"Naïve " means someone trusts others too easily, or has a lack of experience, so may be taken advantage of, making this a negative term..

But my friends who are Chinese native speakers think "naïve" means means someone who is very nice and friendly.  They do not understand the negative connotation. 

No problem at all, Cecilia.  I'm interested in any kind of confusion that prevents people from understanding each other.

One other kind of problem arises when a word has changed its meaning over time.  When I was in school we learned that "fulsome" did NOT mean "full" but rather "disgusting".  One day a few years ago I heard someone on public radio thank someone for his "fulsome" response.  I thought, "That person doesn't know that "fulsome" is  a negative word.   But when I looked it up in several dictionaries, I found that "fulsome" had changed its meaning in the past few decades and is now a good word.  The language is allowed to change as people use it [what we were taught was ] wrongly.  So whether we like it or not, the language keeps moving.  No wonder a learner will go crazy with our vocabulary.

Michael, the problem your Chinese friends are having may be due to the depth of their English learning.  If, for instance you look at the Concise E-C and C-E dictionary, the English word naive is translated with only one meaning in Chinese and that meaning is tianzhende, which is just "innocent".  So unless they had a teacher who went beyond this simple one word - one meaning that's what they would remember.  Better dictionaries, such as the Sino "New English-Chinese Dictionary" (new in the 80's at least) do have more meanings including "youzhi" (childish) and the Chinese-English Dictionary from the Beijing Foreign Language Institute translates this as "childish; puerile; naive".  So it's not that both meanings of the word don't exist in Chinese, but that you need a better lexicon to get both meanings.  So it's a level of learning thing. (in my opinion)

Cecilia, oh yes, the old "sounds alike - must mean the same" error.  They might even think that if they got to the Bazaar they will be able to find some bizarre things.  We do have a lot of homophone pairs.  I hate to say it, but they might have to learn these as special cases, the way kids did in the 40's and 50's when I was in school.  Imagine learning Chinese where there are thousands of homophones, even homophone pairs.  Punning is irresistible!  Have you got some other examples?  And yes, this is another of the things that make language learning such a bear.  (Try to explain that one!)

Sofia, maybe it really is that the words look different enough to be able to distinguish them.  I think one stroke American (USA) students have against them is that they dont't have any base learning of Latin.  What do you think?

 There is an interesting pair of words in Polish and Czech: "nóżki" in Polish is the diminutive of "legs", in Czech "nużky" [pronounced identical to Polsh "nóżki"] means "scissors"; "scissors" in Polish is "nożyczki", almost identically pronounced Czech "nożicky" means... diminutive for "legs"!

Hello Martha, English speakers who study French know that there are many "faux-amis" (false cognates), that is, words that seem to be cognates because of similar sounds and writing, but actually have different etymologies: "car" in French means "because"; "un car" is "a coach" (inter-city bus), not a car.

The word "cute" is interesting. British English "cute" came into the language as an abbreviation of the word acute. Acute means an intense or pleasant feeling. Over a period of time, the word cute came to mean pretty. Now it means attractive and appealing. In British English, more often, it seems that the word is used when thinking of someone or something that is small or young, but is pleasant and attractive. Therefore, it is applied to children and pets.

The word cute can additionally mean that someone is hot in the sense of sexually attractive. Cute is a word that has been popular in the US throughout the 20th century to mean nice, attractive, good. Cute people make good boyfriends/girlfriends, the ones you would consider having a long-term relationship with and perhaps even marry.

Here is an article on "The culture of cute in Taiwan" and in East Asia in general.

http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xitem=209954&CtNode=430

Incrédible (Français) versus Incredible (English) 

I think how you vocally pronounce it in a sentence also changes the message/meaning

I speak Kazakh, Russian, and English. My students are mostly Russian-speaking ones. There are cases of cofusion as a result of the Russian language because in Russian there is just one word-equivalent to two English words:

1. sit at home instead of stay at home

2. to make & to do

3. to rise & to raise

4. to find & to find out

5. to open & to discover, etc.

Also, the difference may be in connotations; e.g., ambitious

In Western culture it has positive meaning; in post-Soviet environment - negative.

Agree with C. Lewis Kausel: the same in our situation - effect & affect are always confused.

