False friends

[Marianopolita]

There are many false friends in Spanish. A word may look like the English word but has a totally different meaning in Spanish.

This teacher and You Tuber is quite good. I have watched many of her videos about Spanish grammar and she does a good job at keeping her explanations simple. A lot of her videos are for beginners and even if you are past that level they are good to watch because they are interesting discussion topics.

Examples in the video: éxito, grosería, carpeta just to name a few.

-MP.

 

[Africaida]

interesting. In my case, because English is not my first language, I don't recognize as "false friends" since when I guess a word in Spanish it s based on French, it rarely fails me for obvious reasons.

I just looked at a list of "faux amis" but between French & Spanish. It s funny, I don't even make the connection anymore with the French false friend since I am familiar with most words on the list.

 

[Marianopolita]

Interesting and you should have an advantage with French because in most cases the nuance is the same since French and Spanish are of Latin language origin.

However, if you look at a list of false cognates English and Spanish one can see why people make these errors at least until they find out that what they are saying is incorrect or that they misinterpreted the meaning of a word. As well, when you add the US Spanglish to the mix it is even worse.

 

[NanSanPedro]

Interesting and you should have an advantage with French because in most cases the nuance is the same since French and Spanish are of Latin language origin.

However, if you look at a list of false cognates English and Spanish one can see why people make these errors at least until they find out that what they are saying is incorrect or that they misinterpreted the meaning of a word. As well, when you add the US Spanglish to the mix it is even worse.

Fuencia is a 10 level system with about 120 lessons per level. I guess at around Level 5 we had our first lesson on false cognates. The first 3 words in your post were covered!

 

[Marianopolita]

Fuencia is a 10 level system with about 120 lessons per level. I guess at around Level 5 we had our first lesson on false cognates. The first 3 words in your post were covered!

No doubt because they are classic examples. The video I posted has more examples BTW.

 

[Marianopolita]

This is a nice list worth reading

50+ Spanish-English false friends/cognates – Anything but language

-MP.

 

[Marianopolita]

Here is a very good list of true cognates that I found while browsing. This is the opposite meaning the Spanish word and English word do have the same meaning.

Cognados: 350 true cognates en inglés y en español - Yentelman

¿Sabíais que, aunque no hayáis estudiado inglés nunca, ya conocéis cientos de palabras en ese idioma? son los cognados (o cognates en inglés), palabras con la misma raíz y significado en dos idiomas distintos. Hoy os presento 350 de ellos.

www.yentelman.com

-MP.

 

[Marianopolita]

Here is a made up false cognate that started in the US I believe among bilingual speakers.

ganga= bargain

pandilla= gang


Many people use ganga to refer to a gang. 🤦🏻‍♀️