| Words which look like English words are called
cognates. Sometimes cognates are spelled exactly the same
in both Spanish and English, such as golf . Other cognates
may vary by a letter or two, such as oficina (office) and computadora
(computer).
Words that look like English words but have
different meanings are called false cognates. A good example
is embarazada. It doesn't mean "embarrassed"; it means
"to be pregnant"! As you can see it is usually better to check
a dictionary than assume a word is a cognate.
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