This also reminded me of another old favourite of mine, the Finnish word "hallitus" (= government), which amuses Estonians on occasion. In Estonian - if memory serves - it means mold. :D
edit: hang on, remembered another one! The czech word for snot, "sopel", sounds a lot like the norwegian word for garbage, "søppel". Not too alike, but it lead to my little brother once yelling "I DON'T HAVE GARBAGE IN MY NOSE" at my grandma onceIt is the same (I guess?) as the Polish sopel, though. Which means icicle.
Ooh, I know a Spanish one! "Embarazada" sounds like "embarassed", but it really means "pregnant". That was a fun Spanish class when we all found out about it (after having thought it was a cognate for years). :P
On a related note:my big confusion as a kid was the word jahoda, which means a strawberry in Czech, but is almost identical to Polish word for blueberry (jagoda). I spent some time wondering why is this blueberry icecream pink.WHAT! Jagoda means blueberry? I have been mistaken all this time??
oh, and 'fart' is the norwegian word for speed.
in Swedish, Öl means Beer.And in German, oil. I suggest y'all watch what drink you're ordering.
but in Hungarian Öl means “it kills”
The french word for seal is phoque, which doesn't look like a false friend but when said out loud sounds extremely similar to a four letter English explicative starting with the letter F.That latter's spelt with an "i" in German, while Swedish uses "fick-" to indicate something that goes into your pockets - including duplicating the concept of a child's allowance being called "pocket money", "Taschengeld" in German, "fickpeng" in Swedish.
oh, and 'fart' is the norwegian word for speed.In German, "Fahrt" means drive, travel or something to that effect, and gets used quite frequently. My father once got asked by his U.S. boss to please explain the term "Rundfahrt" (round
I just remembered an awesome cat-related one that works two ways:
In English you'd call a cat by saying "puss-puss". In Finnish that sounds like a kiss-y sound, as one word for a kiss is pusu. Finns call a cat by saying "kis-kis".
(And you call the cat with 'kici-kici', but I doubt it would be a false friend anwhere)
This is off the current topic, but it has to be said.
The worst false friend that I still have trouble dealing with is "excited." In English it means all sorts of wonderful things and I use it all the time, but in French and Spanish it means that you are, um, sexually aroused.
During a grammar exercise once I turned to my Peruvian friend and said "La familia está excitada."
Yes. Been there, with Italian too (as far as I know it can mean both excited and sexually aroused)
Dictionaries say that they can mean the same thing, but my experience with native speakers has been so awkward that I avoid it like the plague. Heh. I was a little scarred by my experience.
And unless someone comes around telling me it's perfectly fine in Portuguese, I'm going to believe it's like that for all romance languages, just to be on the safe side. :)
The worst false friend that I still have trouble dealing with is "excited." In English it means all sorts of wonderful things and I use it all the time, but in French and Spanish it means that you are, um, sexually aroused.I disagree :) You have the two meanings in french.
A Hungarian woman living in Finland once said to me there were some funny situations when she had just moved here and spoke Hungarian with her husband in public. There seems to be an often repeated, totally innocent Hungarian word that sounds exactly like the Finnish vulgar word for human bottom.
And I was told that "fika," the Swedish word for coffee break (with yummy coffee-cakes) means "flake of dried snot" in Hungarian.I can confirm that. I actually chuckled when I've first seen that Swedish word. :D
No, Portuguese has this same problem. When trying to translate the word "excited" it is better to come up with a synonym, or everyone will look at you weird.
I disagree :) You have the two meanings in french.Yeah... I still do not trust the word. I will simply be "super contente" for the rest of my life.
Some examples are "hana" which in Japanese means a flower but in Finnish a faucet...And in Korean, the same word is the number one!
Some examples are "hana" which in Japanese means a flower but in Finnish a faucet
And in Korean, the same word is the number one!
And I was told that "fika," the Swedish word for coffee break (with yummy coffee-cakes) means "flake of dried snot" in Hungarian.
I can confirm that. I actually chuckled when I've first seen that Swedish word. :D
Paprika is a pepper in Icelandic and a spice in English. This lead to some confusion at Subway when my friend from Iceland asked for paprika on her sandwich and was told they didn't have any, even though she could see the peppers right in front of us.
I am still confused about the names. I thoguht pepper was the only word, and paprika is hungarian for it, when I heard using paprika in english and I thought they were just taking the hungarian word (hetalia's hungary kept using that word, and I thought it was hungarian) but I am still unsire what pepper and paprika in english.
both paprika (as english word) and pepper seems to mean same in hungarian (paprika)
I am still confused about the names. I thoguht pepper was the only word, and paprika is hungarian for itThe term "paprika" did indeed originate from older names for pepper, with the more remote languages (like English) typically having obtained it through Hungarian and German.
...South American chilis being often called "bird peppers" in German, etc. ad nauseam.
Fun fact: Birds can't taste spiciness because the capsaicin doesn't affect them. Which is why squirrels will stay away from your chili pepper garden, but the birds will eat them all. T_TAnd the respective plants are called "bird pepper"s because the two-legged mammals were so astonished to see birds happily gobble the fruit up. :D
One false friend that sticks in my mind, is what came up on a duolingo lesson once ...Relatedly, and maybe more confusingly: kon dog = the cow died
"Min hund dog i morse."
