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Teaching-Cognates.Pdf 1 Teaching Cognates First Edition - October 2014 Copyright 2006-2014 [email protected] Cover Image: Black Dots Visual Illusion Author Unknown 2 Teaching Cognates is a compilation of excerpts from Cognate Linguistics , the full letter A section from The Dictionary of Cognates , and the full letter -N section from The Reverse Dictionary of Cognates . This is a free e-book. The use of this book and its content, for any research or non-commercial purpose, is completely unrestricted. If you make use of or redistribute this material, I would appreciate acknowledgement of its origin. For more information, please visit www.cognates.org 3 Table of Contents Page Preface 5 Introduction 6 Cognate Linguistics Cognate Lexis 9 Classification of Cognates 12 Cognate Syntax 13 Cognates by nature 18 The Four Skills: Visual and Auditory Word Recognition 22 Corpus-based Cognates 26 The Most Frequent English Cognates List - MFCogn English 28 The Most Frequent English Cognates List - MFCogn Spanish 29 The Most Frequent Business Cognates List - MFCogn Business 29 The Dictionary of Cognates Instructions 33 Letter A 37 Expanded Spanish Conjugation 120 The Reverse Dictionary of Cognates Instructions 133 Letter -N 135 Author 167 4 Preface The original name of this compilation eBook was 'Raising Cognate Awareness and Encouraging Cognate Use'. I loved it. It perfectly explained its content and purpose. However, thanks to peer advice, I came to realize, once again, that books should be addressed to readers. So, yes; if I had to use common educational jargon, I would say I would definitely like teachers to teach cognates and learners to learn them. But there is much more to it than that. Technically speaking, 'Teaching', 'Learning', and 'Cognates' do not match. Teachers do not teach cognates; lexical and syntactic cognates don't need to be taught. Learners do not learn cognates; they don't need to be learned. Cognates are just immediately and effortlessly recognized; they are automatically understood (either consciously, subconsciously, or unconsciously). This is so because active or passive cognate recognition depends on our mother tongue and on the language we ALREADY possess, not on the foreign language being learned. What we should aim at is raising awareness of the existence of lexical and syntactic cognates, and then encouraging and supporting their free use. We, as educators, can only unveil cognates to our students and they should be benefited by our initial validation. What about false cognates? My answer is simple; please, just take a few more minutes to read on and you will learn about the fallacy we all were once tied to. Although important to take into consideration, the irrelevant number of false cognates (+200) and their irrelevant impact on language acquisition and production contrasted to the number of real cognates (+20,000) and their usefulness is astounding. 5 Introduction A linguistic approach is a set of principles and theories about the nature of language and language learning. This set of principles and theories can either be the basis for a wide range of new teaching methods or nurture existing ones. A method is therefore a specific interpretation and practical application of an approach and features a distinctive plan and procedures. Cognate Linguistics and its approach to language acquisition are not based on theories or trends but on the already existing and frequently used cognate lexis and syntax shared by certain Germanic and Romance languages. Approaches and methods come and go, but the cognate nature of these languages has always been and will always be there. What are Cognates? From the Latin COGNATUS (co- 'together' + gnatus, pp. of gnasci, 'to be born'), cognates are words descended from a common ancestor; that is, words having the same linguistic family or derivation (English), la misma familia lingüística o derivación (Spanish), a mesma família lingüística ou derivação (Portuguese), la stessa famiglia linguistica o derivazione (Italian), la même famille linguistique ou dérivation (French), From the language mastery era (the grammar-translation method) to today’s focus on communicative proficiency (the communicative approach or the notional-functional approach), we have disregarded this natural linguistic asset of ours. The awareness of lexical and syntactic cognates in language teaching and learning reinvents the basis of a large number of current methods as applied to English and Romance language learners. Once learners are fully aware of the cognate dimension of these related languages, there is an immediate and permanent associative effect affecting most future language input and output, regardless of the approach or method being used. This phenomenon is produced by a basic but crucial psycholinguistic principle on foreign language acquisition; the immediate and effortless recognition of linguistic input without engaging in any type of translation process. 6 On the other hand, for those who disfavor formal methods, a cognate approach to language acquisition acknowledges that every learner brings different learning styles and preferences to their learning processes; for that reason, this linguistic approach can also limit itself to provide both teachers and learners with its several easily adaptable resources, not to mention its unique support to independent learners. Although most of the samples in this book are given in English and Spanish, this linguistic project, in its first stage, also refers to and applies to Portuguese, Italian, French, Catalan and Romanian. This text on Cognate Linguistics proposes the learning and teaching of these languages mainly supported by their shared lexical and syntactic cognates. Cognate Linguistics searches for means to exploit lexical and syntactic cognates while Historical Linguistics may limit itself to search for their etymological origins. The first tool of this research project, the first version of the Dictionary of Cognates - DOC, has been completed. It features 20,000 English- Spanish cognate words plus 25,000 frequent cognate collocations. All these words have been selected manually from several renowned dictionaries keeping to a minimum infrequent technical, scientific or historical cognate terms. The development of the DOC was based on practicality and frequency rather than on exhaustiveness. Samples of the Portuguese, Italian and French raw versions of the DOC are available at cognates.org, the project’s support site. The Multilingual Dictionary of Cognates - MDOC, mentioned in chapter one, is a future project aiming to join the definite cognate matches in the five aforementioned languages, and which may well include Catalan and Romanian. In addition to the DOC, several other corpus-based resources are also ready to support this stage of the project; namely, The Most Frequent English Cognates List (MFCogn English), The Most Frequent Spanish Cognates List (MFCogn Spanish), The Most Frequent Business Cognates List (MFCogn Business), The Reverse Dictionary of Cognates, The Cognate Highlighter, and Morán Molina’s Spanish Corpus. 7 A great effort has been made to simplify as much as possible the technical language required throughout this book so as to make it fully comprehensible and useful to the general public. I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I do. Rubén Morán Molina Cognates.org 8 Excerpts Cognate Lexis ● The awareness of lexical and syntactic cognates in language teaching and learning reinvents the basis of a large number of current methods as applied to English and Romance language learners. Once learners are fully aware of the cognate dimension of these related languages, there is an immediate and permanent associative effect affecting most future language input and output, regardless of the approach or method being used. ● Although most of the samples in this book are given in English and Spanish, this linguistic project, in its first stage, also refers to and applies to Portuguese, Italian, French, Catalan and Romanian. 9 ● The first tool of this research project, the first version of the Dictionary of Cognates - DOC, has been completed. It features 20,000 English-Spanish cognate words plus 25,000 frequent cognate collocations. All these words have been selected manually from several renowned dictionaries keeping to a minimum infrequent technical, scientific or historical cognate terms. The development of the DOC was based on practicality and frequency rather than on exhaustiveness. ● These 'similar words and sounds' have always been regarded as advantageous coincidences whenever they occur, not only among Romance languages, but also when encountering English linguistic resemblances. However, being able to understand La Universidad Australiana está considerando aceptar este nuevo proyecto de lingüística or L’Université Australienne considère accepter ce nouveau projet de linguistique does represent more than a vague funny perception of coincidence for someone who might have never been in contact with Spanish or French before. What you have just experienced while reading the statements above is exactly the same feeling of acquaintance that a Romance language speaker, not knowing the English language, experiences with The Australian University is considering accepting this new project of linguistics . ● Although there are definitely more underlying similarities than differences between Romance Languages and the English Language, we were once taught, and many of us have unfortunately been teaching for too long, to be more aware of their differences.
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