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In this video, I’m going to be talking about false friends;
and by that I don’t mean people who claim to be your friends then leave you in the lurch:
I’m talking about words in different languages
that look as if they ought to mean the same thing,
but don’t.
English and German have many false friends and it would take far too long to list them all.
So here are five pairs picked more or less at random,
that regularly cause problems.
In English, if somebody is “pregnant”, that means she’s with child:
the German translation is “schwanger”.
The German word “prägnant”, though, means that the meaning was put across succinctly:
“concise” would be the correct translation into English.
And yes, it sometimes does happen that a German businessman gets egg on his face
by praising a female American colleague’s presentation by saying:
“You were very pregnant!”
In English, “sensible” means something is practical or someone has good judgement:
in German that means “vernünftig”.
The German word “sensibel” means someone is responsive to outside stimuli:
“sensitive”, in other words.
As a bonus, the German word “Sense” has absolutely nothing to do with sensitivity at all:
it’s the word for a scythe.
English-speakers can spend money — “ausgeben” — or time — “verbringen”.
In German, if you say “spenden”, you mean giving away something for free:
“donate” is the correct word to use here.
So if a German announces his intention to “spend blood”,
don’t worry: it’s not a currency; it’s a translation error.
The English word “actually” does actually cause problems.
It means “in fact” and is translated in German as “tatsächlich” or “eigentlich”.
The German word “aktuell” means up-to-date:
“currently” is the best translation.
You often find the word “aktuell”
in names of news and current affairs programmes and magazines,
just to underline the point that the news is new.
And finally, the English word “eventually” means that something happens after a long wait,
rather like the end of this video.
“Letztendlich” or “schließlich” is the more appropriate German translation.
The German “eventuell” means that something may or may not happen:
“possibly” or “potentially” would be more appropriate in English.
There are many more of these, and it does pay to watch out for them.
But this video did get a bit long.
Eventually, I wasn’t pregnant enough.
Be nice to me in the comments, though, because I am quite sensible.