Jan. 14, 2009
Falsos Amigos - False Friends
Posted in grammar and language helps
 When you study Spanish cognates, it is encouraging to find out how many words you already know in the language! It sort of lightens the burden, but be warned: it also gives you a false sense of security. Many times in Spanish you will see what looks like a cognate, but actually has a different meaning in Spanish. Sometimes the differences are slight, and sometimes they are potentially embarrassing.
Let's take a word like embarrassing for example. It is practically an urban legend among Spanish students to tell the story of the girl that travels to a Spanish speaking country, and when she wants to tell people she is embarrassed about something, she ends up telling them she's pregnant! That's because embarazada means pregnant, and she would have been better off expressing her embarrassment by simply saying, "¡qué pena!" Need to run to the grocery for a couple of quick things? That's la groseria, right? It makes sense to our English-speaking minds, but has a completely different meaning in Spanish. Una groseria is a vulgar word or action. Un grosero is the kind of person who uses bad language or does groserias. When you see groseria, just think "gross" in English, and you will be on the right track. Here is a favorite of mine. Let's say your house is dirty. Are you going to vacunar la carpeta? That would leave any native Spanish speaker really scratching their head... why would you vaccinate a folder? To vacuum is pasar la aspiradora. A carpet is una alfombra. Ok, let's try again. Another common and famous one is soportar. We all want support, right? But soportar means to put up with. Like: I can barely put up with (or stand) all that noise. That's not something we want our friends and family to say about us! The word that expresses support in Spanish is the noun el apoyo or the verb apoyar. We learned about adverbs and their easy -mente ending, so a word like actualmente looks pretty clear. The problem is that in Spanish this means "presently". To get the sense of our word actually, you would say something like La verdad es que.... Then what if someone mentions un nudo? No worries... that's just a knot! A common mistake involves the word compromiso, which looks like our word compromise. In Spanish it is best translated as a commitment. You can use this word for a specific appointment: Tengo un compromiso a las dos. It can also be used for more vague plans. Say someone wants you to help with the bake sale on Saturday, and you were planning to take a nap. You should be able to satisfy them with a simple: Lo siento, tengo un compromiso el sábado. The audience is called el público or el auditorio, and una audencia is a meeting with any kind of public official... sigh... there are a lot of ways to get confused with these false cognates, aren't there? To see many, many more, check out these helpful websites: Musical Spanish False Cognate Tutorial About.com: False Friends eLearn Falsos Amigos |
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