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Brazilian Portuguese Cognates

If you are learning Brazilian Portuguese with us, you’ve probably noticed that some words in English and Portuguese share similar spelling, meaning, and pronunciation.
Take a look at some of these words and see how they can help you in understanding Portuguese!

  • FalskDansker

    Be careful of the tricky ones, where the meanings are different – e.g. actual/actual, realize/realizar, sensible/sensível, deception/decepção!

  • FalskDansker

    Hahaha, Latin cognates are the best shortcuts ever, even for learning Danish, which, despite being a Scandinavian/Germanic-based language, uses thousands of Latin-based words. Makes life so much easier!

    Unfortunately, I don’t have the same luxury for Icelandic, which forbids the use of any Latin-based or foreign terms in the language (all new words have to be designed and approved by the Icelandic Language Council), so I have to learn all the abstract, difficult vocabulary from scratch (see attached chart):

    • lidi

      thank you for your informative comment FalskDansker! I had no idea Danish language uses Latin words! Very interesting! Too bad the same doesn’t apply to Icelandic! But that may not be a big problem for you. You are a polyglot, and I am sure you will master Icelandic the same way you do with Portuguese ;)