Which is Swedish for:
"My dog died yesterday."
Seeing "hund" and "dog" in the same sentence is disconcerting, when you realise "dog" is the past tense of "dö" (die).
Then there is "Glass" ... the same word in Swedish, means Ice Cream. Jag äter glass ... gives me horrid images of someone eating broken shards of glass. The actual word for glass in Swedish is "glas" (one s). So, to say "a glass of ice cream" in Swedish, it is "en glas glass".
Talking of capital cities...sounds accurate
Oslo sounds like 'oszló' in Hungarian, which means 'festering, decaying'.
also 'most' means bridge in czech. BRIDGE BESTWhy haven't I made that connection before...Now I can't unsee it. (most means bridge in Polish too!)
also this probably doesn't really count as false friends, but norwegian/english speakers say "on the tv" and "take the bus", right? But if you say the same thing in czech, people will look very weird at you. In czech you can't say on the tv, you have to say in the tv, otherwise you mean something that is literally on top of the tv box. And if you say 'take the bus', they will imagine you just grabbing a bus under your arm like and go.
hah, I remembered another one. The word 'peach' is pronounced very similar to a czech cussword, which I realized VERY QUICKLY by playing as princess peach in mario kart with my czech friends.....
So in English you can say "the tree was blown over" and a person would have the image of some fierce wind blowing the tree over, but if you said the same thing in Finnish, I read that it would imply a group of people got together and blew the tree over.
Talking of capital cities...
Oslo sounds like 'oszló' in Hungarian, which means 'festering, decaying'.
I remember going to an American store w/my father when I was little, and this little gift store had opened up nearby. Now in English, "gift" means present, while in German, when capitalized, it's poison. Needless to say I got wide-eyed (because I spoke barely any English at the time) and he laughed and explained it me. ;Dahahahaaa in Norwegian, gift can mean BOTH poison AND married, no difference in pronounciation or spelling, how's that for a false friend
I now imagine a sadistic owner selling poisoned chocolates as presents. >_>
ahahahaaa in Norwegian, gift can mean BOTH poison AND married, no difference in pronunciation or spelling, how's that for a false friendGoodness that is horribly awesome! ;D
One word with multiple meanings is often in hungarianThere is a similar thing in English. Any number of the word "buffalo" can be put together to make a grammatically correct sentence, because it has a different meaning as an adjective, noun, and verb. As an adjective it means "from the city of Buffalo, New York". As a noun it means a large animal also known as a bison. And as a verb it has a meaning similar to "bully".
Követ követ követ (seems/sounds same words 3 times, but no)
There is a similar thing in English. Any number of the word "buffalo" can be put together to make a grammatically correct sentence, because it has a different meaning as an adjective, noun, and verb. As an adjective it means "from the city of Buffalo, New York". As a noun it means a large animal also known as a bison. And as a verb it has a meaning similar to "bully".
So the sentence " Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo" would mean the same as "Bison from New York bully some other group of bison." I think the most famous example of this kind of sentence has nine words, all "buffalo".
There is a similar thing in English. Any number of the word "buffalo" can be put together to make a grammatically correct sentenceAs demonstrated here (http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2014/06/26/0593-buffalo-buffalo/), and shown for German (http://www.sandraandwoo.com/woode/2014/06/26/0593-weiche-weichen/) as well by the same author. :)
English is a retarded language.
English is a retarded language.
Don't forget about our lovely pronunciation rules. I don't know if this has been posted somewhere else, but here:
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~xleroy/stuff/english-pronunciation.html (http://pauillac.inria.fr/~xleroy/stuff/english-pronunciation.html)
english has a pronounciation rule??? I thought it is like "pronounce how you like"
english has a pronounciation rule??? I thought it is like "pronounce how you like"
Not so much a rule per se, but each word has its own pronunciation, and it's pretty much always consistent. Letters and their combinations, though? laughs and throws all pronunciation guides out the windowThey actually had a whole category on Jeopardy tonight called "Words that should rhyme"
Really, the only ways to learn English pronunciation are either to memorize the pronunciation of every word (which native speakers naturally do anyway) or to figure out the root language of the word and figure it out from there. But yeah, there aren't actual rules because:
Through, though, and cough - they don't rhyme.
Pony and bologna - they rhyme.
welcome to English pronunciation, everyone...
As demonstrated here (http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2014/06/26/0593-buffalo-buffalo/), and shown for German (http://www.sandraandwoo.com/woode/2014/06/26/0593-weiche-weichen/) as well by the same author. :)
They actually had a whole category on Jeopardy tonight called "Words that should rhyme"
And just to show how contrary English can be here are some Janus words:
Surma can actually just mean death in Finnish as well. It's an old way of saying it but not so old that Finns wouldn't easily understand it - other than that it can mean manslaughter as well (but not murder, murder = murha).