Read this report on the misuse of English at the EEC HQs in Brussels ... it's jaw-dropping, to a native speaker at least  http://bit.ly/1jw2FLy

My American students who are learning Spanish do not understand the many implications of the word "wonder" :

I wonder if he is coming to the party? = ¿Vendrá a la fiesta?

I wonder if he has finished? = ¿Habrá terminado?

I wonder if this is the best car? = ¿Me pregunto si es el mejor coche?

and of course, wonder the noun: the wonders of nature = las maravillas de la naturaleza...

In the classroom I keep a running list of English words that "don't exist" in Spanish, and "wonder" is one of them, along with "o'clock"...

The Word  "δύναμις" in modern Greek means "force." and at the same time, for mathematics, it  means " power.

However in classical Greek, for geometry  in general it means " square" but also, also it may mean power.

Regards from Athens,

Panagiotis Stefanides

http://www.stefanides.gr

I love language! Stop and think about words meaning and use is a powerful and funny thing. Martha, Thanks for this question!

Maryjane, "o'clock" is an expression that we use in spanish too. But is different, we say: "en punto."

Manuel, "caldeira" is very similar to "caldera" in spanish. Caldera is a "closed metal container that is used for heating or evaporating liquids."

I continue reading the other answers, all the best! 

Silvana-- I would respectfully say that "o'clock" is not understood as "en punto" :

"It's three o'clock" is expressed "Son las tres." not "Son las tres del reloj". I would say that "It's three o'clock sharp / on the dot" would be "Son las tres en punto".  In other words, yes, "en punto" captures the same meaning, but I understood the original query to be about words that are not understood in the same way; in that sense American students of Spanish are always looking for the "o'clock" in Spanish, while they understand "en punto" for the more literal "on the dot"  or "sharp" (not necessarily "on the hour", as it can be used as "Be at the bus at 2:15 on the dot / sharp"). 

"genius" originally mean't the guardian deity or spirit of a person.

In continuation of  confusing words in Hindi, I would like to present some more words which are strikingly similar in form and their pronunciation but their meaning are different. Confusing words like कहा (Kaha) and कहाँ (Kahan) looks almost similar in Hindi but they mean completely different “Said” and “Where” in English respectively.

Amiable - having a nice or friendly character

Amenable - being open to an idea or suggestion

In America a person might say "I'll pick you up at 6 pm." In South Africa a person might say "I'll fetch you at 6 pm."

Americans say "I am going grocery shopping". In Louisiana the Acadian descendants (Cajuns) say "I am going to make some groceries".

   One of the latest----and funniest---confusions in Spanish is that between bizarro (which means valiant and good-looking) and "bizarre" in English---which means quaint---. Some people are now using "bizarro" in the English sense...

English language is an international language & for educated masses ,it has become the household name however student of different countries although study in English medium education system but their mother tongue is different it becomes in certain respect understanding the language in the line with the British & American system .

We have also observed that the pronunciation & talking in English language do not match completely as per the English language in the line with the pronunciation of the Words. It is difficult to draw  a line of demarcation regarding the words &phrases of English but in quite good importance of life ,English has become the importance sign .

This is my personal opinion 

The source of problems is usually the fact that some sounds common in one language are never used by – and consequently not easily pronounced and distinguished by – speakers of another. When my Sister studied Japanese, the lector introduced himself by first writing on the table ideograms (“kanji”) meaning, respectively, “lector” and “rector”, and then, pointing to one or another of them, explained: “I am rector, not rector” what, of course, caused much amusement among the students (Japanese have troubles in pronouncing “l”). For a Polish people no problem, but e.g. my (Hungarian) Wife finds it difficult to discern the difference between Polish (spoken) “mysz” (mouse) and “miś” (teddy-bear), like for me Hungarian “arany” (gold) and “arány” (proportion) sound almost the same (in Polish there is no meaningful difference between “long” and “short” vowels). Even “within” one particular language there are many words pronounced [near-]identically, as in a popular joking Polish sentence “dałby Bóg żeby buk nie wpadł w Bug” (God willing the beech may not fall into Bug): “Bóg” (God) and “Bug” (river name) sound identical, and differ from “buk” (beech tree) only if very carefully pronounced); similarly, “kot” (cat) sounds near the same as “kod” (code), “może” (can, may, perhaps) does not differ from “morze” (sea) &c. A little bit different but also interesting is the case – “exploited” already before the WW II by Polish (of Hungarian origin) humorist Fryderyk Jarossy – of the conjugation of Polish verb “jeść” (to eat):

“ja jem” (I eat) sounds the same as “jajem” ([with] egg);

“ty jesz” (you eat) – “tyjesz” ([you] grow fat);

“on je” (he eats) – “on je…” (he [does something with] them);

“my jemy” (we eat) – myjemy ([we] wash)

„wy jecie” (you [plural] eat) – „wyjecie” ([you] howl).

