Sunday 16 March 2014

False friends ;)

This morning I found on the web the site about false friends. False friends are pairs of words or phrases in two languages or dialects (or letters in two alphabets) that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning.I have been interested in this issue sometime, because I wanted to write the Bachelor thesis in Italian about this topic. This topic is very interesting and I can give a few examples of false friends (false amici) of the italian language. 
fare colazione (in Italian) means do breakfast, no robić kolację
divano means sofa, no dywan
tappeto means carpet, no tapeta
stipendio means salary, no stypendium
odore means smell, scent, flavour, no odór
firma means signature, no firma
droga means drug, no droga
mai means never, no maj
cura means care, no kura
camera means room, no kamera
ubicazione means site, no ubikacja 
rana means frog, no rana
canapa means hemp, no kanapa
impresa means firm, enterprise, no impreza

I can continue to exchange examples, but is not the point. There are also many false friends in English.
And finally I intercede a link to the web with the false friends in English:
False friends

 

2 comments:

  1. I have prepared a speech about false friends in various languages and sometimes it was hard for me to believe how different could be two almost the same words

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  2. even if I don't speak Italian, it's really interesting that there are so many similar words to Polish language, but theirs meaning is so different!

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