I know for instance, between Japanese & Mandarin there are a few words that are written the same despite them being pronounced differently along with having different meanings altogether:
| Word | Japanese Definition | Mandarin Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 手紙 | Letter (mail) | Toilet Paper |
| 先生 | Teacher | Mister (Mr.) |
| 天井 | Ceiling | Atrium |
| 説話 | Folktale | To Speak |
| 新聞 | Newspaper | News (media) |
| 約束 | Promise | Constrain |
| 文句 | Complain | Phrase |
| 怪我 | Injury | Blame me |
| 白鳥 | Swan | White Bird |
| 皮肉 | Irony | Skin & Flesh |
| 王妃 | Queen | Princess |
| 中古 | Used Product | Medieval Times |
| 氷箱 | Ice Box | Refrigerator |
| 手袋 | Gloves | Handbag |
| 邪魔 | Hinderance | Devil |
| 湯 | Hot Water | Soup |
| 猪 | Boar | Pig |
| 腕 | Arm | Wrist |
| 走 | Run | Walk |
| 棚 | Shelf | Shed |
| 首 | Neck | Head |
| 床 | Floor | Bed |
| 吃 | Scold | To Eat |
| 机 | Desk (Furniture) | Machinery |
| 娘 | Daughter | Mother |
In hindsight: if you are bilingual, do you know any false friends between two languages (i.e. English & French) or (i.e. Spanish & Portuguese) that are spelled the same but have different definitions across both languages?
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.
To add a funny one:
Word English Definition Jamaican Definition Beer can Metal container for booze Delicious, cured pork product (Hint for Americans: the joke makes more sense if you pronounce it with a British accent)
One of my favorites are the chains between Spanish and Portuguese:
- Garbage in Spanish is
Basura - But
Vassourain Portuguese means broom - But in Spanish broom is said
Escova - Which in Portuguese means brush
Or
- Tea cup in Spanish is
Taza - A
Taçain Portuguese is a wine cup - But in Spanish wine cup is a
Copa - And in Portuguese a
Copois a regular glass - But in Spanish regular glasses are called
Vaso - Which in Portuguese means vase.
Or
- Cutlery in Portuguese is
Talher - But
Tallerin Spanish is a workshop - Which in Portuguese is
Oficina - Which in Spanish means office
- But in Portuguese you say
Escritorio - Which in Spanish means desk
Or a short one:
- Your last name in Portuguese is your
Sobrenome - But in Spanish
Sobrenombreis your nickname - While in Portuguese nickname is
Apelido - But in Spanish
Apellidomeans last name
Another one I like is
Vamos a chatear 1 ratowhich in Spanish means “let’s chat for a little while” but in Portuguese means “let’s bother a mouse”.- Garbage in Spanish is
If I understand your question correctly, between English and Italian is “camera”. In Italian it means “room”, not a device for photographs.
Sure, but “camera” doesn’t really mean room, it means chamber, which is a small enclosed space, and if you grab a box it is a camera by definition (just a very small one). And if you close every place where light can get into a small chamber you get a “camera obscura” which just means a dark chamber. And if you poke a hole on a camera obscura you will see an image of the outside being projected on the opposite wall. This was a very common trick in pre-industrialization, and became known as Camera Obscura, from then someone had the idea to put photosensitive material, also known as photographic, on the opposite wall and created the first photographic chamber, or “photographic camera”, which eventually was abbreviated to camera.
So yeah, they mean different things, but not really.
English/german has Gift and Die.
Probably others but idk.
The
Bart
The
No one who speaks German could be a killer!
Unternehmer/undertaker is also fun
Same in Dutch.
I went to an Oktoberfest festival in the US, and there was a popup ship called Gifthaus.
They did not understand my concern.
Explanation:
- “die” is German for (feminine) “the”.
- “Gift” is German for poison.
Same thing with Swedish. Gift (Swedish) = poison, venom, toxin etc.
Sounds like there must have been some colossal misunderstanding in the past.
It’s not just in different languages, but sometimes in different variants of the same languages.
For instance, in Belgian French, “tournante” is any task in which people take turn, like a card game. In French French, it’s specifically gang rape.
And then you have words that aren’t spelled exactly the same way but seem like an obvious translation (actual false friends, which aren’t usually exact matches), like the Spanish “constipado”, which means to have a stuffy nose and not what you think.
Some examples from flemish (belgian dutch) to dutch:
Word flemish dutch Lopen to run to walk Stappen to walk to go out (to a bar) Poepen to have sex to poop I remember the first time in a swimming pool in flanders I was so confused by all the signs saying I shouldn’t walk.
Assister in French means to attend in English
Good in reverse since the verb “attendre” (almost like attend) means “to wait.”
I’m going to spoiler tag this because it’s a slur but I’ve always found this one the most comical
spoiler
puto ::: seco.
In Tagalog = type of cookies
In Spanish = dry (male) whoreTIL that some Spanish person once fucked a cookie
English German Dutch how wie hoe who wer wie Both who/hoe and wie/wie are pronounced almost identically. Always creates a knot in my brain that usually grinds my already not fluent speaking to a halt.
Adding wer=who but wo=where
There are a few close ones between Portuguese and Spanish but I can’t think of any that’s spelled exactly the same.
Between Portuguese dialects, the first that comes to mind is “puto” which just means young boy in European Portuguese and it’s a swear word meaning male prostitute in Brazilian Portuguese (Brazilian Portuguese technically makes more sense because it’s symmetrical to the female “puta” which always means “slut”).
embarrassed and embarazada (pregnant) in Spanish
I remember the Czech word Pozor. It means “Attention” and is seen everywhere on all sorts of signage.
In Russian, however (and possibly other slavic languages), it means shame/disgrace.
I’m sure there were jokes about it when Russians were the invaders, but can’t remember any.
Then there’s Finnish/Estonian
Finnish Estonian Hallitus Government Mold Maasika Earth-pig (not a thing) Strawberry Maasikapirukas Earth-pig devil Strawberry cake Piim(ä) Buttermilk/sourmilk Milk Kalju Bald Rock But my favorite is “nahkhiir”, which means leather mouse, i.e. a bat. (in Finnish it would be nahkahiiri, but bats are called lepakko)
Batman is consequently called Nahkhiirmees in Estonian.Funny cause caillou is bald but means rock in French
You mean it means both bald AND rock in French?
It’s not really surprising. The differences between Finnish/Estonian are usually small shifts in development. E.g. kallio means rock in Finnish - not too far from kalju. And it’s easy to see why such a word could mean both.
It doesn’t exactly mean bald in French. Bald would be expressed as: « pas un poil sur le caillou » meaning “not a hair on the rock (the head).”
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.
Is this why diplomacy in the Balkan region is a long history?
Ne.
You might be onto something
| 手紙 | Letter (mail) | Toilet Paper |
Mood
Actual. English: real. Spanish: current
Sensible. English: reasonable. Spanish: sensitive
The German cognates of these mean the same as in Spanish, and I think that’s also true for most other languages, so English is the weird language here.
English always is











