Is there such a thing as a "common roots" dictionary?

Question

The word of the day is 'disgustado'. I looked at that and thought 'disgust'. That makes it very easy to remember.

However, this is the first time I ever noticed that 'gustar' shares the same root as the English words 'gusto' and 'disgust'.

There are a lot of words like that, words that are very similar in Spanish and English, but I don't notice the similarity until long after I've learned the Spanish word. It's always easier to learn a new word if I notice the similarity to an English word right away.

So I was wondering if there was anything on the net that you could put Spanish words into and see if there are helpfully similar English words for it. If there isn't, there should be.

Answer 1

There are some cognates listed here, along with some "rules" (watch out for the ad links if you don't want to buy their list):

link

Listed by first letter:

link

Another list by "rule" category

link

Answer 2

Hi Jason try the site below. It shows the origins of words.

http://www.etymonline.com/

Thanks, but that doesn't really fit the bill. I was thinking of something that was specifically designed as a tool for learning Spanish or English. This site finds the grandfathers of words, not their foreign cousins. - Jason_Bryant, Oct 11, 2009

That site is useful if you want to find a lot of information about one particular word, but someone who is looking for help memorizing 10,000 words would spend more time trying to find common roots than it was worth. - Jason_Bryant, Oct 11, 2009