False Friends: a Must-Learn List

Illustration from hypebeast.com

When I first started to study Italian I was amazed by the number of words I already knew or could very easily guess the meanings. Partly because some of them are similar to Latin (I had studied some Latin at university) but mainly because they are not so different from English words. I remember how happy I was when I was speaking with my Italian friends using beginner’s sentence structures and from time to time throwing in some really fancy advanced level words. What can be simpler than taking a Latin origin English word, putting an Italian sounding ending (-a, -o, -e, -i), adding an article (even if sometimes it’s difficult to decide upon the gender) and using an Italian-like pronunciation? Indipendent becomes indipendente, liberty becomes liberta’ and you can continue like this for ages! Thanks God for inventing Latin!

However, trusting this strategy 100% may be dangerous or at least embarrassing.

Languages just like living organisms are continuously developing and changing, the words alter their meanings, acquire the new ones, forget the old ones. Obviously in the course of time some significant shifts and changes in meanings happened in both, English and Italian. There are words that look the same, sound almost the same BUT they mean different things. They are called False Friends (Falsi Amici) and they should be included in every student’s ‘a MUST-LEARN’ list 🙂

I add a list of the most common English-Italian false friends and their translations which should be helpful not only for those who study English but also for the English speakers who wish to learn Italian.