You may have noticed that the words are in the previous flashcards are identical to the German translations. For example, in German you have the word Finger. In English, it's finger.

These words are called cognates.

A cognate is a word that looks the same as a word in your mother tongue and it means the same, too.

More examples include: book (Buch), man (Mann), ice (Eis), friend (Freund) and shoulder (Schulter).

Notice that the word doesn't always look identical, but at least very similar.

These words are a great starting point for learning vocabulary. That's because they are easy to remember because you already know them in German.

It's not only German that shares words with English. Look at these examples:

Spanish: accidente (accident), debate (debate), palacio (palace)

Russian: зе́бра (zebra), океа́н (ocean), шокола́д (chocolate)

Polish: mleko (milk), nos (nose), rozum (reason)