200 French–English Cognates to Boost Your French Vocabulary

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Learn 200 French–English cognates, with their shared meanings. Notice the spelling similarities, then check how each word is used in context.

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Brief History of French and EnglishHow French Cognates Help You Learn FrenchTypes of French cognates

If English is your first language, chances are you’ve been using French your entire life. And we’re not talking about common phrases such as déjà vu and au revoir – we’re referring to words in both languages with related forms and shared meanings.

Many French words resemble their English counterparts. We’ve put together 200 useful cognates, including words with identical spellings and words whose spelling differs slightly.

Brief History of French and English

French influence on English grew after the Norman Conquest of 1066, when William the Conqueror and his followers came to England.

Norman French became widely used at court, in government, and among the upper classes. English, French, and Latin coexisted, with different uses that changed over time.

Anglo-Norman is the name commonly given to the medieval French used in Britain. It was a variety of French, rather than a language made by joining English and French.

Many words borrowed from French became part of English. Words such as beef, pork, noble, and purchase still show that influence today.

How French Cognates Help You Learn French

It’s common to feel overwhelmed when starting to learn a new language – French is no exception. French has its own words, pronunciations, usage, sentence structures, grammar, and more that differentiate it from other languages.

Studying French Cognates helps ease the culture shock of the new language. Many English words have French origins. And with a massive list of cognates in French, you’ll discover that you already have a substantial French vocabulary even before starting your first lesson.

Cognates give you many nouns and adjectives for free. For verbs, start with the 200 most common French verbs, ranked by real use.

You may even notice some patterns of the common words to give insight to other word origins and pronunciations as you expand your French vocabulary.

For example, many of the French cognates share the following endings:

• -tion/-sion
• -able
• -ent
• -ence
• -al
• -age
• -ible
• -ure
• -um

Keep these in mind when going through our French cognate list.

Types of French cognates

Before we get into the list, let’s first take a look at the different types of French cognates.

True cognates – Vrais Amis

The truest form of French Cognate is called Vrais Amis, or “true friends.” These words have similar or identical forms and a shared meaning in French and English. A word may also have other meanings that do not match.

Accents, pronunciation, grammatical gender, and usage can differ. True cognates make it easy to read and understand French, but it may take some practice to say the words aloud like a native French-speaker.

The table below gives a shared meaning for each word. It also includes close cognates such as musique and “music,” so the spellings are not always identical.

Semi-true cognates

Semi-true cognates may be a bit tricky compared to true cognates. Partial cognates share one meaning but differ in other uses.

One of the most common examples is pork (en) vs. porc (fr). In English, pork refers to the meat of a pig, but in French, “porc” can also translate to pig. Since it’s a French cognate, you’ll have a general understanding of what the word is referring to, but be careful about how you use them in the French context.

False cognates – Faux Amis

You can’t have vrais amis without faux amis, or false cognates. These words have similar spellings in English and French, but very different meanings.

For example, grape (en) vs. grappe (fr). Grape refers to the fruit, while grappe translates to “bunch,” such as having a bunch of grapes. For example, une grappe de raisin means “a bunch of grapes.” A single grape is un grain de raisin.

List of 200 French–English cognates

The table gives 200 distinct French words and a shared English meaning. Use the listed meaning as a starting point, rather than assuming the words are interchangeable in every sentence.

French nouns have grammatical gender, and adjectives change form to agree with the noun. Pronunciation usually differs from English, even when the spelling is identical.

You now have a list to kick off your French vocabulary.