French Cognate Patterns: English Endings and False Friends

A French cognate is a word French and English share, usually because English borrowed it from French. Three tricks decode most of them, and one list stops them misleading you.

The six core swaps

Most shared words differ only in their ending, and six endings do most of the work.

• La situation est sérieuse. - The situation is serious.
• C'est dangereux. - It's dangerous.
• C'est simplement nécessaire. - It's simply necessary.

The first barely changes at all, but it sounds different: French -tion is said syon, with a nasal vowel, never shun.

Two of the rows hide a detail:

• -eux is masculine. The feminine is -euse: un chien dangereux, une route dangereuse (a dangerous road).
• -ment is built on the feminine adjective: lente gives lentement (slowly). The full rule is on French -ment adverbs.

More endings that swap cleanly

• Mon frère est artiste. - My brother is an artist.
• Quelle est la différence ? - What is the difference?
• Elle veut participer. - She wants to take part.

The -iste nouns are one word for a man or a woman; only the article changes: un artiste, une artiste. The -if adjectives become -ive in the feminine, which hands you both English forms: actif, active.

The gender comes free

Many cognate endings fix the noun's gender too, the part of French vocabulary that is hardest to guess.

• La question est difficile. - The question is difficult.
• Le gouvernement a changé. - The government has changed.

So the ending gives you both the word and, nearly always, le or la. The rest of the gender patterns are on French noun gender.

The hidden s

One swap is not an ending at all. French lost an s before a consonant in hundreds of words, and modern spelling marks the gap with an accent. English borrowed many of them before the s went, so the English word still has it.

• L'hôpital est fermé. - The hospital is closed.
• C'est une histoire étrange. - It's a strange story.

The rule of thumb: an é at the start of a word, or a circumflex in the middle, often marks a lost s. Put it back and see whether an English word appears. Not every accent works this way (l'économie, le rôle), but enough do to decode words you have never seen.

Why English has two words

The Normans conquered England in 1066, and French ran the English court, law and administration for about three hundred years. English swallowed French vocabulary wholesale.

The practical consequence: the more formal the English word, the more likely it is French. Stuck for a word? Take the fanciest English one you know and make it French. It works embarrassingly often.

False friends

A short list of words wear the disguise and mean something else. These are the faux amis, and they are worth learning as their own set, because the pattern will produce the wrong meaning every time.

• Actuellement, je travaille à Paris. - At the moment, I work in Paris.
• Je reste à la maison. - I'm staying at home.
• J'ai passé un examen. - I sat an exam. (Passed it is J'ai réussi mon examen.)

What to do next

1. Take five English words in -ty or -tion and say them in French, with la.
2. Find one word with a circumflex and put the s back.
3. Learn the false friends table as a list of eight.