Comment on Do non-English speakers learn to code in English, or in their native language?
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks agoIn a nutshell, words that look the same / similar but with different meanings in their respective languages, making it pretty confusing.
treadful@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Like homonyms or something different?
Lemmert@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
False friends usually aren’t homonyms since the word comes from different languages.
To give an example: an English speaker might look at “rare auto” (Dutch) and might translate it to “rare car”. But “rare” means “weird” in Dutch. So rare is a false friend in this case
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
The Dutch word for “who” - wie - is the same as as the German word for “how”.
Nastiest false friend I know because it’s a very common use word in both.
Lemmert@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
The more you know! German as a Dutch speaker has always been a bit of a special language (I’m assuming the other way around as well).Like some words are similar (like gevonden/gefunden). Which makes sense, but then some German composite words sound funny. Because we do understand what a bahn (baan) and hof (also hof) mean. But we call a bahnhof a station.
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s cool about “rare” in Dutch. It’s the same in Spanish. “Qué raro” means “How weird.” So that’s a false friend for English, but an accurate one between Spanish and Dutch!
Lemmert@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Damn that’s cool!
Danquebec@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
There are many false friends between French and English. Off the top of my head:
EN: eventually (FR: un jour) FR: éventuellement (EN: possibly)
“Enregistrer” in French both means to record something and to save a file, but you can’t use the English word “register” for both.
“Défense” in French both means defense and prohibited, but you can’t use the English “defense” for both.