False friends? More like close relatives ...

In my Anglo-Italian family we happily gabble away, using a mixture of English and Italian.We switch from one language to another without being aware of it. Whenever I meet up with my English-speaking friends, we often anglicise Italian words and expressions, and we all understand each other perfectly. Sometimes one of the languages has a word that is just so much more colourful or accurate.One example is furbo. The dictionary will translate it as "clever" or "devious", but it doesn't really mean either of these things. It is more like "ingenious".

When teaching English to Italian teenagers, it is good to be aware of  pronunciation. Cats, castle, phone call, murder, will all guarantee a giggle when said with an Italian accent.

Then, there are all the so-called "false friends". This comes from the French faux amis, and apparently goes all the way back to the Norman Conquest in 1066, when the Anglo-Saxon words fought with the French ones. Some words were synonyms with a different origin, and some had to compete with Anglo-Saxon words with the same meaning.

Italian, like French, is a Romance language, so the words that are false friends in French are often similar to the Italian ones.
Parents, in English, means just the mother and father but, in Italian, parenti refers to the whole lot. Aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, are all parenti.

I don't really like the term "false friends". Who would ever want one? I prefer to think of them as being like close relatives ... they are all on the same side, but you just have to understand them.

Here is a short list of the most common ...

parents - genitori          relations - parenti
factory - fabbrica          fattoria - farm
education - istruzione   educazione - good manners
cold - freddo                caldo - hot            
magazine - rivista         magazzino - warehouse
stamp - francobollo     stampa - newspaper press
gentle - dolce               gentile - kind
annoy - irritare            annoiare - to bore
to pretend - fingere      pretendere - to expect
morbid - morboso       morbido - soft

... but there are lots more.

You can seem from the list, how easyily misunderstandings can occur. There is quite a difference between being bored or annoyed, pretending or expecting ... eating an ostrich or an oyster ...

May all your misunderstandings result in laughter.