Similarly sounding, but meaning something quite different, words may be very dangerous especially in related, seemingly "understandable" languages; this had been painfully experienced by a Polish young man: wishing to pay a compliment to his attractive Russian dancing-partner, and seeing the nice rose-flower at her dress, he said “oh, kakaja u Was krasnaja roża!” – the girl fainted, general consternation arose, and the unfortunate gallant was expelled from the ball, too lately realizing that in Russian “krasiwaja roza” (beautiful rose flower) is by far not the same as “krasnaja roża” (red snout)…

So, we must be careful!

Some words are quite difficult to translate. The Italian word "omerta'" can only be understood within a Sicilian cultural context. It might combine a code of silence, private justice or "acting like a man." (whatever that is.) Perhaps someone fluent in the Italian language can help me and others better understand the correct translation of the word.

Sofia, any thoughts for Valentine?

@Abdul

Orangutan is a loanword borrowed from Malaysian (possibly through Dutch) into English meaning in Malaysian: jungle man. So there is a good reason for your observation. :-)

(English borrows from everywhere.)

We would have colloquial saying if it's a bad day we might say it's a wild day. Or use the Gaelic or Irish word for fool your an amadhan. Which means fool or idiot we also say you r away with the fairies if someone says something silly.Or gets a fact wrong. another one is hold your tongue which is be quiet or shut up. Your only an Ass is an other expression of stupidity

@Valentine, your comment about American pick up vs South African fetch is not correct. In South Africa both pick up and fetch are used, but with subtle differences in what is being expressed. Fetch creates the mental picture of the person with the transport deliberately making a journey to collect you and transport you to somewhere else, typically a place where you both want to be. Pick up creates a mental picture of the person with the transport stopping briefly to collect you while already on a journey (although this could also be a deliberate journey to collect you).

A better example from South African English - the expressions, "just now" and "now now" and "right now" having different meanings that confuse non-South Afticans completely. "Just now" has shifted completely from being a procrastinator's false promise of doing something immediately to meaning simply and honestly "some time later", while "now now" means very soon but not immediately.

Colin, one of the first things I stumbled on when I was at UCT was that very usage nou nou, net nou, etc. But there were also a lot of other expressions (most of which also occur in britain and former British colonies), such as "pressurized", "suss out", "dummy", "rubber", some of which are now known in the States.  I was so surprised when "suss out" and "chuffed" started showing up here.  One of the most surprising and one a person could be very embarrassed about was "fanny", which is the "bum" or rear end as we say in the States, but "vagina" in SA.  I got to really enjoy hearing these vocabulary items - part of the fun of learning about another place in the world. 

Oh my!  I came home from "work" (actually taking a class and having my flute lesson) to see all the amazing lot of examples you have all come up with.  I'm still laughing!  So many of us have had the good luck to stay in a new place long enough to appreciate those differences. Thank you all for a good start to our game!  I have to go out again now but will come back and read these items again!  I'll tell you some of the howling mistakes I've made while abroad.  Good thing I have a good sense of humor and not a lot of pride, so I can tell these stories on myself. 

But that's for a bit later!  Yes, the time lag means that by the time I get up tomorrow many of you will already be half a day ahead.

Thanks again for all these imaginative situations!

There are probably different meanings of the word "significant" and "signifikant", possibly also in other languages than Engli´sh and German. If it's used in the context of "statistically" or "statistisch" it is clear. But standing alone, in German it may mean "important" or "relevant", or "remarkable".

@Raul Simon:

   does "bizarre" in English means  means quaint (good looking)? Not funny?

I always confuse this word! In my native odia 'bizarr' is 'boring / irritating'. We use this term when someone / some situation irritates us!!

Words related to our immediate cultural  setting 

 They are so many. 

