False friend
False friends are pairs of
words in two
languages (or letters in two alphabets) that look and/or sound similar, but differ in meaning.
False cognates, by contrast, are similar words in different languages that appear to have a common historical linguistic origin (regardless of meaning) but actually do not. The phrase
false cognates is also sometimes used to mean
false friends.
Both false friends and false cognates can cause difficulty for students learning a foreign language, particularly one that is related to their
native language, because the students are likely to misidentify the words due to
language interference. Since false friends are a common problem for language learners, teachers sometimes compile lists of false friends as an aid for their students.
Comedy sometimes includes
puns on false friends, which are considered particularly amusing if one of the two words is
obscene; when an obscene meaning is produced in these circumstances, it is called cacemphaton (κακεμφάτον), Greek for 'bad-looking'.
From the
etymological point of view, false friends can be created in several ways:
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Cognates. If Language A borrowed a word from Language B, then in one language the word shifted in meaning or had more meanings added, a
native speaker of one language will face a false friend when learning the other. :: For example, the words
preservative (English),
Präservativ (German),
prezervativ (Romanian),
preservativo (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese) and
prezerwatywa (Polish) are all derived from the French
préservatif. However, in all of these languages except English, the predominant meaning of the word has become
condom, while the most common French word for "preservative" is now
conservateur.
Actual has a different meaning in English than in other European languages, where it means
current or
up-to-date, and has the logically derivative
verb to actualize meaning
to make current or
to update.
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Homonyms. In certain cases, false friends evolved separately in the two languages. Words usually change by small shifts in pronunciation accumulated over long periods and sometimes converge by chance on the same pronunciation or look despite having come from different roots.:: For example,
German Rat (=
council) is cognate with English
read and German
Rede (=
speech), while English
rat for the mammal, has its German cognate
Ratte.
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Different alphabets /
Homographs.:: For example,
Roman "P" came to be written like
Greek "
Rho" (written "Ρ" but pronounced as English "R"), so the Roman letter equivalent to rho was modified to "R" to keep it distinct.
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Pseudo-anglicisms. These are artificially created words constructed from elements borrowed from English, but whose
morphemes do not actually exist in English.::For example, in
German:
Oldtimer refers to an old car (or antique aircraft) rather than an old person,
Handy refers to a
mobile telephone, while
Beamer refers to a video projector, and not a
type of cricket delivery or a
BMW automobile. ::
Japanese is replete with pseudo-anglicisms, known as
wasei-eigo ("Japan-made English"). A particularly complicated one is the word
naitā which means night-time baseball game. It is derived from the American
twi-nighter which is short for
twi-night doubleheader, baseball slang meaning two games played by the same teams in a single day, one in the afternoon and the other in the evening, usually starting at twilight and continuing into the night. The Japanese
naitā is strictly Japanese baseball slang, and is unknown to American baseball fans. In English,
nitre is a name for
potassium nitrate.
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Idioms. Some phrases commonly used in one culture and language, may lose context when translated to another language, conveying a totally different meaning.::For example
I'll call you back means that I will call you at a later time, in reply to your call, or in a later attempt to call. However, translating literally to Spanish would end up in
Te hablaré para atrás, which actually means:
I'll call you backwards or
I'll talk you backwards. The correct translation would be
Te llamaré más tarde.
The
Parker Pen Company may have experienced a case of such confusion when they were trying to translate their slogan "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you" for the
Latino market. As they mistakenly thought
embarazar meant
to embarrass, the Spanish slogan was proudly displayed across Latin communities as: "It won't leak in your pocket and
impregnate you" (
to embarrass in Spanish is "avergonzar").
Words like "
hot dog" can come out lost in translation, and especially since words carry different connotations in different areas;
Richard Lederer, an author and professor of English, once went to
Germany and asked a vendor for a
heißer Hund (a literal translation of "hot dog"). The vendor broke out laughing, for in German,
heißer Hund suggests a dog
in heat (Germans use the English term "hot dog" as a
loan phrase).
This effect may also occur, where those with little experience of English could embarrass themselves by using a false cognate when speaking with a native English-speaker. For example, a Swede could mistakenly believe that the English equivalent to the
Swedish word
kock (which means "
cook" in English) is "cock". This could lead to an embarrassing situation if the Swede said something like "I like your cock" when attempting to express appreciation for the chef's cooking.
This could also happen if a person is unaware that the same word may have several different meanings. A person who likes
steak rare might order a "bloody steak", because the Swedish equivalent of "rare steak" is
blodig stek (
blodig meaning "bloody"). This might raise eyebrows at a
restaurant in the
United Kingdom, since "bloody" is also a mild expletive in that country, although most British waiters would understand the customer's request.
Mistakes can also occur between very closely related languages. In German,
Huren means "
whores", in Dutch
huren means "to rent", and
Huursoldaat means "
mercenary", not "whore soldier" (Actually, a mercenary is a soldier for hire, and a whore is someone for hire so the meaning is quite similar). In Swedish
rolig means "funny", whereas in Danish it means "quiet, calm" (a meaning reflected in
roligans, the nickname given to supporters of
Denmark's national football team), and the German adjective
rollig indicates a cat in heat and colloquially a person desperate for sex. Another example is that the Japanese word "大出血" means
big sale, while the same characters in Chinese mean
heavy bleeding.
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List of false friends*
Embarazada*
An online hypertext bibliography on false friends*
German/English false friends*
Spanish/English false friends*
French/English false friends*
Liste de faux amis et anglicismes*
Japanese/English false friends*
Hungarian/English false friends*
List of German/English false friends* [[wikibooks:False Friends of the Slavist|Bilingual lists of Slavic false friends]] (a comprehensive collection at Wikibooks)
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Chinese/Japanese false friends*
Where among others the various slogans (including English/German false friend "Mist") is discussed* {{cite book
first = Geoff | last = Parkes | coauthors = Cornell, Alan | year = 1992 | title = NTC's Dictionary of German False Cognates | publisher = National Textbook Company, NTC Publishing Group
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