As in other languages, one can find in Norwegian words that appear or sound similar to words in English, but differ in meaning.\u00a0 These are called false friends.\u00a0 I always thought these were called false cognates, but I was mistaken.\u00a0 False cognates are pairs of words in different languages that have similar meaning, but lack a common linguistic root.\u00a0<\/p>\n
False cognates are especially tricky for beginners of a language because your brain wants the words that look familiar to you to mean what you familiarize them with.\u00a0 If I see a word in Portuguese, of which I know only several words that looks similar to a word in English, I assume that the word means the same as the English word, unless I am specifically told differently.\u00a0 You can usually tell from the context, of course, if the words truly mean the same thing, but sometimes it is difficult to distinguish.\u00a0 For instance, there is a word in Norwegian that is a perfect example of such confusion: appelsin.\u00a0 <\/strong>It is a fruit.\u00a0 What kind of fruit would you guess it is?\u00a0 An apple, right?\u00a0 Because it basically has the word apple in it.\u00a0 Can you see why it would be difficult to know that appelsin <\/strong>means something other than apple even if you know the context is about fruit?\u00a0 The word appelsin <\/strong>actually means ‘orange;’ ‘apple’ is eple, <\/strong>which is more similar in pronunciation than in appearance.\u00a0 ‘Eple’ <\/strong>is pronounced epp-luh and appelsin <\/strong>is pronounced ah-pell-seen.\u00a0 It’s en<\/span> appelsin <\/strong>and et<\/span> eple<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The following is a brief list of other words to watch out for-they don’t mean what you probably expect them to mean!<\/p>\n full <\/strong>means drunk, not full (full is mett)<\/strong><\/p>\n gravid <\/strong>means pregnant (nothing to do with graves…)<\/p>\n et bord <\/strong>means a table (not a board or bored)<\/p>\n en gris <\/strong>means a pig (not grease even though that’s how it is pronounced)<\/p>\n mugg <\/strong>means mildew\/mold (not a mug)<\/p>\n en grad <\/strong>means a degree (not grade or an abbreviation for\u00a0a graduate)<\/p>\n en perm <\/strong>means a notebook (not perm, as in\u00a0a curly hair permanent)<\/p>\n Can you think of other words in Norwegian that you thought meant the same as the English word that it looks like?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As in other languages, one can find in Norwegian words that appear or sound similar to words in English, but differ in meaning.\u00a0 These are called false friends.\u00a0 I always thought these were called false cognates, but I was mistaken.\u00a0 False cognates are pairs of words in different languages that have similar meaning, but lack…<\/p>\n