Funny false friends

Funny false friends

 

1-Bombero: bombero opposite what you might be thinking is not someone who fights military planes, a bomber, but someone who fights with fire, as bombero is a fireman.

 

2-Bigote, although it look like bigot, again the meaning is a bit different as bigote is not a prejudiced person. In fact bigote is not even a person but a thing, as bigote is moustache.

 

3- Pie, pie, pronounced pee-ay, is very confusing for students too as they see it and think straight away in a nice English pie, but actually pie in Spanish is not that yummy as it means foot.

 

4-Crudo means raw, but a lot of people confuse it with someone who is a bit rude because its similarity with the English word crude.

 

5-Delito, I have found several people who use delito when they actually want to say deluxe,  watch out with this one and deluxe is amazing, but delito is something not that good, in fact delito is  a crime, (meaning both felony or misdemeanor) .

 

6-Emocionado, emocionado can be tricky as has two meaning in Spanish, it means emotional and moved, so in this case excited is all right.

 

7-Éxito, this false friend was more common in the past, where people thought it meant exit, nowadays not many people get this wrong, and if you travel to Spain you can read pretty much everywhere that exit is salida. Éxito however is success.

 

 

8-Preservativo, this one is kind of hilarious too as preservativo many people think means preservative, but that is conservante, preservativo is a condom.

 

9- Casualidad, casualidad means coincidence in Spanish, so forget about the similarity with casualty, as it is not the same.

 

Ok and last one a typical one, constipado in Spanish does not mean constipated, repeat, constipado is not constipated, we use constipado in Spanish to say we have a cold, another word to express the same is resfríado. The point is please do not confuse these two words J. I know you probably knew it, but I find it so funny and it is because I confused this two words when I starting to live in Edinburgh and I can’t delete that moment from my mind, as I found (well, I still do) hilarious, the face of my flatmate was priceless. If you want to read my story with this false friend you can read it here, and learn some more funny Spanish-English false friends too.

And that is your Spanish does for today my friend, now it is your turn, leave a comment and let me know

 

-Had you heard any of the above false friends before?

 

-Can you share any other hilarious false friends?

 

-Have any false friends given your grief in your Spanish language?

 

-Do you have any funny story related to false friends?

 

Looking forward to reading you.

 

Lastly but not less important, if you enjoyed this blog and you know someone who could enjoy it too, please do not keep it as a secret, share it! And help me to spread the Spanish language around, I will be forever grateful.

I will write you next week.

Abrazos virtuales