Sunday, October 22, 2017

False Friends in Italian and Spanish

Italian and Spanish are Romance languages with many similar words. However, the two languages also have a number of false friends, words which look similar but have different meanings. Here is a list with the Italian word on the left and the Spanish word on the right:

barato (cheated) barato (cheap)
burro (butter) burro (donkey)
guardare (look at) guardar (guard, keep)
largo (wide) largo (long)
officina (workshop) oficina (office)
pronto (ready) pronto (soon)
salire (go up) salir (go out)
sembrare (seem) sembrar (seed, sow)
subire (undergo) subir (go up)
topo (mouse) topo (mole)

In the list of false friends, some are spelt identically. In a few cases, the Italian word ends with a vowel as in guardare/guardar and salire/salir. Though Italian and Spanish have a high degree of lexical similarity, they also have words that look similar but are not.



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