In Dutch (and in Afrikaans) "wapen" typically means a weapon but is also used for a coat of arms. I've heard Dutch speakers who assume that in English the word "weapon" can be used for coat of arms.

Dear Mishra:

  You better ask an English native speaker about the meaning of "bizarre".

@Priyadarsini Mishra

Yes, in English, "bizarre" has the usual meaning of "weird" or "strange".

Her shirt is bizarre.  It lights up when she speaks. 

The teacher tries not to notice how bizarre those children seem  - their parents encourage them to be rude to others.  They quack like ducks when the teachers ask them a question.

Those examples show how "bizarre" has taken on the "odd" meaning.

Georgina, when I was studying Irish at Oideas Gael, I bought a book in their little shop.  It is called     500 Mallacht Ort    -   500 curses on you and written by Breandán 'ac Gearailt.

There really are 500 curses you can use.  And many of them are extremely funny, though I suppose they aren't funny if someone uses them on you.

Example 220:  Go n-ithe an chráin mhíolach thu -   May the louse-infected sow eat you.

Dear Colleagues,

The nuance of language is in the speaking.

So many words have the same sound but mean different things.Confusing!

For language to be truly understood it is the context and the body language which allows it to be deciphered. We need a holism to understand wholely. 

The word in itself has power according to many spiritual paths.

The same word in different cultures mean something completely different.

In modernism the world is often put on its head. Good is considered bad and bad is considered good.

But in the last analysis a rose is a rose.

For our own good let our yes be yes and let our no be no. Relativism is the quick sand of modern secular culture.  When we say there is no truth we create that reality by projecting it upon the world whether that is true or not. Therefore we need to chose our words with care and consideration. 

So many times it is not what we say but how we say it.

The power of language I believe is when what we say comes from a higher intention and it is said without double meaning sacrasm or certainly not hypocrisy. 

Some thoughts on language, words and their power. 

In English the word clock had an original meaning of bell which survives to some extent in the word "o'clock" meaning literally "[tolls] of the bell". In Afrikaans the cognate "klok" still means bell, not a timepiece, causing confusion between English and Afrikaans speakers.

In Afrikaans an orange is called a "lemoen" which is a cognate of English lemon also causing confusion. Similarly with "pomelo" which in Afrikaans means any type of grapefruit but in English has come to be used only for the giant citrus from Asia that is the wild ancestor of the grapefruit.

Brazilian students tend to say "Have a garage in my house" instead of "There is a garage in my house" because we informally use, in Portuguese, the verb "HAVE" with the idea of "there to be". It takes them some time to start using There to be in the proper way. Also, when we say how old we are we usually use the verb "have" in Portuguese "Eu tenho 30 anos". So, it takes them some time to use Verb to be to say their age. Instead, they say "I have 30."

Expressing possession in sentences such as "I have X"  is a tricky one.  I think every student should get a book with advice on this construction depending on his/her new language.  In Xhosa, similar to Zulu and the main indigenous language in the Western Cape of South Africa, such a sentence as "i have a cat" becomes

"i am with a cat" -->

ndinekati.You can break this down into

ndi (I) na (with) i (the) kati (cat)

Note the sandhi of na +i into ne.

I'm sure there are other similar circumlocutions in many other languages to express this kind of possession.  Any takers?

Colin, that is an interesting thing - Your lemon gets called an orange. In Ecuador I learned that a limón in that Latin American country corresponds to the "lime" (that green citrus fruit). I'm thinking this is a regionalism.  Google Translate gets somewhat overwhelmed and translates English "lime" into "Lima", the capital of Peru, capital L and all. Ecuadorian Spanish also has sentence patterns adopted from the indigenous Incan (Quichua) population.   That would be another good topic.

A quick note:  When my Dutch grandson was very young, maybe two or three, he was already bilingual in English and Dutch.  So many times when he spoke English to me, he would use all English words but with Dutch constructions.  For instance, he might say (and did)  I took the toy from the drawer out.  This tendency flattened out in very short order,  but it was interesting to be there at the instant to see how true bilingualism arose from the mixture.  Anyone else with a similar story?

