Description

There are many words that are very similar in English and French. Thanks to William the Conqueror (or as the French call him: Guillaume le Conquérant) and his invasion of England nearly a millennia ago, French and English share tens of thousands of similar words. Some are identical in spelling and meaning (e.g., impossible); some have the same meaning and slightly different spelling (e.g., adresse /address) and some have slightly different spelling and a partially different meaning (e.g., porc/pork). These words are known as cognates. It is estimated that 29% of the words in modern English are from French (source Wikipedia). But, it also works in the other direction: a lot of French terms come from English. Another 29% of the English words come from Latin including many scientific words. Many are TRUE friends, or almost: they have the same or similar meaning, and are written in the same way. This dictionary contains these "True Friends" or cognates. But beware, there are many words which look similar in French and English, but they're FALSE Friends, because they do not have the same meaning.

Finally, know that if the spelling is similar, pronunciation is almost always totally different !

This book contains 8990 words which are true cognates in French and English. Many of the words are also annotated. It also contains a list of false cognates, words which look the same, but have entirely different meanings.