60+ English Portuguese Cognates to Increase Your Vocabulary

English-Portuguese cognates area a goldmine of Portuguese vocabulary you haven’t dug into yet.

Cognates are words shared by two languages that look and sound similar and have the same meaning.

These words are extremely useful to know and the easiest to learn.

In this post, you’ll learn over 60 English-Portuguese cognates and several false friends—words that look like cognates but aren’t.

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Identical English-Portuguese Cognates

These cognates are spelled the exact same in Portuguese as English. The only difference is their pronunciation.

Portuguese	English
Animal	Animal
Natural	Natural
Real	Real
Social	Social
Vital	Vital
Original	Original
Total	Total
Chocolate	Chocolate
Banana	Banana
Cinema	Cinema
Rádio	Radio
Crime	Crime
Familiar	Familiar
Zero	Zero

-ly → -mente Adverb Cognates

You’ll find that a lot of English adverbs ending in -ly can easily be converted into Portuguese by switching the ending to -mente.

Place the stress on the –me- in the Portuguese version.

Portuguese	English
Realmente	Really
Basicamente	Basically
Historicamente	Historically
Automaticamente	Automatically
Oralmente	Orally
Naturalmente	Naturally

-ty → -dade Feminine Cognates

You can generally transform English -ty words into their Portuguese equivalent by changing the ending to -dade.

Note that Portuguese words ending in -dade are feminine.

The stress here is placed on the -da- of the Portuguese word.

Portuguese	English
A cidade	The city
A universidade	The university
A honestidade	The honesty
A simplicidade	The simplicity
A velocidade	The velocity

-ent → -ente Cognates

This one works with both nouns and adjectives and is relatively straightforward. In this case, the stress falls on the -e- of -ente:

Portuguese	English
Diferente	Different
Presidente	President
Recente	Recent
Componente	Component
Inocente	Innocent
Residente	Resident
Excelente	Excellent
Consistente	Consistent

Watch out for those double letters in English.

As you’ll notice in some of the above examples (such as “innocent” and “inocente”), they don’t carry over to their Portuguese counterparts.

-ive → -ivo/-iva Gendered Cognates

In this instance, you’ll convert English nouns and adjectives ending in -ive into Portuguese words ending in -ivo (if the subject is masculine) and -iva (if the subject is feminine).

Portuguese	English
Positivo (masc.) Positiva  (fem.)	Positive
Executivo (masc.) Executiva  (fem.)	Executive
Criativo (masc.) Criativa  (fem.)	Creative
Competitivo (masc.) Competitiva  (fem.)	Competitive
Narrativa	Narrative
Motivo	Motive
Incentivo	Incentive

Not to complicate things, but there is such thing as motiva. It’s the female third person singular for the verb motivar (to motivate).

Likewise, incentiva is the female third person singular for the verb incentivar (to incentivize).

Neither word applies here since we’re talking about nouns, not verbs.

-ous → -oso/-osa Cognates

Once again, these cognates are gendered according to whether the subject is male or female.

Portuguese	English
Religioso (masc.) Religiosa  (fem.)	Religious
Famoso (masc.) Famosa  (fem.)	Famous
Misterioso (masc.) Misteriosa  (fem.)	Mysterious
Generoso (masc.) Generosa  (fem.)	Generous
Ambicioso (masc.) Ambiciosa  (fem.)	Ambitious

-ble → -vel Cognates

This one covers the English -able and -ible cognates.

The Portuguese equivalents are -ável and -ível.

Portuguese	English
Possível	Possible
Responsável	Responsible
Impossível	Impossible
Terrível	Terrible
Vulnerável	Vulnerable
Confortável	Comfortable

–tion/-sion → -ção/-são Open-ended Cognates

Portuguese words ending in -ção and -são are feminine.

As far as pronunciation is concerned, the Portuguese tilde (accent mark) is the most challenging part. You should definitely listen to these words a few times and repeat them to yourself to practice your enunciation.

For English words ending in -tion, change the ending to -ção.

And for English words ending in -sion, use the ending -são.

Portuguese	English
Situação	Situation
Comunicação	Communication
Informação	Information
Educação	Education
Televisão	Television
Expressão	Expression
Conclusão	Conclusion
Missão	Mission

-ist → -ista Cognates

These words are normally gender-neutral—you need to add the right definite article before them (o for males and a for females) to correspond with the person you’re talking about.

Portuguese	English
Dentista	Dentist
Comunista	Communist
Jornalista	Journalist
Especialista	Specialist
Artista	Artist
Economista	Economist
Feminista	Feminist

English-Portuguese False Friends

A false friend is a word that looks like a cognate but actually isn’t.

Here are a few of the most common English-Portuguese false friends:

Portuguese	English
Atualmente	Currently (Mistake: actually)
Argumento	Reasoning (Mistake: argument)
Balcão	Counter (Mistake: balcony)
Compromisso	Appointment (Mistake: compromise)
Costume	Custom, tradition (Mistake: costume)
Data	Date (Mistake: data)
Dececionar	To disappoint (Mistake: to deceive)
Esperto	Smart (Mistake: expert)
Eventualmente	Maybe (Mistake: eventually)
Injúria	Insult (Mistake: injury)
Jornal	Newspaper (Mistake: journal)
Notícia	News (Mistake: notice)
Pretender	To intend (Mistake: to pretend)
Recordar	To remember (Mistake: to record)
Retirar	To withdraw (Mistake: to retire)
Taxa	Rate, fee (Mistake: tax)

 

Believe it or not, this is barely an intro to all the English-Portuguese cognates out there!

You’ll discover a trove of other patterns and groupings just by engaging with Portuguese media, such as movies, books, videos, etc.

FluentU even lets you learn cognates through context with authentic Portuguese videos, thanks to the interactive subtitles that let you click on words you don’t know.

I hope this post inspires you to delve further into the knowledge you already have as you continue your Portuguese fluency journey!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)