Any false friends (faux amis)?

159753 · Post by **159753** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 9:19 pm

One curious question, is that any false friends like in French car is actually a coach and After in German is anus.

**Sponsor:**

Frypan · Post by **Frypan** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 10:58 pm

A dokumentti is not a document, but a documentary.

khu · Post by **khu** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:20 am

I don't know if it's strictly a 'false friend' but viina in Finnish is 'liquor', not 'wine' -- whereas viini is wine.

And my girlfriend just reminded me of one I laugh at all the time: 'greippi' refers to 'grapefruit'. But Finnish products refer to 'greippi' drinks and one even has 'grape' written on it (a false friend translated back into English inappropriately). It's like they didn't even look up the word 'grape' to find out what it really means.

159753 · Post by **159753** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:49 am

Thanks, one thing that might laugh you is that I get appelsiini (orange) and otoma (apple) mixed up so I have once bought orange rather then apple juice, because one naturely thinks appelsiini means apple because Apfel is the German word for apple and äpple is the Swedish word for apple.

khu · Post by **khu** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 1:23 am

Ha! If I remember right, I read that in some Germanic/Scandinavian languages it can also be something apelsin (Swedish) or apfelsine (German), from which Finns derived 'appelsiini', reason being that they originally considered oranges to be 'Chinese apples' (sina/sine/chine) being various ways of pronouncing 'China' in those languages. So now you know where that false friend comes from.

Actually apple in Finnish is omena, not otoma. (Otoma sounds kind of Japanese actually). Apple is 'ringo' in Japanese, taken from the Chinese 'ping guo'

Mook · Post by **Mook** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 9:32 am

159753 wrote: otoma (apple)

err, shurely you mean "omena"?

Frypan · Post by **Frypan** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 10:41 am

Yucca suggests a few more here.

mookoo · Post by **mookoo** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:45 am

159753 wrote:Thanks, one thing that might laugh you is that I get appelsiini (orange) and otoma (apple) mixed up so I have once bought orange rather then apple juice, because one naturely thinks appelsiini means apple because Apfel is the German word for apple and äpple is the Swedish word for apple.

That one tripped me up too. Darn Finnish!

PeterF · Post by **PeterF** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 9:35 am

Here are a few..

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/suomi/false-friends.html

dreamer · Post by **dreamer** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 10:10 am

I'm not so sure if this entry is acurrate enough (it's correct, but a bit forced in my opinion):

risky 'vaarallinen' ----- riski (adj.) 'strong (person)'

"risky" is also "riskinen" in Finnish, and "riski" in Finnish means also "risk" (noun), the dictionary gives the adj. 'strong' as second meaning only

It's not really the case that "risk" is totally unknown in the Finnish language

SGaudreau · Post by **SGaudreau** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 10:34 am

kinkkinen one would think means kinky...um..nope...kinkkinen=tricky

sunny1011 · Post by **sunny1011** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 9:28 pm

A funny one: "palaverit" - Finns often call meetings like that. In German: "Palaver" - ist kinda babbling without making any sense... but isn't it meetings in the most companies are all about

?

"Wursti" - a false friend, because Wurst contains meat in Germany

"Mettwursti" is a kind of salami here, in German this is a kind of a sausage spread.

Interesting subject...

Frypan · Post by **Frypan** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 1:07 pm

A cd levy is not a tax on compact discs

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 6:55 pm

Dunno, but this is a fun one: Tämä on täyttä hepreaa = Its all Greek to me.

alloydog · Post by **alloydog** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 9:21 am

Frypan wrote:A cd levy is not a tax on compact discs

Yet...

Kärkki Pussi is not a cat in combat clothing

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