Spanish Language and Culture 10-3Y

Word Connections

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Did you notice that many of the vocabulary words are similar to English words? Look at the following words and notice the similarities between the English and Spanish in each word. Some are obvious, but others need a little more explanation.

Vocabulary Word	Description
la comedia	the comedy These words are cognates. They look and sound similar in English and Spanish.
el drama	the drama These words are cognates. They are spelled the same and sound similar in English and Spanish.
la telenovela	the soap opera These two are not cognates. They are very different, but let's break it down a little to see how it is similar to English: tele (from televisión) + novela (novel or a story) = telenovela (TV story), what we call a soap opera in English.
las noticias	the news These two words are also different, but the word noticias is similar to notify or notice in English, which is related to getting information like the news.
los dibujos animados	the cartoons dibujos (drawings) + animados (animated) In English we call these cartoons. Cartoons are animation. If you saw this phrase and didn't know what dibujos meant, you might be able to guess that it has something to do with animation since the word animados is very similar to the English word animation.
la música clásica	the classical music These words are cognates: clásica (classical) + música (music)
el entretenimiento	the entertainment The Spanish version of this word has a lot more syllables, but it looks a lot like the English word.
repetir	to repeat These words are cognates. They look and sound similar in English and Spanish.

Answer the following questions and then select the arrow to check your answers.

1. What do these three words have in common?
   • telenovela
   • telerrealidad
   • televisión


2. Write three cognates (words that are almost the same in English and Spanish) from the vocabulary list. When you are finished, select the arrow to reveal possible answers.