False Friends and Firm Friends in English and Italian Language

False friends are words which sound alike but are not the same but are misleading.

False Friends
Today I got a word wrong on the Italian learning free website Duolingo. The phrase was Due m a c c i n e I guessed two machines. No. It's two cars.

Not duo but d u e.
However, a little later up pops another word translated as cars, automobile .

Trenta is thirty. My first thought was that t for twenty and t h for thirty but i go that wrong so now I remember t r as in trio so Trenta is Thirty.

Leggo is I read. At first glance I thought it was I run, as in leg. But it is leg as in legible and illegible, readable and impossible to read.

Fattoria is a farm (not a factory) - I remember a place where you fatten animals.

Firm Friends
We use the word automobile in English, but it's a very old-fashioned word, rarely used except in old songs.

La quinta is the fifth. At first I got muddled with fourth and fifth. But it's easy. Quadruplets are four children and quintuplets are five. So quinta is fifth.

cavalli - horses (like cavalry)

TRANSLATION ENGLISH-ITALIAN
cars - m a c c h i n e
cars - automobili

TRANSLATION ITALIAN-ENGLISH
automobili - cars
m a c c h i n e - cars

I have to remember to double the letter c in Italian.

I stretched out the word because the predictive text keeps changing the Italian into English if I am not fast enough at seeing and tapping the little x after the wrong suggestion. However, stretching out the word makes it easy to spot each individual letter. Otherwise your eye just skims over the word without registering important differences between one language and another.

How do I remember the Italian for birthday? C o m p l e a n n o - completed years.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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