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False Friends

Beware of linguistic false friends, also known as false cognates. You wouldn’t want to say you’re feeling embarazada in Spanish, unless you want to say you’re pregnant. And don’t order the tuna in Spain unless you want to...

Norwegian Tann Paste

In an earlier episode, we discussed linguistic false friends, those words in foreign languages that look like familiar English words, but mean something quite different. Martha reads an email response from a listener who learned the hard way that in...

Faux Amis

Beware of false friends, those words that don’t translate the way you’d expect. For example, the word “gift” in German means “poison,” and the Spanish word “tuna” means “the fruit of the prickly...

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