This is an attempt to analyze certain cognates in a whole new way.
My initial idea was to develop a list of cognates that would inspire Spanish-speaking 'learners of English' to gain an increased sense of confidence. I planned on lecturing ESL students (native Spanish speakers) on the 'secret weapon' that they possess for creating beautiful English. Their secret weapon doesn't ONLY consist of cognates. It consists of what I will call "super cognates."
We all know that English and Spanish have many cognates, and that this fact helps natives of either language to learn the other language. However, I also noticed that in many cases, when a Spanish-speaker uses a cognate in English, they are automatically choosing one of our "smart words" in English. The following list will illustrate how this "smart word" phenomenon works.
In the far left column I list some Spanish words. In the middle column are the cognates for these words. Lastly, in the right column is a second English-language synonym for the cognate in the middle column. In all of the cases listed, the cognate is an erudite, educated, "fancy" word in English. Of course, as the third column demonstrates, there are less fancy alternatives to express essentially the same meaning. My thesis is that Spanish speakers actually have a HIGH LIKELIHOOD of choosing educated-sounding words in English once they become aware of this process.
Of course, the entire situation is more complicated than what I can describe here on this page. The true 'weapon' would be to fully understand all of the subtleties of usage between words in the middle column and their counterparts to the far right. To achieve native-like fluency, one would need to correctly choose between the English 1 column and the English 2 column on a case by case basis for each specific context. This is no small task. So, while this list is intended to be encouraging to a Spanish speaker, it also hints at some of the complexities that must be learned in order to truly master English.
Click here for a text-only version of the list. (The text version is ideal for cutting and pasting.) | 