Concha, this is true - one of the hardest things is the rule about ser and estar.  Also to me, the related question of whether the adjective precedes or follows the noun.  In some languages, this continues in the conjugation of the verb.  For instance, in a language (family) like Pulaar/Fula/etc, when you say "I love you", you conjugate the verb "love" in a way that (as I understand it) shows it is not always true.  So I love you right now, but who knows about tomorrow?  In English, it is pretty cut and dried (as we say to mean clear and no one will disagree) - one verb to be, state doesn't matter.  In Chinese this is also a hard problem for beginners. If it is starting to snow, you say "xia sue le".  This "le" acts sort of like äspect in Russian.  It generally means the thing you were expecting has happened. But then you have expressions like "chi fan le", literally eat food le, which says now food is wating for you to eat it. This kind of problem means for Chinese students learning English, when to say "the", the

definite article is almost impossible at first.  Same for many languages, In French I think you can say "j'aime la musique" to express "I like music in general", but it leaves an English speaker wondering what kind of music.  I like the music of Bach, etc .

There are so many language pairs where these questions form an obstacle to one side or the other!  We must just say to ourselves, this is a dimension that we don't bother about, but it is important in the target language!

The vernacular of any language can vary greatly--and this may be dependent on the area/region of the country one is in--and therefore a different word can be used to describe the same thing.  For example, growing up in the Midwestern United States, we referred to a soda as a "pop", while in South Texas I have heard a soda referred to simply as a "coke", and in other places across the U.S. one can hear "soda", or "soda pop" when someone is ordering/requesting a soft drink.  

In Spanish, some of my Puerto Rican friends would call a school bus a "guagua", while in the Mexican-Texas border, my family will refer to it as a "camión", yet the proper Spanish (Castellano) would be "autobús".

When working on a research project in South Texas to help determine correlates of diabetes with a predominate Mexican-American population, we had problems collecting data when our questionnaire did not account for the vernacular of certain words.  We offered the questionnaire in both English and Spanish, but we did not consider that the population of Spanish speakers would be so varied.  The result was that some questions were unanswered because some participants could not understand what one word meant, and the administration of the questionnaire was only cleared by IRB with that specific language, and we could not clarify the word(s) in order to overcome issues with vernacular.

Hope this adds some insight to your future project/research.

Dear all,

In my country of birth Ethiopia, there is a philosophical discourse called " ሰምና ወርቅ "  in Amharic - አማርኛ , which literally means " Wax and Gold"  where a word has two meanings in which one meaning is embedded over the other. The one which is very apparent from the surface, and easily understood is called the Wax - ሰም  and the one which is hidden and might be understood later is called the Gold - ወርቅ. It requires  deep understanding of the culture,  living in it for for quite a long time to know really these things. They are more used to express disapproval or criticism in such a way that the target person may not either understand it right away or because it was said in a two meaning word softly, he/she may not  reply angrily to it.    

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11841-010-0201-9

Thanks George, Concha, Sofia, all of you who have brought so many WAYS in which we can misunderstand each other! There are in addition to the many false friends, so many ways in which the innocent of Latin are changing our language.

The first kind is where there is a singular and a plural usage of the same word. I'm thinking of for instance, the word "agenda", which is pretty much un-understood by most of us. I was lucky enough to have had a teacher who stressed the passive periphrastic. This construction takes the verb to be and the neuter gerundive form of the verb. So an agendum is a neuter word for a thing that should be acted upon. For mathematicians the closest example to your hearts is probably "quod erat demonstrandum" (that which was to be demonstrated). So agendum means for short what is to be acted upon. Now the plural of the neuter noun agendum is (anyone? anyone?) Yes, agenda: things that must be acted upon. Now it is the late 90's and people have forgotten that agenda is a neuter plural. A faculty person at our college said. Are these all the agendae? She had slipped into the elephant trap of backforming agenda as a feminine singular and pluralizing it to the first declension plural ending -ae. What is one to do? I have decided that I will always speak of "the agenda" to mean the things that are to be acted upon. But stubbornly, I won't say an agenda, but maybe an agenda item. I have some foolish pride.

Another distinction that is dissolving as we speak is medium and media. Media is the neuter plural ending for medium. We used to talk about print as a medium, clay as a medium, etc. But now this lovely singular word has become media. And so the enemies of grammar say "the media says this", oh! It is too awful to think about. I haven't seen "corrigendums" or "corrigendae" yet instead of corrigenda, but I hear the other shoe being taken up ready to drop by my bed as I drift off into grammarland.

While I'm sleeping, some of you may be hatching a plot to bring me into the 20th century, the 21st would be much too painful.

