Colombia Forum

Vikingo
Joined 2009
Posts: 1680

1 year ago

Learning Spanish

1 year ago

There are more than a thousand words that are very similar in English and Spanish, except they are usually pronounced differently. They are called 'cognates'.
If you don't pronounce Spanish words correctly most people here don't understand what you're trying to say.
Almost all English words are pronounced by the first or second syllable (in 3 syllable words) and most Spanish words at the last syllable or the second last in 4 syllable words; sofa and sofá, dimension - dimensión, miserable - miseRABle
One of the exceptions is 'opera' which sounds the same in English and Spanish.
The Spanish often use accent marks over the vowels á, é, í, ó, ú with many words, when written correctly, which isn't always the case in Colombia and many times you're not getting either a period or a comma, sometimes an entire email or message without them.
Certain geographical locations like Bogotá, Canadá, Panamá and Perú always use accent marks in Spanish.
The correct abbreviation for the United States is EE.UU. in the Spanish language.
If you click on the speaker symbol on 'google.translate.com' you can hear the correct pronunciation of a Spanish word.
If you skip the accent mark, some Spanish words would have a completely different meaning for example sí (with accent) means 'yes' but si (without accent) means 'if'.
https://espanol.lingolia.com/en/vocabulary/palabras-confundibles/words-with-an-without-an-accent
If you want to dig into the subject of Spanish accents, here is an excellent article:
https://www.fluentin3months.com/spanish-accent-marks-the-ultimate-guide/

But back to the cognates. This is a list to expand your Spanish vocabulary:
https://www.realfastspanish.com/vocabulary/spanish-cognates

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