True story: I studied German in school but am no way fluent. I did visit Germany once. First day there, on a bus on the autobahn out in the country, I noticed an exit to Ausfahrt. Must be a small town, since it’s not visible from the highway. Then a couple more and I started to wonder how many exits does this small town have. Somewhere around the 4th or 5th exit the light suddenly dawned on me.
Heh. There’s also the story of the guy asking who owned all the luxurious buildings in a historic city. “Kannichtverstehen” must be a very wealthy man.
The German word Animation has the same meaning as in French. It’s mostly used for the kind of entertainment and recreational activities that are provided in many holiday resorts: music and dance shows, kid’s entertainment, games and sports. The people who are responsible for those activities are called Animateure.
That story has literary status (and an ending with a moral).
I probably read it in a high school German textbook then. Thanks!
They are not. A little checking on Wiktionary tells me that hallitus (Estonian) ultimately derives from Finnic word hall meaning grey (which appears to be an early borrowing from Proto-Balto-Slavic); hallitus (Finnish) derives from a Germanic root meaning “hold” and is in fact cognate with the English word “hold”.
So while both words owe their origins to borrowings from Indo-European languages into Finnic languages, they are completely unrelated.
Intriguingly, the modern Finnish word “halli” means “grey seal”, whose generic name is “halichoerus”. I guess this is just a coincidence.
Reminds me of Ireland’s worst driver.
That’s great
I’ve gone through the topic and collected all those contributions that answer the OP. All but one are between English and some other language. I skipped those that looked like they were related, as well as those from languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet. Except for the Chinese one, because that has an official Romanization.
[Contributor’s names are in square brackets.]
comes (Latin) “companion” [UDS1]
blinder (Welsh) “tiredness” [Dr.Drake]
brood (Dutch) “bread” [I_Love_Me_Vol.I]
comment (French) “how” [hogarth]
grill (Welsh) “chirping” [Dr.Drake]
kitten (German) “to cement” [DPRK]
looming (Estonian) “creation” [Chad_Sudan]
march (Welsh) “horse” [Dr.Drake]
piping (Chinese) “a criticism” [Mijin]
plant (Welsh) “children” [Dr.Drake]
romper (Spanish) “to break” [Kimble]
saber (Spanish) “to know”, “knowledge” [hibericus]
semen (Indonesian) “cement” [CairoCarol]
union (Welsh) “straight” [Dr.Drake]
The one that doesn’t have English as one of the two languages is the winner so far:
hallitus (Finnish) “government” (Estonian) “mold” [Chassic_Sense] [confirmed by hibericus]
And I wasn’t 100% certain about this one. I’d be surprised if they aren’t related but would like confirmation.
pretend (portuguese) “intend” [HMS_Irruncible]
BTW, I’m impressed at both the wide selection of languages represented in the list as well as the number of contributors. Kudos to everyone.
Forgot about these. I looked through the Quora thread, but only found a couple that met my requirements:
bomber (Catalan) “firefighter”
burro (Spanish) “donkey” (Italian) “butter”
= Finnish for biological tissue or a weave
Yeah, when I was in French immersion, the animateurs were the facilitators of group activities. An animateur can also be the host of a party or a TV show. Basically, someone who ‘brings life to’ a social gathering.
It’s interesting to see the different ways a word went; in English the corresponding word, animator, is someone who makes pictures move. Though there is an older sense of ‘full of life’, as in an animated conversation.
One of the possible conjugations of the Spanish verb lavar (“to wash”) is lava.
Another English = American is Bonnet.
“In your Easter bonnet” refers to headwear in both “languages”. Bonnet is also the hood of a car; in English but not American.
Same in French. « Libraire » is the bookstore, « bibliothèque » is the library.
4 more, none of them long:
“chico” = in Spanish, small, young boy / in Tagalog, a fruit, Manilkara zapota - Wikipedia
“leer” = in Spanish, infinitive verb, meaning “to read”
“meter” = in Spanish, infinitive verb, meaning “to put”, not related to the metric system
“mango” = in Spanish, handle, not related to the fruit
“Mango” is the only word in this list of “false friends” that fits the specs in the OP: Falsos amigos - Spanish False Friends - Lawless Spanish Vocabulary
And does German “wetter” count, or is it related to its English meaning, “weather”?
librairie
It seems like it counts, as one (you mean Wetter?) has to do with blowing, and the other with water. “wetter” as in wett, wetten, wettmachen appears to be yet another word.
I suppose gkster’s question was whether the English comparative “wetter” was cognate to German “Wetter”, not German words such as “wettmachen” and “Wette”. I understand that it isn’t; German “Wetter” goes back, as you say, to a root that means “to blow” (as does English “weather”; I suppose “wind” and “Wind” in German have the same root). But the English adjective “wet” has a different root; it’s cognate to “water” (and German “Wasser”). “Wettmachen” and “Wette” have yet another etymology.
Yes I did mean Wetter, forgot to capitalize the noun. And @Schnitte answered very thoroughly too.
A few Dutch ones.
leer means ‘empty’ in German, and ‘leather’ in Dutch.
lover is in Dutch an old-fashioned word for foliage.
rooster, as mentioned above, may in Dutch mean toaster, but also grating, schedule.
worst in Dutch means sausage.
brand in Dutch means fire
Well-known false friends between German and Dutch:
‘Meer’ (sea) in German is ‘zee’ in Dutch
‘See’ (lake) in German is ‘meer’ in Dutch.