"False friends" in English and Finnish "False friends" (French _faux amis_) are pairs of words in two languages so that the words are written or pronounced identically or similarly but differ in meaning. They cause problems especially when you see or hear a word in a foreign language and you assume that it has the same meaning as a similar word in your native language. Often the words have a common origin but the meanings have become different, perhaps very different. See [1]English faux amis for francophones learning English for a more detailed general characterization and for examples on English/French false friends. This document lists some "false friends" in English and [2]Finnish. In the following table, each row contains 1. an English word 2. a semantic equivalent in Finnish 3. a Finnish word resembling (in spelling or pronunciation or both) the English word 4. an explanation of the meaning of the Finnish word in English. novel 'romaani' novelli 'short story' grape 'viinirypäle' greippi 'grapefruit' liquor 'väkevä alkoholijuoma' likööri 'liqueur' billion (US) 'miljardi' biljoona 'trillion (US)' canine 'kulmahammas; koira(eläin)' kaniini 'rabbit' petrol (Br.) 'bensiini' petroli 'paraffin oil bassoon 'fagotti' pasuuna 'trombone' faggot (or fagot) 'risukimppu fagotti 'bassoon' ale 'olut (eräs tyyppi)' ale (=alennusmyynti) 'sale (at a reduced price' risky 'vaarallinen' riski (adj.) 'strong (person)' There are some word pairs which could be regarded as "false friends" in the sense that a Finnish word has _more restricted meaning_ than its "friend" in English. For example: * in English, _sex_ can mean 'gender', too, but in Finnish _seksi_ means 'sexual activity' or 'sexual attractiveness' only (and 'gender' is _sukupuoli_) * in Finnish, _sortsit_ (or _shortsit_) means short trousers only, whereas short underpants are called _alushousut_ * the English word _tape_ occurs as a loanword in Finnish, written _teippi_, but it has the very restricted meaning 'adhesive tape' (whereas a tape in general is _nauha_); to add to the confusion, jargon occasionally uses _teippi_ to mean 'magnetic tape'! Some words are false friends _in some contexts only_: * English _positive_ can usually be translated as _positiivinen_ (and in some contexts it _must_ be translated that way), but translating _I'm positive_ that way would be an error (it must be translated e.g. as _olen varma_). * _invalid_ can often be translated as _invalidi_ or synonymously _vammainen_, but not in a context like _invalid command_ (which could be translated as _virheellinen komento_). * _liberal_ is often _liberaali_ (or synonymously _vapaamielinen_, "free-minded"), but _liberal education_ is certainly not _liberaali kasvatus_ (though it is often mistranslated that way) but rather _klassillinen koulutus_ * _moral_ as an adjective is normally translated as _moraalinen_, but _moral of the story_ is not _tarinan moraali_ (rather, _tarinan opetus_) The word pair _pathetic - pateettinen_ is more difficult to describe. Originally, _pateettinen_ means 'high-flown' (and English _pathetic_ is translated e.g. as _säälittävä_ or _surkea_). But it seems that the impact of English has changed things so that _pateettinen_ now very often means 'pathetic'. (In the Finnish version of [3]The Lion King on video, Zazu's words about Simba becoming a very pathetic king has been translated as "sinusta tulee hyvin _pateettinen_ kuningas". In this context, both interpretations are plausible, and perhaps the translator intentionally created the ambiguity!) The English words _brandy_ and _brand_ and their use in Finnish is an interesting phenomenon, too. Probably the words don't get confused with each other in English, but in Finnish things might be different. The word _brandy_ has been used in Finnish a long time. The use of _brand_ is newer, and fashionable, and it is typically written as _brandi_ or _brändi_ (where the final _-i_ is pronounced roughly as _-y_ in English _brandy_). In this case, and in some other cases mentioned above, false friends reflect similarity of two words (or even polysemy) within the English language. But the problem is that a Finn is inclined to associate a word wrongly much more probably than an Englishman might confuse the two English words with each other. For example, English has _liquor_ and _liqueur_, but only the latter has a counterpart in Finnish; and since films and books in English mention liquors more often than liqueurs, a Finn might easily understand _liquor_ as _likööri_. _________________________________________________________________ _Finnish summary - suomenkielinen tiivistelmä:_ "Väärät ystävät" ovat sanapareja, joissa samannäköisillä tai samalta kuulostavilla sanoilla on eri merkitys eri kielissä. Ongelmia aiheuttavat erityisesti tapaukset, joissa vierasta kieltä opetteleva olettaa tutunnäköisen tai -kuuloisen sanan tarkoittavan samaa kuin äidinkielessään. Usein kyse on sanoista, joilla on yhteinen alkuperä mutta jotka ovat kehittyneet merkitykseltään ehkä hyvinkin eri suuntiin. Tämä dokumentti luettelee eräitä "vääriä ystäviä", joissa kielinä ovat suomi ja englanti. _________________________________________________________________ I got (1999-06-14) an E-mail message from a person writing an English textbook, intending "to include some exercises on false friends (ie words that look the same in two different languages but which in fact have different meanings)", and asking whether I could help by providing a list of 10-15 common Finnish/English false friends. My first reaction was that there probably aren't many of them, and no pair that might cause real confusion came into my mind. Little did I know... Luckily I posted [4]a message to the [5]Usenet newsgroup [6]sfnet.keskustelu.kieli (a Finnish group for discussing language issues). It initiated [7]an interesting thread, and almost all examples here have been taken from the contributions there. I have tried to pick up those cases which could be especially important in practice: words which could occur in a context where an interpretation based on a false friend makes sense (though the wrong sense). I became convinced that false friends actually cause a lot of problems to Finns trying to learn and use English. Perhaps I had forgotten the situations I had experienced, since they were so embarrassing. Now I remember that During my visit to the US in the 80s, when I was a smoker, I was looking for a vending machine to buy some cigarettes. I asked a motel employee whether they had a cigarette _automaton_. In Finnish, _automaatti_ has the meaning 'vending machine' (and 'automatic teller'), too. And now I also remember having seen a pub advertize _ale-olutta_, really puzzled by the question whether they sell beer at a reduced price or ale (which is still rather unknown in Finland, enjoyed by connoisseurs mainly). For information about other phenomena which cause problems to Finns when they use English, see the document [8]About English as used by me, and by Finns in general. [9]Date of last update: 1999-07-07 [10]Jukka Korpela, [11]Jukka.Korpela@hut.fi References 1. http://www.wfi.fr/volterre/sheen.html 2. http://www.hut.fi/u/jkorpela/Finnish.html 3. http://us.imdb.com/Title?0110357 4. http://www.deja.com/msgid.xp?MID=%3C377b6369.1745429464@news.cs.hut.fi%3E 5. file://localhost/m/fs/lk/lk/jkorpela/public_html/usenet/ 6. http://www.deja.com/dnquery.xp?ST=QS&query=%7eg%20sfnet.keskustelu.kieli 7. http://www.deja.com/viewthread.xp?AN=496006144&search=thread&recnum=%3c377b6369.1745429464@news.cs.hut.fi%3e%231/1&group=sfnet.keskustelu.kieli&frpage=getdoc.xp 8. file://localhost/m/fs/lk/lk/jkorpela/public_html/my-english.html 9. http://www.hut.fi/u/jkorpela/iso8601.html 10. http://www.hut.fi/u/jkorpela/ 11. mailto:Jukka.Korpela@hut.fi