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