You forgot the best one though:
:finland: hallitus = the government
:estonia: hallitus = rotten/moldy food
Also the Estonian way of saying "Sit next to me" (Istu mu kõrval) sounds really similar as the Finnish "Sit on my d[forum cencor]"... thankfully it only looks like "Sit on my ear" when written.
So as you guys may or may not know I'm writing a Fanfic, and I need help with a list of words that would crop up fairly commonly in the SSSS crews conversions and be confusing to an English speaker. Kinda like 'they're talking about what now?' And vice-versa. Thank you in advance!You would primarily have to watch out for Swedish/Danish/Norwegian; being Germanic languages, they share a fair number of common origins with English. I have this list, it might offer a good starting point:
You would primarily have to watch out for Swedish/Danish/Norwegian; being Germanic languages, they share a fair number of common origins with English. I have this list, it might offer a good starting point:
Swedish-English false friends (http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_%C3%B6ver_falska_v%C3%A4nner_mellan_svenska_och_engelska)
Finnish is from a totally different language family an shouldn't have too much in common as far as I know.
Finnish is from a totally different language family an shouldn't have too much in common as far as I know.Non sequitur, I'm afraid. Just because Finnish and (say) Swedish cannot possibly have a word "X" in common, complete with etymology and meaning, doesn't mean that they could not possibly have a false friend "X" between them which just happens to sound / be spelt the same.
So as you guys may or may not know I'm writing a Fanfic, and I need help with a list of words that would crop up fairly commonly in the SSSS crews conversions and be confusing to an English speaker. Kinda like 'they're talking about what now?' And vice-versa. Thank you in advance!
So as you guys may or may not know I'm writing a Fanfic, and I need help with a list of words that would crop up fairly commonly in the SSSS crews conversions and be confusing to an English speaker. Kinda like 'they're talking about what now?' And vice-versa. Thank you in advance!I did do some work which included a canadian and some americans, so I know of some.
Here are a few Estonian and Finnish ones:
Estonian says: Onk kaik ruumit koristellu?
What a Finn hears: Are all the corpses decorated?
What the Estonian actually said: Are all the rooms cleaned?
"Kanava" means "Channel" in Suomi, but in Russian it means "Ditch". Well, at least one common word in our languages...Haha, that’s interesting, I’ve never heard of this one.
Also I wonder if there's more of such words in "karjalan kieli" (Karelian)
- Random find while trying to work my way out of said rabbit hole: While English would allow to call the thing an ottoman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_(furniture)) instead, the German term Ottomane (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottomane) (top photo only, the second's just to illustrate the false English friend) requires enough length to lie down on it, and the presence of curved armrests, if not a (partial or full) backrest as well.
And also they were foreign, which means they were weird/strange/unknown to the Russians
"ja" means "and" in Finnish but "yes" in German.
PS: Another false friend here.... I'm a bit confused there. Yuri (later: George) Roerich is labelled a tibetologist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_de_Roerich) on Wikipedia, with "painter" and "writer" (and a lot more) being occupations attributed to his father Nicholas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Roerich). Also, Rurik (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik) (etymologically connected to the first name Roderick) reportedly was a Varangian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangians) (so, a Viking hailing from Sweden) and is theorized to possibly be the same person as king Rorik of Dorestad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorik_of_Dorestad); only the latter would connect him to Frisia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisia) ...
There are two big figures in Russian history, who's names are written wrong in Russian and sound different that way, but, being written right, sound the same way:
Roerich of Frisland - the primogen of our royal family, and Yuri Roerich - XX-century artist.
Now that I think about it, prima is a really interesting Dutch word, which originally comes from the Italian word, but doesn't carry the usual meaning of 'first'. Apparently it was originally used in trading to indicate that goods were of prima kwaliteit(prime quality), and from there it came to mean 'excellent' in a more general sense. Nowadays it's not only used to mean 'excellent', but also 'fine' as in 'that's fine, no problem'. It's a very common word in everyday conversation, and one that hardly seems to be thought of as a loan word.
Now that I think about it, prima is a really interesting Dutch word, which originally comes from the Italian word, but doesn't carry the usual meaning of 'first'. Apparently it was originally used in trading to indicate that goods were of prima kwaliteit(prime quality), and from there it came to mean 'excellent' in a more general sense. Nowadays it's not only used to mean 'excellent', but also 'fine' as in 'that's fine, no problem'. It's a very common word in everyday conversation, and one that hardly seems to be thought of as a loan word.
In german prima is used exactly as in dutch. It is a little bit confusing, when learning italian.
Rrrrrrrrrrradio reloj (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzgjiPBCsss). :D
:finland: Talo = House | :estonia: Talu = Farm
:finland: Viineri = Pastry | :estonia: Viiner = A sausage
:finland: Linna = Castle | :estonia: Linn = City
:finland: Kaupunki = City | :estonia: Kaup = Product
:finland: Kalju = Bald | :estonia: Kalju = Cliff
:finland: Pikku = Small | :estonia: Pikk = Long
And finally:
:finland: Katso = to look | :estonia: Katsu = touch
That was an especially difficult one for my classmates to remember. Turned an innocent schooltext about a visit to the ophthalmologist into a horror story about doctors poking the patients in their eye. :D