Imagine This:

 

You are having a movie marathon with a friend who speaks mostly French. You’re doing well in your French classes, but you aren’t anywhere near fluent yet. Seeing the state of your coffee table, you decide to ask your friend to dispose of the empty snack containers and drink bottles littered around the room, but you can’t quite remember the French word that means “to dispose.” Suddenly, you remember once seeing the word “disposer” somewhere. It has to mean the same thing, right? It wouldn’t be spelled the same way if it didn’t…right? You go ahead and ask your friend to “disposer” of the rubbish and venture off on your quest to for a pizza to eat during the second half of movie night. Upon your return, you find your French BFF has used the flotsam and jetsam of your movie night to create an art installation on your coffee table. What!? Though you can appreciate the aesthetically pleasing display of trash, it is still trash that has yet to be dealt with. A litter-monster yet to be slayed in the name of the knights of the round pizza. While you and your friend stare at each other with confused expressions, you wonder where you went wrong.

 

 

Would you like to know the mistake you made in this hypothetical situation? Other than the fact that you expected someone else to clean up after you—that’s just rude—you trusted a false friend. No, I don’t mean your foreign pal; they’re just an innocent bystander in this situation. In linguistics, false friends (or faux amis) are words that appear to be the same in two different languages but have different meanings.

 

 

Properly translated, to dispose of something is “se débarrasser.” When you used the word “disposer”, your well-meaning friend took it to mean arrange.

 

 

Yes, I know this example seems silly; however, believe me when I say, faux amis can quickly turn into bête noir (figuratively, this can be taken to mean “the bane of one’s existence”). Not everyone’s experience with false friends is as endearing as accidentally saying “sympathique” (nice or friendly) when you mean to say “compatissant” (sympathetic). Sometimes it can get downright embarrassing.

 

 

Imagine Another Scenario:

 

You are enjoying a lovely breakfast and decide you want some preserves to spread on your toast, so you politely ask your server for “préservatif” and smile. The entire wait staff and all surrounding customers gawk in your direction as a younger patron stifles a giggle. You’ve heard that word somewhere before and believe it’s close enough in sound that it must be close in meaning. It isn’t. You’ve just ordered a prophylactic to go along with your meal. After realizing your gaffe, with some help from your obliging waiter, embarrassment colors your face as deep a red as that strawberry jam you wish you’d known how to order. Preservative and préservatif aren’t just false friends; they’re practically co-conspirators in the campaign to make you look foolish.

 

 

Don’t fall prey to the confusion surrounding similar sounding words. Lists of faux amis are available all over the place: from teachers, on the internet, and you might even find a book on them in a librairie (bookshop, not library). Instead of a list, I’d rather give you some advice: when learning a language, as in life, it is important to separate your true friends from your false friends. It’s those memorable moments that make learning another language fun, but sometimes it’s more important to keep from ordering an overly ambitious breakfast.  

 

 

Have you ever made a faux pas involving faux amis? If so, tell us all about your “lost in translation” mistake.