False Friend

When it comes to learning the language often one is faced with words that sound alike and have similar meanings but then their usage should not be confused. If for example I am going to have a show I will use that word instead of manifestation. This is challenging for the Italian immigrant wanting to express himself and manifestation means show in the Italian but of course manifestation means an appearance of the other worldly kind, as when a spirit manifests itself by causing a draft of wind in English.

That was one of the earliest false friends I can remember having worked between the Italian and English. There are plenty of false friends out there to confuse the learner who hears the English word and because he is likely to translate those words into his own language, will have difficulty accepting the new meaning. Similarly when the French student tell me to remember him something instead of remind him of something it is likely that the confusion is due to the presence of the French verb, rappeler in both those instances. ‘Me fait rappeler’, means remind me and ‘je rappele que’ means I remember that. But of course he might remember something I would remind him of . Here we do not have false friends but the student is translating the English words literally without the knowledge that often enough the English will have different words which would incorporate just one in the foreign language.