False friend

False friend is a term used by learners (and their teachers) of foreign languages, mostly applied to cognate (related) languages. It is used to label terms in the language being learnt which look like a term in the learner's mother tongue (sometimes a third language), but do not mean the same.

Some examples are:

• the Italian adjective geniale does not mean the same as the English genial. It is much closer to the English ingenious.
• In French, where the words for 'time' and 'weather' are homonyms (temps), the question quel temps fait-il? (what's the weather like?' is said to be often misunderstood by schoolchildren as 'What time is it?'
• In Spanish, the (feminine) adjective embarazada means 'pregnant', and may be used substantively as 'pregnant woman'. It does not mean 'embarrassed'.
• In German, the verb wille, although connected etymologically to the English Auxiliary verb 'will', is purely a translation of the semantic verb 'to want'