How To Stop Getting Confused Between Similar Words When Learning A Language

When you are learning language you will often come across words that seem similar and you can easily get confused and make a mistake.

It is annoying, but it is totally normally and it is always going to happen. This can happen in a few different ways, which I will go through below, as well as how you can try and avoid this confusion in the first place.

Cognates Can Actually Be Helpful

I will start with the one thing that will not confuse you, which is cognates, these will actually make your job easier when language learning. They are words that are basically the same in each language, with maybe with a few subtle changes, but either way they very similar and mean the same thing. 

How many cognates the language has and how similar they are will depend on the language you are learning. If they are closely related, then you will probably find that there are a quite a few and these can be really helpful as it’s like you know the word already and do not need to do much to learn it or understand it.

A lot of languages use loan words, where they borrow/take words from another language to use in their own, which is basically what a cognate is.

If a Japanese person asked you if you want sushi or a hamburger, you would kind of understand them, even if you don’t speak Japanese. The word sushi is a word we took from them, and they took the word hamburger form us.

While you wouldn’t be able to read this in Japanese, you could understand it if you heard it, both words will sound extremely similar to the English version and likewise, if you asked a Japanese person the same question in English, they would probably understand you.

False Friends Will Trick You

False friends look like cognates, but they are not. These will trip you up and can be very annoying. Your brain will usually try and tell you that it has the same meaning as the word in your language, but this is wrong. Luckily there is usually not that many of these and after a while you will start to remember them.

You will usually start to notice that the context doesn’t make any sense and you will suddenly remember that the words mean something else and isn’t the same meaning as the word in English.

A classic example is Bras in French… which is not the ladies underwear that you just assumed it meant… it is in fact the word for Arms.

You will read words like this the wrong way for a while, and keep getting the meaning wrong, but just keep working on it and you will start to remember that it has a different meaning.

Then you might suffer the opposite effect, where you forget what the word means in English. This sounds crazy, but it can happen. I remember once I was reading something on social media and its said “comment below” … but in my head I seen Comment as in a French work, meaning “how”. This meant I read it as “how below” and then as there was nothing below about “how” I was very confused for a few seconds until I realised I had forgot that “comment” was also an English word.        

False friends are annoying, but you will have to deal with them but do they do get easier over time.

Words That Look Similar, But Have A Different Meaning

Personally I find these words the most tricky, as I find it very hard to tell them apart. This is when two words, that may mean two totally different things, look kind of similar.

We have this in English, but as our understanding of the language is so high we don’t get confused by tiny changes. If you look at the word deer and beer …they mean two separate things and you probably would say they don’t look the same.

However, if you are not used to our alphabet, then the b and d look very similar. You would easily get them confused. If you think that is nonsense …go and learn Japanese and see how their letters just look like random squiggles that go one way or the other …which is exactly what a Japanese speaker sees when they look at our language.

This can still happen with similar languages. The French words Monter and Montrer look extremely similar, but mean totally different things and I will often get them confused.

Usually the context of the sentence will help you out, but for words like this you have to take a second to process them. 

You will also not really be aware of these words. You might learn one and then bump into the other one at a later point, it’s hopefully at this point the context doesn’t make sense and you realise that this word looks very similar to the other. Once you work out what the difference is, such an extra letter or whatever, you need to come up with a way to remember which word is which.

In the above example, I knew monter (to mount) but not montrer (to show), and whatever I was reading didn’t make sense when the word showed up. I ended up looking up to mount in the dictionary and was like “okay, this is the right word, why doesn’t this make sense” …and then noticed the extra R and realised it was a new word.

Now If I see it, I look for the R and if there is an extra R, I tell myself “this is because it’s an R rated show” …and I remember that this version is to show, if there is not an extra R …it’s to mount.

It‘s kind of long winded, but it works. My hope this that eventually I will just spot the difference right away like I can in English, but for now using the memory trick helps.

Words With A Similar Meaning, That Look Different

The other major confusion that can happen is when words have a similar meaning, regardless if they look totally different.

This usually happens when you learn words in pairs, such as the opposite of things. A classic example of this is hot and cold. While these mean different things and look nothing alike …they are similar and you will get confused.

This is a problem I have in French with Froid and Chaud. Both these words are meaningless when you first see them and it’s down to you to assign a meaning to them. The problem is that if you learn them too close together, the meaning can get easily muddled.

Luckily I am aware that I get these two confused and now I tell myself that “froid begins with F, for freezing”.

The best way to get around this is to not learn words like this together. I know it is popular to learn similar words together, but don’t. This is why word lists are so bad but I get it, grouping words together can seem helpful, but really it’s not.

You will be much better learning everything separately. Learn the word for Fork today and in two weeks time learn Knife. Doing this is going to lock in the meaning of fork in to your brain today and then when you do learn knife, you won’t be confused which one is which, your understanding of fork will already be established. 

It can make things seem a little disjointed when you learn like this, but it will help you out in the long run.

Learning Two Similar Languages At The Same Time

The other way you get confused between similar words is if you decide to learn two similar languages at the same time.

Doing this is not very sensible as everything you learn is going to be too similar and you are going to start getting mixed up.

If you really do want to do this, then I would suggest that you learn one language to a decent level before moving on to the next one.

This is going to allow your brain to really lock in the meaning of the words in one language, before you see something similar in a second language.

The other way around this is to learn two languages that are very different, such as learning two languages with different alphabets. They are going to be different enough that you shouldn’t get confused. 

(You can read more about – Can You Learning Two Languages At The Same Time?)

Conclusion

As you can see there are a number of different ways that can get confused between similar words in a new language and really the best way to deal with any of this is to learn one of the words today, and the other word at a later date.

Once your brain has the meaning of one word locked in, it is less likely to get confused when you see the similar version, in fact you should be able to notice that something is different and you can start processing why.

You are always going to have things trip you up, and that is okay, but trying to be ready for it can make it happen a little less often and make things less frustrating for you. 

(You can read more about – Techniques That Will Increase Your Vocabulary)