Cognates A cognate is a word that has the same meaning and a very similar spelling and/or pronunciation in two languages. They help language learners enormously. Especially at the beginning when we're trying desperately to make sense of incomprehensive flow of speech which utterances in a foregin language appear. At this stage we welcome cognates as if they were old friends met at a party full of slightly intimidating strangers. But in languages as well as in social life, we may sometimes encounter a false friend. Foreign terms that resemble some words in our mother tongue only on the outside are more likely to hinder understanding instead of facilitating it. That's why it is so important to get familiar with cognates and false friends in the languages we learn. Are there any cognates between Polish and English? Of course there are! But so are false friends.