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Italian and English possess are surprisingly-large number of cognates. Italian words such as farmacia (pharmacy), intelligente (intelligent), and necessario (necessary) mean exactly what a native English speaker would expect them to mean. This shared linguistic history means that Italian language learners need to be extra wary of false friends. These are words in Italian that…

Portuguese and Spanish are closely-related. The languages share a similar structure and many words have similar meanings. These similarities make watching out for false friends between the languages especially important. If you are using your knowledge of one language to help learn the other, make sure that you don’t confuse the following pairs of words.…

This week we’re going to look at some easily-confused Spanish words. While Spanish doesn’t have as many of these types of words as English does, it does possess enough that it is worth reviewing some of the more common ones.   Agujero, Aguja, and Agujetas These three similarly-spelled words each have distinctive meanings. Agujero/agujeros means…

This week we’re going to look at some easily-confused Spanish words. While Spanish doesn’t have as many of these types of words as English does, it does possess enough that it is worth reviewing some of the more common ones.   Agujero, Aguja, and Agujetas These three similarly-spelled words each have distinctive meanings. Agujero/agujeros means…

In French, the past anterior has the same function as the past perfect. Unlike the past perfect, however, the past anterior is used only in academic, literary, and historical writing. When speaking, the anterior is usually replaced with the past infinitive, perfect participle, or pluperfect.   Conjugating the Past Anterior Because the past anterior is…