In this video we’re going to look at false friends in English and Portuguese.
If we’re meeting for the first time, I’m Alister, an English teacher.
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A false friend is a word that is often confused with a word in another language because the
two words look or sound similar.
In Portuguese they are called falso cognatos.
For example, this word in English, chat, means to talk casually whereas in French it is spelt
the same, pronounced, chat, and means cat.
So why Portuguese?
Portuguese ,língua portuguesa, is a Romance language with sole official status in seven
countries - Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and São
Tomé and Príncipe, however you pronounce that one.
It has approximately 250 million speakers worldwide, also having co-official status
in East Timor and Equatorial Guinea
It is widely regarded as the 6th most prevalent language spoken worldwide.
In my experience knowing these false friends helps Portuguese speakers learning English
and English speakers learning Portuguese.
Let’s kick things off with what might be one of the least popular words in the English
language!
Taxa and Tax
A taxa is a fee, a sum of money paid for a piece of work, a service or a right.
Tax is the money you pay to the government based on the amount you earn or something
you pay on goods or services you have bought.
In Portuguese, this is imposto.
Next we have:
Gripe and Grip
Gripe translates as the flu, a common infection giving you fever, a headache, or a temperature
- something awful, the flu.
Whereas grip means to hold something very tightly, grip something tightly.
For example, a young child will grip their favourite toy very tightly and they won't
let it go - you'll never get it off them.
Grip, to hold tightly.
In Portuguese, agarrar might be the best, the most accurate translation.
Third up:
Injúria and Injury
An injúria is an insult, an offensive remark or action.
If you insult someone you say or do something that causes them offence, or something that
is rude.
An injury is physical harm or damage done to your body by an attack or by accident.
Ferida in Portuguese.
If you know any more false friends between Portuguese and English, please comment them
below.
Our fourth examples are false friends that are common in many languages, because of the
similarities between the two words.
Livraria and Library
A livraria is a bookstore, a place that sells books.
A library is a collection of many things, mostly books where people are able to borrow
things, usually without payment.
In Portuguese, this is called a biblioteca.
This one might be my favourite in the whole video and could lead to some pretty confusing
conversations! .
Parentes and Parents
Your parentes are your relatives, all of them - siblings, cousins, mother, grandparents,
aunts, uncles.
All of them including your parents, who are your mother and your father, your Mum and
Dad.
In Portuguese, these are Pais.
By the way, this video is part of my false friends series.
Make sure to check out the other videos up here after you’ve watched this video.
This next one is brilliant!
Pasta and Pasta
A pasta is a folder, something like this, and pasta is a food made from flour and water,
that looks something like this.
It comes in many varieties, most people think it's tasty, if you add a nice sauce.
We’ll combine our 7th and 8th examples:
Pular and Pull
Puxar and Push
Pular means to jump, and pulling is this,
You pull something towards you, which strangely is puxar in Portuguese.
Whereas in English, this is pushing, you push something away from you.
Empurrar in Portuguese. Pretty confusing.
Next, and apologies for my pronunciation.
Assistir and Assist
Simply put, assistir means to watch something, the TV, for example.
On the other hand assist means to help.
It’s normally used for something that someone could do themselves however with assistance
they’re able to do it better, to do it efficiently, to do it more quickly, to do it more cost
effectively.
As you can see the meaning is completely different.
Assist in Portuguese is ajudar.
Now, for more false friends, including French, German, Spanish and Russian, check out this
playlist right over here.
And if you know any more false friends between Portuguese and English, make sure to comment
them below.
Muito obrigado to my student, Carol who helped with this lesson.
Thanks so much for watching and I’ll see you over here in these videos.