False friends

[JoB]

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_T

And the respective plants are called "bird pepper"s because the two-legged mammals were so astonished to see birds happily gobble the fruit up.

AFAIK capsaicin "works" only on mammals. "Pepper" sprays - also capsaicin based - definitely fail to turn away crocs or sharks.

[Synthpopalooza]

One false friend that sticks in my mind, is what came up on a duolingo lesson once ...

"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).

[Solovei]

One false friend that sticks in my mind, is what came up on a duolingo lesson once ...

"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).

Relatedly, and maybe more confusingly: kon dog = the cow died

[Pessi]

The name of Turkey's capital city, Ankara, tends to make Finnish school kids smile on geography lessons since the Finnish word ankara means "severe, strict". Same goes for Lima in Peru since lima is the Finnish word for phlegm.

[Helia]

Talking of capital cities...

Oslo sounds like 'oszló' in Hungarian, which means 'festering, decaying'.

[Synthpopalooza]

I always found this one disconcerting

Cookie in swedish is "kaka" ... which in English, is a slang term for feces.

You mentioned Ankara ... in Swedish, this is close to the word "Anka" or Duck.

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".

[Snommelp]

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".

I always screw up glas/glass. Though now that you point out the difference, it's clear enough that it follows the same "rule" as English desert/dessert: double s on the delicious food, because that's the one you want more of.

[Kizzy]

There's a Syrian/Turkish sweet called rahat (aka Turkish delight), and rahat in Romanian means "poop". So one time my Romanian friend was offered one by her mom; cue my friend's incredulous reaction 

[Haiz]

Talking of capital cities...

Oslo sounds like 'oszló' in Hungarian, which means 'festering, decaying'.

sounds accurate

every single czech person i know makes fun of the norwegian bye: hade (actually 'ha det'), because 'hade' would be calling someone a snake in czech.

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.

otherwise, I recently discovered a book in the apartment called "hora hore"....... hora means mountain in czech. in norwegian, it's a slur aimed against women.

also 'most' means bridge in czech. BRIDGE BEST

Oh and one last one for now, ost is norwegian for cheese. Which is funny when OST usually means "Original SoundTrack".
"Hey do you have that cd with the frozen CHEESE?"

[Laufey]

Pfffttt bridge best...

I thought of another one between Finnish and Icelandic: in the latter, "píka" is a rude word for female genitalia. The first vowel is pronounced is long, which makes the word sound like the Finnish "piika", a wench.

It doesn't end here though: the word "pika" means "fast" in Finnish and is used on f.ex. express buses. You can imagine my Icelandic friends' reactions to seeing something like this for the first time.

[Dane Murgen]

I have a couple of stuffs:

1) The word for cow in Spanish and Filipino/Tagalog is vaca/baka which may or may not sound like the Japanese insult, if my anime knowledge is correct.

2) The word for milk in Filipino is gatas which is Spanish for female cats.

3) In Maori, there is a special way of cooking food by using heated rocks to cook the food underground called a hangi (though there is a macron over the a). I believe hangi is the word for hang or some equivalent in Icelandic. It is also which in Turkish I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

4) Ano means what in Filipino, um in Japanese, yes in Czech and sounds like no in Korean apparently.

5) Um in Mandarin ( 那个) sounds like a slur for an African-American in English slang (I say it not for fear of censors).

[zetkaj]

also 'most' means bridge in czech. BRIDGE BEST

Why haven't I made that connection before...Now I can't unsee it. (most means bridge in Polish too!)

On the topic of the capital cities:Rabat means 'discount' in Polish. It leads to the most awful puns (bad jokes? I don't know what English word would be good), like that one:

"Dear Clients, in case you wanted to ask about a discount (rabat), we hereby inform that it is a capital of Morocco".
....this is terrible and I am kinda ashamed.


_{(pstt, Synthpopalooza-Polish diacritics work on the forums now, just in case you wanted to add 'em to your signature!)}

[viola]

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.

I read this on the internet, so I'm not sure if it's true, but it's funny so I'll share. If I am wrong, someone please correct me.

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.

Edit: Confirmed by Laufey below

[Haiz]

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.....

in a similar vein, I don't reeeally want my czech friends to call me Haiz, because that can very quickly be turned into hajzl/hajzlik, either a word meaning jerk or slang for toilet. SIGHS

[Laufey]

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.....

I know the feeling... in regards what píka means in Icelandic, guess what Pikachu sounds like.

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.

Hahaha, I guess I can see how it would happen. In Finnish you'd have to define that the thing that's blowing is wind, because else it sounds like a human action: "tuuli puhalsi puun nurin" = the wind blew the tree over. "Puu puhallettiin nurin" = someone huffed and puffed and blew the tree over.