False Friends

Spanish is known for a certain similarity to English, with an estimated 20,000 words being similar enough. But this can bite you - some words are FALSE COGNATES!

I put together a list of some I've come across, and it's pretty amusing:

stack.tilde.cafe/puntos/2024-06-07.false_friends.gmi

Some of my favorites are: CONSTIPADO - having a cold, and EMBARAZADA - pregnant!

Some words amusingly reverse their meanings: ASISTIR - to attend (an event), while ATENDER is to assist, or look after someone.

And you want to be BIZARRO - brave or gallant!

Posted in: s/Language_Acquisition

🚀 stack [mod]

2024-06-08 · 2 years ago · 👍 skyjake

1 Comment

⛰️ tsukaj · 2025-03-12 at 23:05:

false friends can be really confusing - to this day i struggle to quickly interpret "entendre" correctly ("hear" in french, while as you may know "entender" means understand both in spanish and portuguese)