Are there specific false friends that are particularly tricky for English speakers

False friends are words in two languages that look or sound similar but differ significantly in meaning. These can be particularly tricky for English speakers, especially when learning languages that share many cognates with English, such as Spanish, French, or German. Here are some specific false friends that often cause confusion:

1. Spanish False Friends:

   • Embarazada: This word might be mistaken for “embarrassed,” but it actually means “pregnant” in Spanish ¹.
   • Actual: In Spanish, actual means “current” or “present,” not “actual” as in factual or real ⁷.

2. French False Friends:

   • Actuellement: This means “currently,” not “actually” ⁴.
   • Assister: In French, it means “to attend,” not “to assist” ⁴.

3. German False Friends:

   • Gift: In German, this means “poison,” not a present or gift.
   • Chef: This translates to “boss” in German, not a cook ⁶.

4. Italian False Friends:

   • Sensibile: In Italian, this means “sensitive,” not sensible as in practical or reasonable.
   • Fattoria: This means “farm,” not factory ⁶.

5. Portuguese False Friends:

   • Pasta: In Portuguese, it refers to a folder or file, not the Italian dish.
   • Gravar: Means “to record,” not to engrave ⁶.

These false friends can lead to misunderstandings and errors in communication if learners assume the meanings based solely on their English counterparts. It’s important for language learners to be aware of these pitfalls and learn the correct meanings and usages of such words in context.

References

• THE USE OF THE INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET (I.T.A.) FOR ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH PHONOLOGY, VOCABULARY, GRAMMAR, READING, AND WRITING BY SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES

• Semantic Analysis of «False- Friends»: A Case Study of English and Siin Seereer

• English loanwords in Hong Kong Cantonese: false friend cognates and English vocabulary acquisition

• Some examples from a corpus investigation of potentially confusing polysemy and false friends in the terminology of music, centred on English and French, with equivalents in five other languages

• The influence of first language polysemy and first language and second language lexical frequencies on second language learners’ use of false cognates

• On “False Friends” in the Field of Economics

• ight SPANISH-ENGLISH FALSE FRIENDS : POSSIBLE PROBLEMS FOR THE NIGERIAN LEARNER OF SPANISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE Purity

• TRANSLATION OF FALSE FRIENDS AMONG B2 LEVEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS