Thursday 25 June 2009

False Cognates

You must have realised by now that many English words that look/sound like Portuguese DO NOT mean the same in Portuguese.
A simple example is ACTUALLY, which may remind you of "ATUALMENTE" but means "NA VERDADE", as in :

Eg: He is actually a doctor, not a lawyer.

Check out the false cognates below. Do you know what they mean in Portuguese?
1- Apparel
2- Comprehensive
3- Compromise
4- Deception
5- Discussion
6- Disgrace
7- Editor
8- Education
9- Eventually
10- Exquisite

Find out under: False cognates: Translations

3 comments:

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  2. Chris,
    False cognates are so interesting and also extremely misleading.Sometimes, we assume that we know sth when actually the meaning is completely different.
    Thanks for allowing us to do some research on this topic.
    See you.

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  3. @Andrea

    Hi honey,

    I sometimes feel sorry for translators. As if English weren't hard enough, translators also have to deal with false cognates. Consider the following: "resume", "faculty", "intoxicated", "morose"; enough to drive a poor Brazilian crazy!
    Keep blogging.
    Chris

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