Standard cognates

Any english noun that ends in “ation” and has a verb form can be easily translated into french to find the infintive equivalent.

tip

Each -ation word in english has an equal french cognate ending in -ation, often with an accent.
Each -ation word in english has an equal french cognate ending in -acion, often with an accent. You can take from this cognate, remove the -ion and replace with -er to get the infinitive representing that sustantive noun.

For example, we can take “organization” from english, drop the -ation to get “organiz”, and then and an -er to get the french infinitive “organicer”

english	french noun	french infinitive
organization	organisation	organicer
condemnation	condamnacion	condamner

Any -ity word in english has a cognate in french that ends in é

Any english words ending in -ary have equal cognates in french ending in -aire:

Any english words ending in -able have equal cognates in french ending in -able:

English words that end in -ant and -ent have french equal cognates with the same exact ending except that they are pronounced differently.

English words that end in -al have equal french cognates with the same ending, sounding exactly like how they do in spanish.

Any english word ending in -port has an equal cognate in french, all built off the base infinitive porter, which means to carry.

the word porter can also mean to wear clothes: