False friends in English

What are false friends

In all languages we find words that are similar to those of our own language, which can lead us to confuse or assume meanings and, consequently, make mistakes when speaking or writing. In English we can find a great variety of words that are familiar to us and confuse the meaning, and sometimes they can even mean the complete opposite of what we wanted to express. These words are called False friends or false friends.

Main false friends in English

When we are learning a new language, such as English, our linguistic intuition can play a trick on us. This happens when we make a literal translation of the English word, obtaining totally erroneous translations that, for us, are totally correct. In the great majority of languages that have a more or less close relationship or that come from the same language, there are these words that at first glance are similar to some existing words in our language.

 

It is important to detect these false friends and to know their real meaning to avoid confusion. Let’s take a look at some examples to better understand what we mean and to see how similar some English words can be to Spanish words:

• 
  Advice
  means an advice and we think of it as a advice which in English translates to
  Warning
  .
• 
  Abstrac
  t means abstractbut could be confused by Abstract which in English is
  Abstract art
  .
• 
  Actually
  means in fact and could be confused with Actually which is actually
  Nowadays
  .
• Bank means banking institutionbut we could think of it as a public public seatwhich translates as
  Bench
  .
• Billion means billioneven if it looks like a billion. To talk about the billion we would say
  Trillion
  .
• Date means a date, but it is confused with datum, which in English is
  Data
  .
• 
  Library
  is a library, but it is mistaken for a book store which in this case is
  bookshop.
  

As you can guess, the list can be really long, but a trick that will help you to avoid this mistake is to be able to contextualize the words when we learn them.This will help us to avoid mistakes and, with practice, it will be easier to assimilate. Let’s take a look at some more examples.

• In a job interview you need to talk about your professional career, so the right word to use
  is
  
  “carrer”.
  
  .
  University studies are called
  degree.
  
• If you want to ask someone if they have a cold coldyou should use “
  to have a cold”.
  . Otherwise you are going to be asking him if he is constipated by using “constipated”.
• In case you want to complain about someone that is bothering you, you have to be very clear that you can’t say it as you think it, as you could make strong accusations. “Molest” in this case means harassment or aggression. Remember that the correct word in this case is “annoy” o “upset“ and avoid misunderstandings.
• When you want to explain the help you have received from someone or offer your own, you have to use “to assist”. “to assist. << The doctor assisted me in the morning>>. The doctor visited me this morning.