Cognates
A cognate is an English word that shares the same etymological root with the same word in another language. Functionally, this means that you can usually guess how the word is spelled or pronounced in a different language.
You are always welcome to take a word you know in English, put a slight foreign accent on it, and try it out in hopes that it is a cognate. This works more often than you would think.
Note that this works best for romance languages, but there are non-romance languages that also have quite a few cognates or Americanisms.
For each language, there are certain prefixes or suffixes that seem to have a greater frequency of cognates. For example, the -tion suffix has pretty good luck of cognation in Spanish, with the slight alteration of pronouncing it as "-cion" (phonetically "see-ohn") instead of the english "shun". Exasperation, exploration, vacation, recreation are all examples. The fun thing about cognates is that it allows you, Mr. I-know-zero-Spanish, to bust out some $30 words once in a while.
The "-tion" suffix also works well in French, though now you need to French-ize it by pronouncing it with the sharp mono-syllabic "-syon". Adoration, gesticulation, graduation, participation all work.
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