While doing some research for a couple of words, I learned that false cognates and a false friends are not the same thing.

False cognates are two words which have no etymological connection, but are similar in form and meaning. An example of this is the English word day and the Spanish word día. Their root words are different. The English word comes from an Indo-European background before Old English. The Spanish word comes from Latin. It is just a coincidence that they look and sound similar and therefore they are false cognates.

Whereas false friends are words which look or sound similar, but have different meanings. You will see many of these in your study of Spanish. An example would be asistir and atender which mean attend and assist (respectively).

False cognates are really not much of a concern to us as students of Spanish. Whether the words derived from the same source or not, they mean the same thing. It is false friends which we need to be aware of and realize they are there to trip us up.

These are two words that can be really confusing for the English speaker because they are false friends. First let’s review what the meanings are in English of assist and attend.

Assist is to help. This could be used to help another person or it could be a machine that lends support.

Attend is to be present at an event. Outside of the normal thinking of attending a show, it could also be that a fever could attend a cold. A fever is present with the cold. Though not its primary meaning in English, it is used to mean to take care of or give help to as in the example of “the nurse attended the patient.”

In Spanish these words carry the other’s meaning.

Asistir is to be present at, or to regularly attend.

Atender is to help out as in a nurse helping a doctor in surgery.

This is a pair of words buy CBD products may take a person quite some time to realize that they are using them wrongly. It would be easy to assume that they carry the exact same meaning as they do in English. While both words in English can mean to be present and to help, they each have their primary usage which is opposite their primary usage in Spanish.

I’m sure all new Spanish speakers have had this happen to them. You don’t know what the Spanish word is for sure so you just try the English word with the Spanish pronunciation maybe add an -o to the end. Well this happened to our son, who was 5 at the time, while we were in language school.

We were at a park one day and he wanted a bag of popcorn from a nearby vendor. We thought this would be a good opportunity for him to practice his Spanish. So we gave him the money and sent him to ask for a bag. He is fearless about to talking to people. He marched over and said, “Popcorno, por favor.” We had not thought to ask him if he knew the word for popcorn. The vendor was confused and we had to jump in and help. But if you ask our son today how to say popcorn in Spanish he knows it is palomitas.

Palomitas literally means little doves. And popcorn does look like little doves hence the name palomitas.

(Besides, wouldn’t it be pop-maíz?)

Though the word andar is most often translated to walk, I was taught that the word carried with it quite a bit more meaning. My language teacher said that instead of thinking of a strict translation, it should be considered roughly to mean to go about. One could go about by foot, by bicycle or car.

The word is used in much the same way as we would use walk in a figurative sense. We say things like “walk worthy of your parents.” We are not literally talking about walking with your feet in such a way that it pleases your parents, rather what is meant is that you should conduct yourself in a pleasing way. Your conduct would be the way you go about. Sometimes andar is even translated conduct.

Though it is appropriate to use the word andar to mean walk, don’t limit yourself to this translation when you see or hear the word. Realize it has a much broader meaning.

If you would like to know more about the ways that andar can be translated, check out the entry for andar at About.com’s site which teaches Spanish.

Looking at the parts of Spanish words does not always work to help decipher their meanings as in the case of the word prejuicio.

Take the words ocupar and preocupar, for instance. Ocupar is to be busy or occupied with something, a task perhaps. But preocupar does not mean to be pre- busy or occupied before you are occupied. It means to worry, to be concerned about something that has or has not happened.

Sometimes just adding a prefix, such as a-, pre- or en-, to a word gives it an entirely different, not just altered, meaning that could be surprising.

Some Spanish words make perfect sense when you look at their parts, and sometimes it can cause you to look at the English word with more appreciation for its meaning. That is the case with the word prejuicio (prejudice). The parts of this word have the meaning to pre-judge someone or something.

Often words like prejudice have an automatic meaning associated with them. Particularly in the US, the word has a connotation of pre-judging people. Really the word could be used for making a decision about anything previous to actually having contact with the person or item.

Prejudice is a great example of any number of words that cause you to think more deeply about the meaning when you disassemble the word to its basic parts and meaning.

This is a word that can be very confusing because it looks exactly the same as the English word but does not carry with it the same meaning. Their root is the same, but their usage is very different.

In English the word actual means real, or true.

In Spanish the meaning is current, or at this time.

Both of these words carry the root meaning which is something that is currently the fact or truth. Or it can be said that it is something that truly exists at this time, not potential, but real.

This word crops up in every day speech in Spanish when people ask you what your current address is or your current job position. That word current is the word actual. Often in English we say “Actually…” to mean “Well the truth of the matter is…” Whereas in Spanish to say “Actualmente…” would mean, “At the current time…”

Read about the English word Actual at Dictionary.com.