Spelling Equivalents

Equivalentes ortográficos

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Thanks to extensive Latin influence on Spanish and English, these two languages have many corresponding spelling patterns. They come in handy when learning Spanish, as it means there are lots of cognates (words that are identical or similar) that you’ll easily recognize and understand at first sight – though you do need to beware of falsos amigos.

Knowing common spelling equivalents can also helpful when you’re writing in Spanish, potentially saving you from having to looking up so many words in a dictionary.

 Before you start, a couple of notes:

For the most part, these aren’t hard and fast rules – consider them more like general guiding principles that are bound to have some exceptions.

Also remember that there are often other spelling differences between the two languages, such as accents in Spanish and/or extra letter(s) in one of the languages. For example, it’s helpful to know that Spanish’s –mente is equivalent to –ly in English, but rapidamente has an "a" before the suffix that is missing in English’s "rapidly."

Equivalent Word Endings

Spanish	English		Ejemplo	Example	Related lessons
-ado -ido	-ed		hablado asistido	talked helped	Past participle
-al	-al		personal infernal	personal infernal
-ando -iendo	-ing		entrando ocurriendo	entering occurring	Present participle
-ano/ana	-an		americano mejicano	American Mexican	Nationalities
-ante	-ant		militante	militant
-ar -er -ir	to + verb		entrar depender ocurrir	to enter to depend to occur	Infinitives
-arquía	-archy		anarquía monarquía	anarchy monarchy
-ción	-tion		nación tradición	nation tradition
-cracia	-cracy		democracia teocracia	democracy theocracy
-dad	-ty		finalidad nacionalidad	finality nationality
-dor	-tor		educador narrador	educator narrator
-encia	-ence		dependencia violencia	dependence violence
-ente	-ent		aparente permanente	apparent permanent
-eza	-ness		tristeza franqueza	sadness frankness
-filo/a	-phile		hispanófilo	Hispanophile
-fobo/a	-phobe		hispanófobo	Hispanophobe
-ica -ico/a	-ic -ical		música lírico	music lyrical
-ificar	-ify		identificar verificar	identify verify
-ismo -isma	-ism		modernismo cisma	modernism schism
-ista	-ist		lista purista	list purist
-ivo -ivo/a	-ive		votivo pensativo	votive pensive
-izar	-ize	[US]	idealizar	idealize realize
-izar	-ise	[UK]	realizar	idealise realise
-mente	-ly		rápidamente posiblemente	rapidly possibly	Adverbs
-mento -miento	-ment		pavimento adelantamiento	pavement advancement
-no	-nal		nocturno eterno	nocturnal eternal
-or(a)	-er -or		cantor jugador autor	singer player author	Professions
-oria -orio	-ory		obligatorio memoria	obligatory memory
-oso/a	-ous		nervioso famoso	nervous famous
-ro	-er	[US]	metro	meter theater
-ro	-re	[UK]	teatro	metre theatre
-sión	-sion		conclusión tensión	conclusion tension
-tud	-tude		plenitud latitud	plenitude latitude

Equivalent Prefixes

es-	s-	especial estupendo	special stupendous
inm-	imm-	inmediato inmigrar	immediate immigrate
trans- tras-	trans-	transportación trasplantar	transportation transplant

Other Spelling Equivalents

-c- -qu-	-k-	quiosco	kiosk
-cu-	-qu-	ecuador cuantificar	equator quantify
-f-	-ph-	teléfono fotografía	telephone photograph
-t-	-th-	teatro mito	theater myth

Key

(x)	The letters in (parentheses) are needed for the feminine form of the Spanish suffix.
/xx	The letters after the /slash indicate that the feminine noun or adjective has a different suffix.
[US]	Applies mainly to American English
[UK]	Applies mainly to British English

 Related features

• Accents
• Adjectives
• Falsos amigos
• Spanish in English
• Spelling
• Suffixes
• Vocabulary
   

 En français

• Équivalents orthographiques
   

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