French words that look like English.
Of the 5,000 cards in the A0–B2 vocabulary, 2,328 are either identical to their English meaning or differ by only a small, predictable amount (47% of the deck). The full list is below, grouped by CEFR level.
- A1Foundation377/ 1,106 cards34%
- A2Everyday252/ 501 cards50%
- B1Independent601/ 1,273 cards47%
- B2Advanced1,098/ 2,120 cards52%
Showing 1–50 of 2,328 cognates
| French | English | Level | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| accent | accent | A1 | 1.00 |
| accepter | to accept | A1 | 1.00 |
| accident | accident | A1 | 1.00 |
| accompagner | to accompany, to go with | A1 | 0.89 |
| activité | activity | A1 | 1.00 |
| admirer | to admire | A1 | 0.92 |
| adorable | adorable, lovable | A1 | 1.00 |
| adorer | to love, to adore | A1 | 0.91 |
| adresse | address | A1 | 0.92 |
| adulte | adult | A1 | 1.00 |
| âge | age | A1 | 1.00 |
| agence | agency | A1 | 0.91 |
| agriculture | agriculture | A1 | 1.00 |
| ah | ah! | A1 | 1.00 |
| aide | aid, assistance, help | A1 | 1.00 |
| air | air | A1 | 1.00 |
| amuser | to amuse, to entertain, to divert | A1 | 0.91 |
| animal | animal | A1 | 1.00 |
| anniversaire | birthday, anniversary | A1 | 1.00 |
| annoncer | to announce, to report | A1 | 0.88 |
| antiquité | antiquity | A1 | 1.00 |
| appartement | apartment, flat | A1 | 0.90 |
| approcher | to approach | A1 | 0.93 |
| arrêter | to stop, to halt; to arrest (a criminal) | A1 | 0.91 |
| arriver | to arrive; to (come to) happen | A1 | 0.92 |
| art | art | A1 | 1.00 |
| assister | to assist | A1 | 1.00 |
| association | association | A1 | 1.00 |
| assurance | insurance, assurance | A1 | 1.00 |
| attacher | to attach, to tie | A1 | 1.00 |
| attention | attention; (with 'faire') take care | A1 | 1.00 |
| avancer | to advance, to progress | A1 | 0.86 |
| aventure | adventure | A1 | 0.94 |
| bande | band, group | A1 | 1.00 |
| bar | bar | A1 | 1.00 |
| bicyclette | bicycle | A1 | 0.93 |
| bizarre | bizarre | A1 | 1.00 |
| blond | blond; blonde | A1 | 1.00 |
| boulevard | boulevard, avenue | A1 | 1.00 |
| bravo | bravo!, well said! | A1 | 1.00 |
| buffet | buffet | A1 | 1.00 |
| bureau | office, desk, bureau | A1 | 1.00 |
| bus | bus | A1 | 1.00 |
| calme | quiet, calm | A1 | 1.00 |
| campagne | campaign | A1 | 0.93 |
| camping | camping, site | A1 | 1.00 |
| cas | case, situation; case (of law or medicine) | A1 | 0.86 |
| cathédrale | cathedral | A1 | 1.00 |
| cause | cause, reason that something happens | A1 | 1.00 |
| centre | center | A1 | 0.91 |
How a cognate was identified
- Both the French and English entries are normalized: accents stripped, articles removed (
le / la / un / the / a / an), verb infinitive markers dropped (to), and the English answer split into its alternatives when it lists multiple meanings. - A set of French→English suffix transforms is applied (
-ité→-ity,-ique→-ic,-aire→-ary,-ment→-ly,-er→-ate, ~30 in total) to generate plausible English-shaped forms of each French word. - Each variant is scored against each English alternative using two complementary metrics: Levenshtein distance ratio (edit-distance normalized by length) and the longest-common-subsequence Dice coefficient (2 · LCS / (|a| + |b|)). The maximum of the two is taken.
- A card is included here when its best score is ≥ 0.85. Score 1.00 means the two strings are identical after normalization; anything between 0.85 and 1.00 is a near-identical match with one or two character differences or a clean suffix swap.
The threshold (0.85) is conservative on purpose. Words that look like English but require a meaningful spelling leap (jardin → garden, ingénieur → engineer) score lower and are excluded from this list, even though they are real cognates. They simply aren't guaranteed to be recognized on sight by an English speaker.