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False friends. I'd expect everyone here to know what they are, but here goes anyway; words that look or sound alike in different languages but mean entirely different things. This is of course extra funny when the words are actually cognates or the languages or dialects are in fact mutually intelligible to some extent or more or less entirely.

I just got a text message in Swedish from a friend where he complained about having to read a skräpbok in school. This, of course, made me think of scrapbook, but the Swedish word really means "crappy book". A book that he doesn't want to read, obviously.

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‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə

to become bekommen

The German one means "to receive". I became a Pony for Christmas!

Oh and then my favorite of all time, maybe. Katze katso cazzo.
In elementary school, a German boy talked about his big cat and told the Italian teacher, that he had a grande cazzo (big cock).
And then, there's the two Finnish friends of my parents, who went to Italy with us, and kept saying Katso! Katso! Katso! to eachother, what means something like look! in Finnish afaik. To an Italian however, it sounds like Dick! Cock! Fuck!

:D

I also came to think of how there can be minimal pairs or slight grammatical differences within one language that can become dangerous for a learner.

In English you have to be careful not to say sleep with when you mean sleep at. On the other hand, both of these are innocent in Swedish, but ligga med ("lie with", which is innocent in English) means sleep with and ligga hos ("lie at") is innocent. In Icelandic, where you'd expect sofa hjá ("sleep at"), which is same as Swedish sova hos ("sleep at"; innocent), to also be just as innocent as in Swedish, the meaning is actually sleep with. Hungarian, on the other hand, despite being unrelated, does what Swedish does, and aludni -nál/-nél ("sleep at") is just as innocent as in Swedish and English.

Don't ignore the dots on the letters if you're learning Swedish either! Släkt means family and relatives, while slakt means slaughter!

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‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə

@Avo: Haha, that's just hilarious .
@Skógvur: Are you saying ligga med sounds innocent ?

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Proto-Hyảlim | Bjarmish

Ón gráti sem jett barn kvéner jag syggji jett lag um deiðan...
[oʊ̯n ˈgɾaːtɪ sɛmː jɛtː baɾn ˈkʰʋɛːnɛɾ jaː ˈsʏd͡ʑːɪ jɛtː laː ʊmː ˈdɛɪ̯an]

Derived from the same word perhaps? ;)

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

Cognates with different meanings:
sky ("cloud") <--> sky
kind ("cheek") <--> chin
æde ("eat" but mainly of animals, or offensively of humans) <--> äta ete essen eat
spise ("eat") <--> speisen ("dine", formal) :swe: I think their "spise" cognates are formal too
må ("may") <--> :swe: må ("must")
kunstig ("artificial") <--> konstig ("weird")
glas ("glass") <--> glass ("ice cream")
rar ("nice") <--> rar ("weird, strange") <--> rárur ("rare, uncommon") <--> rare (which also means uncooked)

Non-cognates (as far as I know ;p)
fart ("speed") <--> fart
Thit/Tit (girl's given name) <--> tit
nøgen ("naked") <--> neun ("nine")
seks ("six") <--> sex ("sex")

I've heard that Norwegians joke about the Swedes, when the latter say Jag är hemma ("I'm home"), because hemma ("home") sounds like the Norwegian word for "mentally handicapped".

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My name is Christian Munk, and I may be a chipmunk afterall.

Native: | Fluent: | Less than fluent: , , | Beginner: , Volapük | To do list: , Lojban
Creating: Mhmmz

Can you example me with this? I am not quite following. Because sleep with can mean something other than sex, and sleep at usually requires more in the sentence to make sense.

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Dotjen
Kotanese

Isn't that why every movie or TV show uses that joke at least once ?

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Proto-Hyảlim | Bjarmish

Ón gráti sem jett barn kvéner jag syggji jett lag um deiðan...
[oʊ̯n ˈgɾaːtɪ sɛmː jɛtː baɾn ˈkʰʋɛːnɛɾ jaː ˈsʏd͡ʑːɪ jɛtː laː ʊmː ˈdɛɪ̯an]

It's hämma[d] in Swedish too, though.


