There are so many types of friends.
Old friends
Best friends
Lifelong friends
School friends
Family friends
Good friends
Loyal friends
Mutual friends.
The list goes on and on.
But…
How could I have forgotten to mention false friends?
Friends that seem to be your friends.
Friends you think you can trust.
Friends that stab you in the back.
Friends who trip you up when you least expect it.
Friends who make you look stupid.
Friends you don’t really know.
And they are not even people.
They are WORDS.
Treacherous,
slippery,
double-crossing,
deceptive and unreliable
WORDS
You see them, (and let’s be honest), they look or sound similar to words in your own language. You’d imagine they would mean the same as the words in your language.
Right?
But you’d be wrong.
Very.
VERY.
WRONG.
And of course, the people you are communicating with will be confused.
And think you are not very bright.
Which, as we know, isn’t true. IS IT?
So be ALERT!
Don't be fooled by appearances.
These false friends are cruel.
They don’t care about you.
They are not trying to help, quite the opposite.
They wait for you in the shadows.
They know when you are uncertain.
They can hear it in your voice.
They can feel your hesitancy.
And that, my friends, is when they pounce.
Just like a leopard trapping its prey.
Or a black widow spider.
Or a scorpion.
Oh. And we trip.
And we stumble.
And we fall.
RIGHT INTO THEIR TRAP.
Again, and again and again.
I have to admit that I find false friends intriguing.
And fascinating.
In fact, I’m a false friend hunter.
I love finding new examples.
And funny stories, where false friends made the people who used them look very, let’s just say… foolish.
Even me.
Especially me!
I am the KING of being tricked by FALSE FRIENDS.
But let’s start this trip down memory lane with my friend Louise.
When I was a student, I was lucky enough to spend one whole year in Barcelona, learning Spanish. It is a beautiful language, but it too has false friends. One day, some new Irish students arrived at my university and we became firm friends.
Real friends.
In fact, you might be surprised to know that we are still friends today.
I love those girls!
One day, my friend Louise was going to the local market and offered to pick up anything I might need. For some unknown reason, I asked her to buy me some pears (peras in Spanish). And so, off she went. And I went to my classes looking forward to having some fresh juicy pears for dessert that evening. Or at least, that’s what I thought I’d be having.
However, Louise’s Spanish wasn’t the best at the time and well, when I got home from my classes, there were four big leeks sitting on the kitchen table.
L-E-E-K-S
Obviously, at first, I didn’t know why there were four leeks just lying there.
I mean, why would I?
Then my flatmates told me that Louise had left them for me. Now, I was a bit confused.
But clearly, not as confused as Louise had obviously been when she was shopping at the market. She swears she said “peras”, but she must have pronounced it as “puerros” which is the Spanish word for leeks. When she was handed the leeks, Louise was too mortified to point out the mistake.
So, she took the leeks, and just left.
But the pears and leaks are not the false friends in this story. They are just innocent bystanders.
Let’s get back to Louise.
When my flatmates heard the story, they laughed so much.
They made her say the word “peras”, over and over again.
¡Peras!
¡Peras!
¡PERAS!
She seemed to be saying it right. How could she have gotten it so wrong at the market?
In the middle of all the laughter and bemusement, Louise blushed and exclaimed:
“¡Estoy embarazada!”
Suddenly, the laughter stopped.
Silence fell, and we all realised that Louise had done it again.
That is, gone and said the wrong thing.
All of the English speakers in the room knew what she’d meant to say.
It was clear. She was very embarrassed.
But… had she chosen the right word in Spanish?
My flatmates looked at me and mouthed “¿Embarazada?”
You could tell they were shocked.
She was only 20.
And single.
It was the 90s. In Spain.
They didn’t quite know what to believe.
Could it be true?
Could she really be PREGNANT? You see, much as you might want to believe that “embarazada” is embarrassed in English, it is NOT. Not even close. If you are “embarazada”, you have a bun in the oven or an itsy-bitsy bambino on the way. And, as far as we all knew, Louise did not.
Thanks to the false friend, we all learned something new that day.
We learned that when you are embarrassed in Spanish, you are ‘avergonzado/a’.
You only use ‘embarazada’ if you are a woman and when you really are pregnant.
And there is nothing to be embarrassed about.
On another occasion, yours truly, (that’s me), had everybody in fits of laughter at the supermarket when I asked if they had jam without ‘preservativos’. I was trying to eat natural foods and avoid preservatives and added artificial colourings and flavourings. What I didn´t realise, however, was that the Spanish word ‘preservativo’ is none of these things. It is something you aren’t likely to find in a pot of jam.
Unless, that is, you like condom jam.
If you don’t know the word condom, the illustration might help.
Oops! What a HUGE mistake!
The idea is ludicrous.
And hilarious.
After my mistake was pointed out to me, I was mortified.
I was embarrassed.
But, I wasn’t EMBARAZADA.
I knew for sure that I wasn´t embarazada. Thanks to Louise and her false friend.
Nevertheless, I didn´t go shopping for a week after this and my confidence was shaken.
Those goddam false friends.
Now, let’s down to the nitty-gritty.
There are false friends for every language on God’s great earth.
If your mother tongue is Swahili, there will be false friends with English.
If your mother tongue is Swedish and you are learning English, false friends will also manage to trick you oug!
Watch our Spaniards! Our “carpets” and your ‘carpetas’ have nothing in common. We put carpets on our floors and you keep documents safe in your folders or ‘carpetas’.
Be careful Germans! In English, “mist” is a low-lying cloud that limits visibility. In German, however, it is a noisy and sometimes smelly emission of gas from a person’s or animal´s ass. Yes, a “fart”.
Oh… and you Russians, they will be tripping you up at every step. Be careful with the word Фарт. The word ‘fart’ may mean “luck” in Russian, but in English, bidding people “Good fart” will draw lots of confused looks.
It’s time to take control.
It’s time to find all the false friends and to render them powerless.
Learn all about them.
And don’t be tricked by them ever again.
The ball is in your court.
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