Dejénie, I would like to hear some more of these wax and gold constructions.  Can you write them in some kind of transcription so we can hear the words?  The idea of embedding one meaning into a different word is so clever.  Your poets must have a wonderful time creating these things.  But I can see how your politicians might find it amusing to hide the embedded message so deeply that the phrase can mean anything they want it to mean.  It's a good thing OUR politicians are too stupid to be able to do it.  Not you, Hillary!

Martha,

I will post few examples. I highlighted the words with wax and gold  

First, every statement in Amharic finishes with four points ፡፡ which is a full stop in English.  wax and gold is spoken or said in terms of pairs or triples of multiples of statements one on a line, like poems.

•  እንጀራው ተጋግሮ ወጡ ሳይቀርብልን፣

     የት ሄደች ጣይቱ ሳታሳልፍልን ፡፡ 

The statements are said by guests sitting for a feast, every thing was ready except for the lady named Taitu "ጣይቱ"  that supposed to serve the stew " ወጥ "  disappeared with out serving - ሳታሳልፍልን . The highlighted word ሳታሳልፍልን embeds a gold about a queen name Taytu that passed away without creating good things to its people. The people were misspeaking about their dissatisfaction with the queen.

• እኛ አገር ተቀምጦ በክርስቲያን ሥም፣

    ዓሳማ ይበላል በሁዳዴ ጦም ፡፡

The second pair of statements are regarding a Christian holiday; feasting season. On the second statement   ዓሳማ ይበላል በሁዳዴ ጦም , the highlighted word is the one with dual meanings: wax and gold.  "ዓሳማ ይበላል " the wax is that it asks who eats a fish, the gold is,  it talks about those who eat during such religious feasting weeks as pigs. 

• እንጀራና ወጡ መች ይበላልኛል፣

    እንደ ሦስት ዓመት ልጅ ጡት ጡት ያሰኘኛል

The last pair of statements are about a person who has a crush on a lady during a feast.  The person says: I lost the appetite for the food available on the table, instead I am craving or desirous to a breast " ጡት ጡት "  ያሰኘኛል "like a three year old child (either as popping like a child or needing breast milk). The gold is that  the man loves the breast of the lady he saw in the festivity.

There are several such dual meaning sayings in the political, social and religious lives of our society. 

Thanks Dejenie.  It reminds me of a game with words recorded by Freud.  One example is

He is a billionaar.  (A naar in German/Yiddish means a fool).

I think I made this one up -haven't looked at Freud in a long time, but THINK this one is original.  Aristocrass. An aristocrat whose tastes are very low.

I know this one is original though probably many people have also said it.  My ancestors came from Europe.  They were Europeons.  (A peon is a poor person.  So my ancestors weren't very high class at all, nothing to brag about.) 

I've personally made up a lot otf these, but since I don't write them down, they are stuck somewhere in this mass of neurons all firing at each other.

I'll just correct one thing that Martha wrote in her question. In French, "poison" cannot be confused with "poisson", as   intervocalic -s- is pronounced /z/, whereas intervocalic -ss- is pronounced /s/. The same phenomenon occurs in Portuguese, where "asado", pronounced  [a'zado], meaning "winged", (which has wings or handles) cannot be confused with "assado", pronounced [a'sado], meaning "roast" (meat) or awkward situation. Speaking of which, non-native French speakers might feel awkward when confronted with such words as "poêle", which may mean "frying-pan (US skillet), or "stove" (in this acception formerly spelled "poële"), and "poil" (hair), all pronounced [pwal]. Enjoy !               

I am a Romanian and I am teaching French. An example could be "a bifa", verb translated into French by "cocher", while the French word "biffer = barrer" means in Romanian "a anula = a taia cu o linie".

Jacques,

Of course if someone has learned the pronunciation of these words he is less likely to make those mistakes, but I suspect most of the mistakes are formed by a person who has a list of vocabulary items and has only begun learning to read and hence hasn't learned the pronunciation.  Actually I remember enjoying learning French as a high-school beginner because of the words that look vaguely like an English word - the mistakes were part of the fun of learning a new language.  :-)  Kids will always have the tendency to find fun wherever they can. 

Sofia,

Actually, for "rumor" there are four different English definitions for that word. 1) unverified story or report, 2) common gossip or hearsay, 3) confusing or loud sound (archaic), 4) fame or reputation (obsolete). All are derived from the Latin root word.