He slept at Caroline's. He slept with Caroline.

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‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə

Ok, that's kind of what I thought. It sounds more natural (for me, at least) to say "He slept at Caroline's place/house" unless the place was already topically relevant.

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Dotjen
Kotanese

I can confirm this. It's from the word "funksjonshemma" (functionally handicapped), and "hemma" is a degoratory term for mentally handicapped people. Although "funksjonshemm-a/-et" is a compound of "funksjon" (function) and "hemme" (inhibit, curb, restrain).

I wouldn't say "lie with" is totally innocent in English. The only time I really ever hear that phrase used is in the Biblical quote beloved of religious homophobes: "Thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman". "Lie with" is a pretty common phrase in English translations of the Bible to mean, well, "sleep with". On the other hand, so is "know", and nobody ever interprets someone saying "I knew him" to mean "I slept with him". But "know" is much more commonly used in ordinary speech than "lie with" is.

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death to vowels
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Slang also mucks everythings up.
When I lived in Aberdeen, meeting someone implied alterior motives. 'Trap' meant 'kiss'.
Down here, seeing someone implies an ongoing relationship (though I think this one's fairly common).
'Pulling' is yet another euphamism...

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

Between French and English, there are many of varying degrees.

One of the ones that I've seen quite a bit is réaliser, which means "to achieve". Not exactly the same sense as "realize". Another one is défense, which commonly is used to mean "prohibition" rather than "defense".

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And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise;
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thigh...

Looking for subjects to appear on banknotes. Inquire within.

I'm pretty sure that every dirty word in a Slavic language means something innocent in another one. I think mrdati means to "to move" or something similarly innocuous in Croatian, whereas in Czech mrdat means "to fuck". Similarly, szukać means "to look for" in Polish, and in Czech, it also means "to fuck". Kuřecí means chicken (as in meat) in Czech and kurac means dick in Croatian; kokot means rooster in Croatian but dick in Czech, and apparently there are even towns in Croatia named "Gornji Kokoti" and "Donji Kokoti". The most famous Czech/Croatian false friend, and also the cause of the most joking among Czechs on vacation in Croatia, is hladna pića, which is Croatian for "cold drink". This looks kind of like "hungry cunt" and sounds like "cold cunt". There's even a song about this, in fake Croatian.

When I was studying German, I was always amused by the word "Handschuhe".

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death to vowels
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I know of the word pozor which means "attention" in Czech, but "shame" in Russia.
Also, uroda is "beauty" in Polish, but sounds similar to urod, which means "ugly person" in Russian.

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UNUS•ET•UNICUS

Well, hämmad means more like inhibited. The word funktionshämmad (lit. "function inhibited") means mentally disabled, though.

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Member formerly known as Morpheus. Member to be known as Vice Forum Administrator since Undecimber 13, 2013.

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."
Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

Actuellement (As of now, for the moment, nowadays...)
Actually (in fact)

Affaire (a thing to do)
Affair (has a sexual connotation: "an affair with a woman")

Touché (touched)
Touch(e/é) (got it)

Since English has taken a lot of French words, the list can be long. O.o

"Vonět" in Czech means "to have a smell" with neutral connotations, whereas "вонять" in Russian means "to reek".
Conversely, "páchnout" in Czech means "to reek", whereas "пахнуть" in Russian means to "to have a smell" with neutral connotations.

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sup

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have some lessons

Kiss [kʰɪs] - You all know what this means.
Kiss [kʰɪsː] - Pee.

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Proto-Hyảlim | Bjarmish

Ón gráti sem jett barn kvéner jag syggji jett lag um deiðan...
[oʊ̯n ˈgɾaːtɪ sɛmː jɛtː baɾn ˈkʰʋɛːnɛɾ jaː ˈsʏd͡ʑːɪ jɛtː laː ʊmː ˈdɛɪ̯an]