I know for instance, between Japanese & Mandarin there are a few words that are written the same despite them being pronounced differently along with having different meanings altogether:
| Word | Japanese Definition | Mandarin Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 手紙 | Letter (mail) | Toilet Paper |
| 先生 | Teacher | Mister (Mr.) |
| 天井 | Ceiling | Atrium |
| 説話 | Folktale | To Speak |
| 新聞 | Newspaper | News (media) |
| 約束 | Promise | Constrain |
| 文句 | Complain | Phrase |
| 怪我 | Injury | Blame me |
| 白鳥 | Swan | White Bird |
| 皮肉 | Irony | Skin & Flesh |
| 王妃 | Queen | Princess |
| 中古 | Used Product | Medieval Times |
| 氷箱 | Ice Box | Refrigerator |
| 手袋 | Gloves | Handbag |
| 邪魔 | Hinderance | Devil |
| 湯 | Hot Water | Soup |
| 猪 | Boar | Pig |
| 腕 | Arm | Wrist |
| 走 | Run | Walk |
| 棚 | Shelf | Shed |
| 首 | Neck | Head |
| 床 | Floor | Bed |
| 吃 | Scold | To Eat |
| 机 | Desk (Furniture) | Machinery |
| 娘 | Daughter | Mother |
In hindsight: if you are bilingual, do you know any false friends between two languages (i.e. English & French) or (i.e. Spanish & Portuguese) that are spelled the same but have different definitions across both languages?
An Australian Cunt is quite different from the American one
So is fanny for that matter…
And thongs.
It’s not just in different languages, but sometimes in different variants of the same languages.
For instance, in Belgian French, “tournante” is any task in which people take turn, like a card game. In French French, it’s specifically gang rape. Or “torchon” which is a cleaning cloth in France and a mop in Belgium.
And then you have words that aren’t spelled exactly the same way but seem like an obvious translation (actual false friends, which aren’t usually exact matches), like the Spanish “constipado”, which means to have a stuffy nose and not what you think.
Some examples from flemish (belgian dutch) to dutch:
Word flemish dutch Lopen to run to walk Stappen to walk to go out (to a bar) Poepen to have sex to poop I remember the first time in a swimming pool in flanders I was so confused by all the signs saying I shouldn’t walk.
mare:
- french: pond
- english: female horse
- italian: ocean
- dutch: message
P.S the word for what you’re describing is either homonym (spelled the same, sounds the same) or a heteronym (spelled the same, sounds different). Wiktionary has a good table
No, what they’re describing is a False Friend. A very specific type of homophone/graph/nym. They work across languages. And in many cases (though not a hard rule) have close enough meaning/usage that would confuse non-native speakers trying to comprehend things via context.
E.g. A German telling his English friend, “I’ll meet you at the gymnasium”. The sentence is correct, and makes perfect sense to both. But they’ll end up at two different places.
OP wrote (emphasis mine)
What are the most confusing false friends from your language to another that are spelled exactly the same?
Definitions of a heteronym
A heteronym (also known as a heterophone) is a word that has a different pronunciation and meaning as another word but the same spelling.
a word spelled the same as another but having a different sound and meaning
That’s within the same language. If it’s across languages, the term doesn’t apply.
Nowhere in the definition is there a mention of a language restriction.