Hola Raul,

I wanted to ask you a couple of days ago but RG didn't let me save my question.  ONe of the things I wanted to learn was

In the word guagua, do you pronounce the "g" sound or just say "wawa" (English phonetics.  When I was in Ecuador many people just said "watemala" for Guatamala,

Take a look at http://www.falsefriends.eu

Obvioulsly there are dictionaries in other language combinations, too.

Just yesterday I came across the different connotations of German "loyal" with Italian "leale". The first is connotated with the feeling of belonging, the second is rather "according to the rules/law".

There are umpteen Indianised words which are not understood by the native speakers. I was surprised to note that the word "synopsis" for the thesis of Ph.D even is strange to many.Words like co-sister, cousin sister do not exist in native tongue

Leonhard, that is a good one.  We have an in-between word, not often used nowadays, for loyalty, which is "lealty".  Funny how different pairs of languages are related so differently when it comes to "false friends:".

Padmasani, it sounds as if your own language (can you quelch my suspense) does have those words..  Is a co-sister a woman married to another woman's husband?  Here in the States that is called sister "wives".  I've no wonder what a "cousin sister" might be.  I have had friends who were as close to their female cousins as if they were sisters.  I will be so grateful to know what those two words of yours might mean in English.  Thanks for introducing them!

Martha:

   It's  funny that you know the word "guagua" (meaning baby), which is so characteristically  Chilean. In Chile, you are  supposed to pronounce the g. (Guagua is, of course, an Inca Word.) 

Well, you know I think that I spent that semester in Ecuador learning Quichwa, which is now spelled Kichwa, and even though there are some differences in Kichwa and Quechua, the word for "child" is still "wawa".   See http://mokennon.albion.edu for the basic translator made by me with massive input from my teacher.  It is a bit quirky but if you just hit the translate key on an empty "sentence" it will take you to the page with the link to the help file. That file holds the sentences that work.  Or used to.  :-)

I only took a semester of Spanish (My teacher was Chileno) (I taught myself year 1 and so I had 201) before I left here, but nobody was interested in speaking Spanish anyway.  All my maths students wanted me to speak only English but at the time  I learned a lot of Kichwa. The lessons were given only in Kichwa so everyone was starting from the same spot. 

Nice to meet you!

Dear Professor O'kennon,

The word "gig" in English means a job, but in Thailand, this same word "gig" means an affair. So if somebody says, "I have a gig" in Thailand, people would think that the person is having an affair.

Sincerely,

Cameen 

I think that English speakers who do not regularly use the following words often confuse them:

Emigrant - someone who leaves their country in order to live in another.

Immigrant - someone who arrives in country for the purpose of permanent settlement.

In Italian burro means Butter, in Spansh it means Donkey.

In European Spanish hacienda menas Tax Office, in Latin American Spanish it means Ranch.

Look at the verbum 'to mean' in english and ;meinen' in today german, words of the same roots. To mean in english refers to a significance, while meinen in german refers to think, believe, have an opinion. Although in the regional language of southern germany, meinen also can mean (!) to say., following an older tradition being present ieven in literature (Goethe and those guys) during a lot of time.

A German tourist visiting Amsterdam orders a beer: Ich krige ein Bier. The Dutchman replies: Krieg ist aus.

James, here's another often confused pair : enervate and innervate.  People often switch them or think they are synonyms.

Joachim Neumaier, those are good examples.  Joachim N and Joachim P, i think I need a German and a Dutch lesson  if I want to get a beer in Germany or the Netherlands.  Can you (JN)  translate  your example into English for me?

Here's a really awful (funny) one. A person is visiting a French friend but he doesn't know much French.  He thinks he is getting a cold and asks one of the people there where he could get a préservatif.  The people look embarrassed because a préservatif in French is a condom.

http://grammarist.com/usage/enervate-innervate/

I promised to tell the group about some of my embarrassing experiences speaking a foreign language.  I took two quarters (2/3 of a year) of Japanese but when I went to a conference in Tokyo, I went to a restaurant there and got a lovely spread of sashimi (raw fish), but then when time to ask for the check, I tried to say "ikura deska?"  (How much is it?) but the waiter didn't understand me.  I thought of saying the bill but that would sound like a beer.  I tried a few other things including speaking English and finally said clearly "How much?"  The waiter finally smiled and came back with a plate of yellowtail (hamachi).  I ate it and finally he brought the check.

