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Cognates are the language learner’s best friend. These are words that are the same, or very similar, in two different languages. If you’re an English speaker learning Portuguese, you’re in luck: Portuguese-English cognates are remarkably common. Depending on your definition of a cognate, there could be as many as 3,000—and many of these are common, everyday words. If you listen carefully to a conversation in Portuguese, you’ll be sure to hear a number of Portuguese-English cognates. You can work with a tutor to learn how to make the most of these helpful words.
In this post, we’ll take a look at 20 of the most useful Portuguese-English cognates, providing additional information where appropriate.
Cognates
Accident
Acidente
Alarm
Alarme
Camera
Câmera
Elevator
Elevador
Family
Família
The English word “familiar” also has exactly the same spelling and meaning in Portuguese, with a slight difference in pronunciation, emphasizing the third syllable instead of the second.
Eternity
Eternidade
Many English words with the suffix “-ty” can be translated to Portuguese simply by replacing it with the Portuguese suffix -dade (sometimes with other minor spelling alterations, like replacing a “t” with a “c” or changing a double letter to a single one). More examples can be found lower down this list.
Intelligence
Inteligência
The “-ence” words are another example where the English word can often be translated into Portuguese simply by changing the suffix, in this case from “-ence” to -ência.
Patience
Paciência
“Patient” is also a cognate: the Portuguese equivalent, paciente, has exactly the same meanings, both as a noun describing a medical patient and as an adjective describing the quality of being able to accept delays.
Problem
Problema
Telephone
Telefone
Be aware that telefone only refers to landlines. A cell phone is either a celular (in Brazilian Portuguese) or a telemóvel (in European Portuguese). Interestingly, this is similar to the equivalent words in US and UK English: in the UK, cellphones are usually called “mobiles.”
Tourist
Turista
Present
Presente
“Present” and presente are double cognates: just like its English counterpart, the Portuguese word presente can mean either a gift or the current moment in time.
Radical
Radical
Organization
Organização
The “-tion” suffix is another example where many words can be translated simply by changing the suffix, in this case from “-tion” to ção.
Director
Diretor
By extension, “direction” translates as direção and “directions” as direcões.
Nation
Nação
Emotion
Emoção
Identity
Identidade
“Identification” also translates as identificação, and “identical” as idêntico.
City
Cidade
Criticism
Criticismo
The “-ism” suffix is another of those helpful ones. English words ending with “-ism” can often be translated into Portuguese simply by adding an “o” to the end of the word.
Beware False CognatesPortuguese-English cognates are an extremely valuable ally when it comes to learning Portuguese. However, they should not be taken for granted: there are also many false cognates, words which look like cognates but actually have completely different meanings to their English counterparts. By practicing with a tutor, you can learn both to capitalize on, and avoid the pitfalls of, the similarities between the English and Portuguese languages.