FROM SPANISH TO PORTUGUESE
Spanish and Portuguese share a huge quantity of words. We will refer to these shared words as cognates, words that are easily recognizable from one language to another.
Probably upwards of 85 percent of Portuguese vocabulary consists of words which have a cognate in Spanish. Sometimes the difference in cognates is not great, as, for example, the slight change in vowel qualities that you will notice between Spanish bonito and Portuguese bonito. At other times the difference may be quite pronounced, but the word will still be readily recognizable. Consider, for example, Portuguese agora, vs. Spanish ahora, and Portuguese chover vs. Spanish llover. Rather drastic sound changes have been introduced in the Portuguese words, but you should still recognize them as words which have a first cousin in Spanish.
Cognates will be used frequently on the following pages to illustrate certain correspondences between Spanish and Portuguese. You are likely to get the impression from time to time that every Spanish word has a Portuguese cognate. You should not let yourself think this. Some of the most common words of Portuguese do not have a cognate in Spanish. As a rule it is difficult to predict their occurrence. You can appreciate this by studying the following examples.
a. Portuguese amanhã and hoje are cognates for Spanish mañana and hoy. Knowing this, you might expect the Portuguese word for 'yesterday' to be a cognate too. It is not. It is ontem, which does not resemble ayer in the slightest.