If I understand your question correctly, between English and Italian is “camera”. In Italian it means “room”, not a device for photographs.

I know that 先生 also used to mean “teacher” in Mandarin, but slowly changed to the generic honorific. Obviously that change has taken place after Japan stopped borrowing words from Chinese.

The one that springs to mind is the German bekommen v the English to become.

EN DE

to become werden

to get bekommen

They are basically the same word and at one point might’ve meant the same. Now there is no common meaning.

Not exactly written the same, but in Catalan a cold with nose congestion is called a constipat or costipat (similarly constipado in Spanish).

Of course this can mean a very bad day¹ for you if you’re in an English speaking country and know some but not enough English, and, trying to find the right word, ask the nearest pharmacist for some over the counter medicine for your “constipation”.

More of an outright enemy than a false friend, really.

1. Blowing off both ends with every sneeze kind of bad, probably.

I’m going to spoiler tag this because it’s a slur but I’ve always found this one the most comical

To add a funny one:

(Hint for Americans: the joke makes more sense if you pronounce it with a British accent)

The Scandinavian languages are very similar and we can usually understand each other pretty well just using our native tongues, though there are some funny traps and false friends. Norwegians are entertained that in Sweden we drink “bärs” (beer), because it sounds exactly like “baesj” (shit). And are astounded that we can “pula” with almost anything, as in “tinker/fiddle around” in Swedish and “fucking” in Norwegian. Oh yeah, a Norwegian ex gf found it hilarious that we have “rågkusar” (a type of rye bread) in the stores, as “kusa” in norwegian mean “cunt”. Also in Swedish a common slang word for shoes is “dojor/dojer”, which on the west coast of norway is very similar to “daejer” that means tits. So don’t go in a shoe store asking for a nice pair of “dojer” unless you know exactly what you are doing.

On a sidenote, I must give credit to the best Swedish word I know; “Skamsköljning”. Literally “shame-rinsing”. As in remembering something stupid you did and the feeling of shame washing over you. In Norwegian it is probably “pule-svejs”, fuck-haircut. The funny hair you have after a good banging.

Greek: Ναι (ne) means yes. Greeks often move their head up and down to say yes.
Bulgarian: Не (ne) means no. Bulgarians often move their head up and down to say no.

So if someone says ne and moves their head up and down it could be a Greek saying yes or a Bulgarian saying no. In reality the movements are not the same but it would probably be confusing to an outsider.

mare:

• french: pond
• english: female horse
• italian: ocean
• dutch: message

P.S the word for what you’re describing is either homonym (spelled the same, sounds the same) or a heteronym (spelled the same, sounds different). Wiktionary has a good table

“Rapaz” = Guy, as in a young man, in Galician / Bird of prey in Spanish.

Some of those you listed are closely related for a reason though, or are actually the same, in a sense. So I’m not sure they’re different enough to really be considered false friends? Especially if you look at older shared uses and meanings. Even within Mandarin, you have the same type of differences. 計算機 for calculator or computer, but computers are calculators (compute and calculate are synonymous to begin with).

A Mandarin professor explained in my class that 先生 was used in the past to address teachers. Both Korean and Japanese still use 先生 to address teachers, but they can also use it to address other people in a highly respectful manner too (i.e., like ‘mister’). But mainland Chinese eventually started using 老師 for some reason. Technically, 先生 doesn’t literally mean teacher anyway. The job title in Japan is 教師.

Even if they’re a bit different, most of them are easy to connect the dots. Like

新聞: news -> newspaper 約束: promises bind and constrain us 文句: technically does mean ‘phrase’, but its use as ‘grumbling’ (i.e., complaint) seems to have become more common 白鳥: swans are white birds, yeah? 氷箱: a box of ice is just a primitive method of refrigeration, no? 邪魔: this one comes from Buddhism, so the meaning is actually originally the same, but instead of just wicked spirits that hinder you from reaching enlightenment, it came to mean any hindrance in general 猪: pigs are domesticated subspecies of boars 走: ‘run’ is the original meaning of this character 首: still used for head in some contexts 床: still means bed in some contexts

In German, we’ve somehow adopted the English word “Handy” to refer to mobile phones. Problem is, if you actually use it as a noun in an English sentence, it’s a slang word for “handjob”. 🫠

| 手紙 | Letter (mail) | Toilet Paper |

Mood

To search in Polish (szukać) means to fuck in Czech (same pronouncing, probably spelled differently because they are smarter and use š).

Čerstvy in Czech means fresh in Polish its old and dry (think of bread).

Spanish and Italian have a few funny ones:

Burro: Donkey (Spanish) / Butter (Italian)

Porro: joint (of weed, you know) / Leek

Orto: Ass (not everywhere, but where I lived, it had that meaning) / vegetable garden

There’s probably more, but these come to mind now.