Guevara Loor, Daniel Israel2023-12-052023-12-052016-02-02https://repositorio.puce.edu.ec/handle/123456789/37809Tesis previa obtención del título de Licenciado/a en Lingüística Aplicada mención InglésThe words called "cognate" are found in different parts and languages around the world, knowing that their spelling and meaning look similar. Besides, they can help students with a wide range of vocabulary and reading comprehension tasks. However, it should be noted that words that seem alike, which are called false friends, require special attention: they have different meanings in all contexts. This research, which is based on cognates and false friends, focus on classifying, identifying and understanding the origin of such words and establishing how they have affected students in recent years in learning English as a foreign language. This study is qualitative and quantitative in order to get a comprehensive illustration of the difficulties encountered by students of the Catholic University in the city of Esmeraldas, who in some cases try to understand texts in English, but most are confused by certain words in the language known as "false friends." In order to complete the work on the identification of cognates and false-friends words, a diagnosis was preceded on the students’ knowledge regarding this issue, through a survey directed to all students of different careers at PUCESE. The main principal objective of this study was to determine what are the most common words called false friends of the English language that interfere the students’ reading understanding at PUCESE. The results showed that false friends that are derived from linguistics reciprocity and partly ignored by students are a major problem in their reading understanding. Based on the results, some conclusions were provided and some recommendations were given to both teachers and students of General English at PUCESE to handle such a problem. The results allowed the design of an educational material for learning English that will benefit the students.enHIGHER EDUCATION - vocabulary - READING - language learningThesis