False Friends: When Look-Alikes Mislead

Learn to catch words that look like cognates but mean something different.

False friends, or false cognates, are words in two languages that look alike but differ in meaning. Some are true relatives whose meanings drifted apart; others resemble each other by accident. Spanish 'librería' means bookstore, not library (that is biblioteca). Spanish 'actual' and French 'actuel' mean current or present-day, while English 'actual' means real. German 'Gift' means poison, and English 'gift' means a present; both trace back to a sense of 'something given. ' Worked example: a student translating 'el problema actual' writes 'the actual problem.

' Context shows the speaker meant 'the current problem,' the one happening now. The lesson for readers is to treat a look-alike as a hypothesis. If the meaning you assume makes the sentence odd, test the other possibilities before moving on.

• 1False friends look alike across languages but mean different things.
• 2Some drifted apart from one ancestor; some match by accident.
• 3Treat a look-alike as a hypothesis and test it in context.