Being already familiar with Spanish while learning Portuguese is a huge advantage – these languages are closely related and share thousands of cognate words.

Wondering about what a cognate is? 

Cognates are words that share a common origin, look alike, and often mean pretty much the same. Since both Portuguese and Spanish stem from Vulgar Latin, cognates between them are abundant.

You can think of cognates as true friends, as opposed to false friends.

So, what does this mean for you? Well, when it comes to vocabulary, there’s a lot to benefit from if you already know Spanish.

Here’s the thing: Portuguese and Spanish share approximately 90% of their lexicon!

Now, because not all cognates are used with the same frequency in either language, that 90% figure is a bit overrated in practice. Still, your existing Spanish knowledge is a goldmine*.

This article goes well beyond a random list of commonly used Portuguese-Spanish cognates. Instead, based on your previous knowledge of Spanish, it’ll help you recall thousands of Portuguese words at will – even if you never studied them before.

To do that, you’ll need to get familiar with a few groups of Spanish-Portuguese cognates.

Once you do, converting Spanish words to their Portuguese counterparts becomes easy. It just takes a few small tweaks in pronunciation and spelling. Read on.

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Portuguese-Spanish Cognates

1. Nouns

-ção → -ción

Nearly all cognates in this group are feminine. Note how the Portuguese ending creates a nasal diphthong (indicated by the tilde).

-são/-ssão → -sión

These endings are similar to the previous ones, but use “s” instead of “ç”. Still mostly feminine.

The sound differs depending on whether the “s” is single or double. A single “s” makes a voiced sound (like in zebra), while a double “s” is unvoiced (like in simple).

🔎 Learn more about European Portuguese pronunciation and spelling patterns.

-grama → -grama

These are masculine nouns.

-dade → -dad

Most of these are feminine. Also, the final “e” in Portuguese is barely pronounced.

-gem → -gen/-aje

Also mostly feminine. Notice the nasal sound at the end in Portuguese.

-ismo → -ismo

The words in this group are also masculine. Notice the voiced fricative (as in measure) rendered by the s that precedes the m (Portuguese cognates only).

2. Adjectives

-ista → -ista

These often refer to people and work as nouns too. They’re unisex and don’t change with gender.

Note that the s in -ista (Portuguese cognates) renders an unvoiced fricative sound, much like sh does in sheep.

🔎Learn more about gender in Portuguese: Disentangling Gender with Portuguese Masculine-to-Feminine Spelling Patterns.

-ente → -ente 

Also unisex. Again, the final “e” is barely audible in Portuguese.

-vel → -ble

These adjectives also don’t change with gender. The final “l” has a dark, thick sound in Portuguese.

-ar → -ar

Invariable across genders.

-ico/a→ -ico/a

Masculine forms end in -o, feminine in -a. Stress falls on the third-to-last syllable and is marked.

🔎Learn more about Portuguese word stress and accent marks.

-ivo/a→ -ivo/a

Gender changes the ending as above.

-oso/a→ -oso/a

Same gender rules as above.

3. Verbs

Portuguese verbs, like Spanish, fall into three main groups: -ar, -er, and -ir.

-ar → -ar 

-er → -er 

-ir → -ir 

4. Adverbs

-mente → -mente 

These are adverbs of manner. Again, final “e” in Portuguese is barely heard.