Another time I was leaving China and went out to dinner in Quangdong (Canton) with my interpreter and Chinese teacher.  We had a beer and I clinked my glass on his and said "Zhu ni shenti". (wish you health). He laughed. One of the first things in my book had been how good exercise was for your shenti (health).  But it turned out it really meant "body" and I had never got that straightened out.  He said, that is very flattering but I think you meant to say that differently.

I have a very long list, so here are some interesting ones.

1. "Arrow" (Singapore English) a verb meaning to relegate an unpleasant task

2. "hit your lung" (Hong Kong Cantonese, sometimes literally translated into the English string shown here) is an expression of disagreement or anger, similar to "damn you"

3. "basket" (Singapore English) is an expletive not a receptacle.

4. "up mud" (Hong Kong Cantonese often typed as shown here) means "what are you talking about?"

5. "powderful" (Singapore English), note the spelling "powder" but the word means powerful

6. "fetch" (Singapore English) a verb meaning to ferry someone in a car

Ok, I need to get back to doing boring things. This has been fun. Thanks.

Lian-Hee

Martha,

A professional associate of mine gets "affect" and "effect" confused.

Lian-Hee,

I used to have a great little book called "Eh Gondoo" (I hope I remember it correctly), written by a woman in Singapore all about Singapore slang (as opposed to Singapore sling, a type of drink).  It was a riot!  I have lost the book and would love to replace it.  I still use some of the expressions in that book, like:

Thanks for bringing back such good memories.  I think books like that, that make fun in a lovable way, are terrific for intercultural understanding.

Singapore Sling is also an incredible Greek film!

In Puerto Rico there is a unique word Zafacon for trash receptacle. In other areas in Spain and Latin America the general word is Basurero. It happens that when Puerto Rico was occupied by the United States the military took charge of the Island nation. The US military authority put 55 gallon drums around the cities and towns to manage trash. The military referred to these as Safety Cans. As the military would ask the population to put the trash in the Safety Can. The population  understood the the can was for trash. Safety became zafa and can become Spanishized to con. Language is living and the ingenious lively one are coining new terminology. Not only can we do this but it somewhat an inevitable result of errors in repetition and we are richer for it.  

James, that is such a hard word to keep straight.  I think if people broke each word into two parts, for example, af-fect and then realizing the af part is produced by compounding Latin ad- and fect (participle of verb to make or do) so that the d changes to f for consonant assimilation.  (I hope that's the right word for this kind of sandhi).  If they break the word apart it may make more sense.

So then affect has the flavor of acting toward the object, which might change it. What it changes into is the effect (result of that action). - ex can mean out of,  so "what comes out of that action".

If you have time to parse that out, it should help.  Oh, and then there's the noun "affect", which means essentially the image you project onto the world.  (for example, the doctor tells the person he had better stop taking a pain medication because it could affect (stress on Fect) his affect (stress on Af). 

Thanks for giving that example.

Paul, your analysis

Not only can we do this but it somewhat an inevitable result of errors in repetition and we  are richer for it.

is so true.  Playing with our languages is a kind of art and mistakes add to the spice of life.   (IF we have a proper sense of humor).

Jacques, I would like to get that film for our college's foreign film collection.  It sounds as if you rate it highly.  Can you give me a quick synopsis?  Not the whole film but just maybe the basic idea?

Martha,

I realized early in life that English and the "Romance" languages mostly are derived from Latin roots words. This makes it possible to follow written text even if you have limited French, Spanish, or Italian. Unfortunately, most people do not understand that aspect of language and therefore struggle when encountering words they do not know.

Romance languages primarily are considered to be Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, and Portuguese. These were derived from vulgar Latin and are thought to be tied to Rome, hence Romance. In the past few centuries the Romance languages have been seen as synonymous to fine literature and poetry, mainly because great works of literature most often were written in one of these languages. Many less informed equate Romance languages to the language of lovers, which is partially true since great poetry is common in these languages.

Well, twenty/thirty years ago, a british perfume label offered on the german market a perfume called 'blue mist'. this failed, becuase in german 'mist' means 'cow' or 'shhep' 'dung'.