False friends

[Haiz]

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.

[Fimbulvarg]

oh, and 'fart' is the norwegian word for speed.

And 'smell' means collision, as per the legendary Solbergism ("I came with a great fart and ending in a smell").

[JoB]

in Swedish, Öl means Beer.
but in Hungarian Öl means “it kills”

And in German, oil. I suggest y'all watch what drink you're ordering.

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 fart trip).

[Laufey]

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".

[Krisse Kovacs]

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".

Pusz-pusz (puss-puss) is literally the sound of kisses in hungarian as well.

in english, you call cats as Pussy, which literally sounds like "Puszi" in hungarian, which means "kiss".

let's just give cats love~<3

[zetkaj]

On the cat topic, cat is pronounced the same as kat, which means an executioner (like a medieval one, or just used on someone who is cruel), while Polish word for cat (kot) is pronounced like cot...I never thought about it much before that discussion;;;
(And you call the cat with 'kici-kici', but I doubt it would be a false friend anwhere)

[Helia]

(And you call the cat with 'kici-kici', but I doubt it would be a false friend anwhere)

It depends on the pronunciation.
'kicsi' (kichi) means small or little in Hungarian.
'kis' (kish) has the same meaning, and it's also a common family name written with double 's': Kiss

we call a cat by saying 'cicc' (tsits...)

[Blackjazz]

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."

.......

She laughed very, very hard.

(Also, this --> 비 means "rain" in Korean, and is pronounced "pee". )

[Nimphy]

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)

[Blackjazz]

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.

[Krisse Kovacs]

I have some not-that-nice one, some english words, that sounds something kind of bad in hungarian

Spoiler: show

in hungarian the cookie sounds like "kuki", which means weenie/willy
also whenever I say "of us" it sounds like I say "ó fasz" which means "oh dick", not the nicest.

[Daéa Reina]

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.

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.

[Pessi]

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.

On the other hand the Finnish word kone, "machine", is a very rude word in Italian, or so I've heard. The Finnish elevator company KONE had to develope another name for operating on the Italian market.

Between Finnish and Estonian there are a lot of false friend words since the languages are really near relatives but have borrowed words from different directions. One example I learned at university (and which therefore is probably more trustwothy than the myriad of made up ones I know) is that when an Estonian says he is going to "koristaa ruumiid" he means he's going to tidy up the rooms. However in Finnish "koristaa" means "to decorate" and "ruumiit" (which is how the Estonian "ruumiid" sounds to Finnish ears) means "corpses", so a misunderstanding is almost unavoidable.

Funnily enough there are quite many false friends between Finnish and Japanese too. Some examples are "hana" which in Japanese means a flower but in Finnish a faucet, "kita", Japanese north, Finnish maw, and "kasa", Japanese umbrella, Finnish pile.

[Mélusine]

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.

[Krisse Kovacs]

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.

I think that word is the "Persze", we often use it in repeat also, it means "of course", but in Finnish (perse) is not the nices word to repeat!