Tag Archives: italian false friends
Italian Cognates Posted by Geoff on Jul 25, 2018
Identifying similarities between Italian and English words can be a very useful way of expanding your vocabulary, but it also has its pitfalls. English is a Germanic language which has been heavily influenced by the Romance languages throughout its history. The Renaissance period in particular brought a huge influx of Latin words, and it’s estimated…
Italian False Friends Posted by Geoff on Feb 16, 2018
The English language contains many Latin words, and once you learn to recognise them it will be a great help in terms of building up your Italian vocabulary … … but not always … and that’s where false friends come in. False friends, often referred to as false cognates, are words that sound very similar…
December’s Quiz – The Answers Posted by Geoff on Dec 14, 2015
Well done all of you who sent in your answers to our December quiz, we’re really impressed! Santa is also very happy that you have been good students and he’s processing your Christmas lists as I write. Don’t forget to clean those chimneys. So, I asked you to insert the missing word into each sentences…
December’s Italian Quiz Posted by Geoff on Dec 9, 2015
“Oh no!” I can hear you all groan, “please … not a quiz about Christmas!”. Now would I be so cruel my dear readers? No, the purpose of this quiz is to tell me if you’ve been paying attention to my previous posts. And I shall be expecting lots of comments, even from those of…
More False Friends Posted by Geoff on Dec 7, 2015
Following on from last week’s article Italian False Friends, and taking into account the contributions made by you in your comments, we’re going to take a look at a few more common false cognitives. Common False Friends: argomento can be mistaken for ‘argument’ but actually means ‘topic’, e.g. stamattina il maestro ci ha introdotto un argomento…
Italian False Friends Posted by Geoff on Nov 30, 2015
Falsi amici, false friends … we’ve all had them! You think you’re a ‘good judge of character’, or perhaps you just want to believe that life is simpler than it really is. And then … dammit, screwed again! Well dear readers, your guardian angel has arrived. I’m here to forewarn you that the Italian language…
Misleading Word of the Day – part 7 Posted by Serena on Sep 27, 2010
Today’s ‘misleading word’ is yet another ‘false friend’, i.e. an Italian word that sounds more or less the same as an English word, but has a different meaning: Italian word sounds like English actual meaning geniale genial ingenious, talented The English word genial is usually defined as: ‘jovial’, ‘kindly’, ‘sociable’, etc. It also has the…