One of the most common mistakes for well educated foreign English speakers is a misunderstanding of the cognate object.
They will say ‘the food tastes well’ recognising that taste is a verb and should therefore take the adverb ‘well’.
Native English speakers will say ‘the food tastes good’ but if pressed will consider it idiomatic and perhaps technically a mistake.
It is actually a form of the cognate object, where an object which is closely associated with the verb is understood and omitted intentionally. In this example the object is ‘a good taste’.
If you think of the difference between ‘the dog smells well’ and ‘the dog smells good’, which both have their own meaning, you can see the second example has a cognate object. The dog smells a good smell’ and ‘good’ is the correct adjectival form.
