Cognates and False Friends
Similar Words in Polish and English
Don’t Fall into the Trap! Learn English faster.
In this post, we will talk about the easy words that you already know but you may not realise! These words are called cognates. We will also talk about so-called false friends – words which appear similar but can be misleading as they have different meanings.
True and false Polish – English friends
Want to learn English faster? Check out the words which you already know and memorise them faster. First, let’s look at words called cognates.
Cognates
What are cognates?
Cognates are words that share the same origins, so they have similar spelling or pronunciation. Some of them are not very easily recognisable, because they have travelled very far, or have become distorted due to multiple regional dialects and accents (almost like a radio signal that has travelled very far and is hard to understand.)
Do cognates mean the same?
Yes, cognates are similar words which have the same meaning in two languages.
Why do cognates differ?
Cognates differ because certain letters of every alphabet tend to be weak, and some letters get completely changed because the new users don’t have that letter or sound in their language, so they use the letter in their own alphabet that best represents the new sound to them.
When speaking in any language, you have to make sure that you pronounce words reasonably clearly, otherwise, there can be misunderstandings (e.g. fourteen and forty). So imagine how hard it is when a word ends up in a foreign country. Nobody is there to help it to be pronounced correctly. After a few decades or even less, words borrowed from other languages can change quite a lot, and the younger generations don’t even know where the word originated, even though their parents did.
Examples of Polish-English cognates
- Kalendarz = calendar
- Nowela = novel
- Nos = nose
- Minuta = minute
- Sekunda = second
- Defekt = defect
- Noc = night
- Anegdota = anegdote
- Sól = salt
- Maj = May
- Zero = zero
- Siedem = seven
- Sześć = six
- Wino = wine
- Woda = water
- Inżynier = engineer
- Policjant = police officer
- Programista = programmer
- Dieta = diet
- Telefon = telephone
Can cognates have different meanings?
Yes, those words are called false cognates or ‘false friends’. Let’s look into false friends to avoid falling into this trap, which is easy!
What are false friends in English?
False friends are two similar words which appear to be cognates (words with the same meaning) but are not. Those words sound or look the same or similar, but have different meanings, so be careful about false friends.
Examples of false friends in English for Polish speakers
Here are word pairs which Polish natives who learn English may take as known words, as they sound familiar, but can get misled.
Polish-English False friends and what they really mean
- Dress – sukienka
- Data – dane
- Actual – rzeczywisty
- Closet – szafa
- Eventually – w końcu
- Kit – zestaw
- Fabric – tkanina
- Step – krok
- Sad – smutny
- Roman – rzymski
- On – na
- Ordinary – zwyczajny
- Pension – emerytura
- Pasta – makaron
The same similarities and differences will apply to other languages. True friends and false friends are word pairs which any two languages will have, be it English – Spanish, Polish – Italian or any other.
Summary
Similar words can be your friend while learning English, so make good use of them, save time and learn faster! But be careful with false friends, don’t get tricked by them. But you can actually make use of those tricky words, as they are easier to remember. Something you already know is always easier to memorise, you only need to remember the difference in meaning.
What are the funniest false English friends in your language? Share shat they mean in the comments!