| It has been often speculated and questioned | | | | mean the same thing) |
| which foreign language is easier to learn for | | | | |
| a native English speaking person or for | | | | Examples of category B cognates include |
| someone that already masters the English | | | | (German - English): bier - beer, bett - bed, |
| language. Spanish has the advantage of being | | | | faust - fist, Gott - God, haus - house, maus |
| so widely spread and having influenced the | | | | - mouse, laus - louse, etc. |
| entire world already, however it is a Latin | | | | |
| language, hence a bit harder to adjust to. | | | | Category C (words falling in this category |
| French is also quite popular, but it is also | | | | are fake cognates, but they can become |
| a Romance language (hence a "daughter" of | | | | cognate in a specific context) |
| Latin languages) and it's often considered | | | | |
| "artistic" enough as to make it harder to | | | | This is not a very large category of words, |
| learn for an English speaker. German on the | | | | being an intermediary between cognates and |
| other hand, shares the same lexical | | | | fake cognates. Examples could include: see - |
| foundations as English, both being Anglo - | | | | see (Sea, in German), residenz - residence, |
| Saxon languages, but it is way to often | | | | etc. |
| related to the "German long words" which | | | | |
| makes learning it a scary process. Still, of | | | | Category D (words that almost look alike but |
| the three options German remains the most | | | | never mean alike) |
| accessible one because of the large shared | | | | |
| set of cognates in the English and German | | | | Words falling into these categories are pure |
| languages. | | | | fake cognates. Examples are abundant, such as |
| | | | (German - English - German true meaning): |
| Cognates are words that look and sound alike | | | | baum - beam - tree, sterben - to starve - to |
| in both languages and their meaning and | | | | die, wald - weald - forest, warden - weird - |
| syntactic values are also equal. Sometimes | | | | to become, schmerz - smart - pain and the |
| these cognates are identical, but they can | | | | list could go on for a while. |
| often stray off by a few letters and still | | | | |
| look and sound similar. The important thing | | | | Category E (words look identical but their |
| is that they keep their shared meaning and | | | | meaning is completely different) |
| syntactic value, becoming "fake cognates" in | | | | |
| any other case. Fake cognates are quite | | | | This is a particularization of category D |
| numerous between the English and German | | | | fake cognates in which the two "false friend" |
| languages and they will oftentimes be a | | | | words are identical in spelling and |
| hindrance to learning them. So Germans | | | | pronunciation. Obviously, the list is |
| learning English will have an equal amount of | | | | smaller, examples including (German/English - |
| trouble with fake cognates (called "falsche | | | | German true meaning): hall - corridor, slip - |
| freunde" in German) as English speaking | | | | underwear, gift - poison, billion - milliard, |
| persons trying to learn German. | | | | bald - soon, etc. |
| | | | |
| Cognates and fake cognates are sometimes | | | | You can find a more complex list of cognates |
| divided into a few categories, as follows: | | | | and false cognates all over the Internet and |
| | | | it's a good thing to start with them whenever |
| Category A (words look alike, mean alike and | | | | you're trying to start learning German. |
| almost sound alike) | | | | Cognates will help you a lot in understanding |
| | | | the German language and it will make it feel |
| Examples of cognates falling in this category | | | | a lot closer to English than any other |
| include: butter, winter, best, etc. | | | | language. In addition, knowing fake cognates |
| | | | will also help you in avoiding the traps of |
| Category B (words almost look alike and they | | | | using a word in an incorrect context. |