Spanish is a Latinate, or language based in Latin. English, while not really a Latinate, has many Latin words. As you might remember, an affix is a word part that attaches to the beginning or ending of a word and may change the meaning of the word. Many affixes are Latin, so if Spanish is based in Latin, knowing which affixes are shared between Spanish and English can help you to determine the meanings of some Spanish cognates.

Let’s review affixes and then take a look at some affixes that are common in both English and Spanish. Again, affixes are word parts that you can add to the beginning (prefix) or to the end (suffix) of a word to change the meaning of the word. Each affix has its own meaning. For example, you can add the prefix un-, which means “not,” to the word “real” to create the word unreal, or “not real.” You can add the suffix -ity (a state of being) to the word “real” and get reality, “the state of being real.” To get an in-depth review of affixes, please see the lesson “Linguistic Roots and Affixes” in this course.

The following are some commonly used English prefixes that are also used in Spanish:

Prefix	Meaning
ex-	out
im-, in-	not
bi-	two
pre-	before

Remember, a Spanish-English cognate is a word that is spelled or pronounced almost the same in Spanish as it is in English. Using this knowledge and the prefixes above, match the following words by dragging and dropping the English cognates onto their Spanish counterparts.

Suffixes in English and Spanish are a little different. Very few suffixes in these languages are spelled exactly the same way, although the spellings for most are very similar. The exception is the Spanish suffix -dad and the English suffix -ity. These suffixes aren’t similar at all, but they are commonly used. For example, the words “equality” in English and “igualdad” in Spanish both mean “the state of being equal.”

English Suffix	Spanish Suffix	Meaning
-ity	-dad	state or condition
-ism	-ismo or -isma	state of being
-ble	-ble	able to
-ous	-osa or -oso	having a lot of

Now, use your knowledge of affixes to determine the meaning of the words below. Match each Spanish cognate to its English cognate by dragging each Spanish word below onto the correct English word. If you don’t know Spanish, use your knowledge of English to figure out these word pairs.