False friends

[Sunflower]

And I was told that "fika," the Swedish word for coffee break (with yummy coffee-cakes) means "flake of dried snot" in Hungarian. 

[Auleliel]

Czech yes (ano) sounds like Korean no (아니오 /anio/), and Czech no (ne) sounds like Korean yes (네 /ne/).

[Eriaror]

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.

[Blackjazz]

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!

Also, why do so many perfectly normal Swedish words sound like something gross in another language? XD

[viola]

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!

In Icelandic, hana means her

[Snommelp]

I know it's true in Norwegian, and I'm pretty sure it's true in the other Scandinavian languages, that "Jeg er full" means "I'm drunk." What makes that one extra confusing is that "full" in those languages can mean full, but not when talking about people in regards to food.

[Krisse Kovacs]

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.

Yes, it is true, like it was said before, I loved swedish how it could be funny more was!

There are some swedish-hungarian alike words
Igen - again - yes
Ingen - nothing - on the shirt
Far - father - butt
Var - be - scar
Is - ice - too/also
Falun - (swedish city) - on the countryside

Some similar but accents difference
Utan/után - without - after
Bok/Bók - book - compliment
Mig/míg - me - till/untill

Mostly short words... and I can't remmeber more with hungarian. .

[UFOO9000]

Oohh! I got some from learning a few Danish words that I found were really familiar in a very unfamiliar way !
Barn in Danish (and Swedish ? ) means Child.
And just because I'm trying to remember them I can't seem to find more...

As someone already mentioned, there is a french word for Seal (Phoque) that sounds a lot like an English swear word starting with F, and ending with -ck.

But in Québec we speak French, but our French is not really the same as most other places. we use words most people do not use the same way in the same freaking language.
Someone talked about the word Excited in french (excité), well in Québec we don't care. It has nothing to do with sex (most of the time, though we still joke about it)
Staying in the sexual stuff, in Quebec we say "capote, capoté" (over the top?) but anywhere else that speak French that is the word for condom.
Many words we use to insult someone are words that actually mean something completely different, again still in french, but we want to be special in Quebec. Most of these words can be translate with other words but these are the ones used as insults in Quebec : thin (plate), basement (cave), large (épais)

Must be more but those are the ones that I could find before going to bed XP

[Antillanka]

Haha good thread! I'm learning sooo much! Apparently, the Czech yes (ano) sounds like anus in Spanish... oh, goodness, the scandal !!!

Not to mention so many more that may lead to confusion from Spanish! Let's see:
Arma (weapon) vs. English "arm"
Excusado (toilet) vs. English "excused"
Obligado (forced to do sth.) vs. Portuguese "obrigado" (thank you)

It's specially funny when it comes to car model names! In Chile, they had to change the Mitsubishi model Pajero to Montero, because nobody would buy a car that basically said "wanker". Or the infamous Mazda Laputa (the whore)... or the Ford C-Max Turbo (I won't translate this one)....Or the Nissan Moco (snot)... Endless source of fun!

[viola]

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.

[Krisse Kovacs]

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)

also about paprika... my real name sounds totally like you say paprika, my dad used to call em paprika, I hated that also my real name.

[Sunflower]

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)

In U.S. English, "pepper" = both the spice (as in black pepper, Piper nigrum) and the fruit of the capsicum plant (though we usually add a modifier, e.g. bell pepper, chile pepper, etc.).  "Paprika" = the Hungarian spice, the dried, powdered form of a particular type of capsicum.

According to my cookbooks, bell peppers are "capsicums" in Australia, maybe also the U.K.  Probably for the best (since the confusion in U.S. English between the two peppers comes from the same source as calling Native Americans "Indians"). 

But good luck getting American consumers to get with the program.  For some people, today it's European cooking terms, tomorrow it's the metric system, globalism, and black helicopters...

[Solovei]

Don't even get me started on vegetable etymology ...

[JoB]

I am still confused about the names. I thoguht pepper was the only word, and paprika is hungarian for it

The 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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paprika#Etymology_and_history

The actual meanings attached to it are quite muddied, though. From a botanical/scientific point of view, you have peppers (genus Piper, family Piperaceae) which are hot thanks to the contained piperine, chilis (genus Capsicum, family Solanaceae) containing capsaicin, the special case of sweet paprika (Gemüsepaprika) which essentially had its capsaicin content reduced to near zero by breeding, and then some "peppers" which occasionally just look like other peppers.

But since historically, people didn't look into the details beyond "yum, spicy", we're now blessed with things like "paprika" being a hot spice in English but the sweet paprika fruit in German, "chili" and "pepper" being basically interchangeable in (particularly U.S.) English, South American chilis being often called "bird peppers" in German, etc. ad nauseam.

[Ana Nymus]

...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_T