Learn what are some Italian "false friends"
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are some Italian false friends — words similar to English but with different meanings? |
| Ofelia: And what are some English words that Italians often use incorrectly? |
| Michael: At ItalianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Sasha Lee is on the bus with her neighbor, Giuseppe Mancini. She looks out the window and says, |
| "There are many farms." |
| Sasha Lee: Ci sono molte fattorie. |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: Ci sono molte fattorie. |
| Giuseppe Mancini: Sono fabbriche! |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: Ci sono molte fattorie. |
| Michael: "There are many farms." |
| Giuseppe Mancini: Sono fabbriche! |
| Michael: "They are factories!" |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In this lesson, we will talk about false friends. But, don't worry, we won't give you a lecture on who you should hang out with or not. The term false friends or, in Italian, |
| Ofelia: falsi amici [SLOW] falsi amici |
| Michael: is an informal term in linguistics used to describe words that have a similar sound but convey different meanings. The term itself was used by linguists for the first time in 1928. The origin of such words are sometimes similar, but they ended up conveying different meanings within each language. |
| In the main conversation, Sasha Lee seems to confuse farms and factories. She gets actually confused by an Italian false friend. Do you remember how she says "There are many farms." |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Ofelia as Sasha Lee: Ci sono molte fattorie. [SLOW] Ci sono molte fattorie. |
| Michael: "farm" in Italian translates as |
| Ofelia: fattoria [SLOW] fattoria |
| Michael: which is very similar to the English word "factory." Both the English word "factory" and the Italian word |
| Ofelia: fattoria |
| Michael: indirectly come from the Latin verb meaning "to do" (facere), but ended up having different meanings in each language. However, both words in both languages still refer to a workplace, a place where something gets done. |
| Now let's take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Giuseppe says "They are factories!" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Ofelia as Giuseppe: Sono fabbriche! [SLOW] Sono fabbriche! |
| Michael: "factory" in Italian translates as |
| Ofelia: fabbrica [SLOW] fabbrica |
| Michael: which is also a false friend if you mistakenly associate it with the English word "fabric." |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you've learned that hearing a familiar word in Italian doesn't mean that you will understand the meaning of it, due to the phenomenon of the so-called "false friends"—words that may be written or sound the same way as their English counterparts, but have a completely different meaning. |
| Now, let's look at some more examples. |
| Michael: First is |
| Ofelia: parenti [SLOW] parenti |
| Michael: This sounds similar to the English "parents," but it actually means "relatives." The Italian word for "parents" is |
| Ofelia: genitori [SLOW] genitori |
| Michael: The next false friend is |
| Ofelia: educato [SLOW] educato |
| Michael: This sounds similar to the English "educated," but it actually means "polite." The Italian word for "educated" is |
| Ofelia: istruito [SLOW] istruito |
| Michael: Next up is |
| Ofelia: libreria [SLOW] libreria |
| Michael: This word is similar to the English "library," but it actually means "bookstore." The Italian word for "library" is |
| Ofelia: biblioteca [SLOW] biblioteca |
| Michael: Let's hear one more false friend. |
| Ofelia: camera [SLOW] camera |
| Michael: This word is similar to the English "camera," but it actually means "room." The Italian for "camera" is |
| Ofelia:macchina fotografica [SLOW] macchina fotografica |
| Expansion |
| Michael: Besides false friends, we can observe one more thing. When browsing the Italian media, you might notice some words that definitely have a modern English origin but that might either not make much sense to you or have no meaning at all. That's because Italian adopted some English words, changing their original meaning. |
| Let's have a look at some of those words and their meanings! The first is, |
| Ofelia: play-back [SLOW] play-back |
| Michael: This word doesn't exist in English, but in Italian indicates "lip-sync." Another example is |
| Ofelia: fiction [SLOW] fiction |
| Michael: When speaking in Italian, this doesn't have any relation to books and novel-writing. It's commonly used to indicate a "TV drama." Ok, the last of these examples is |
| Ofelia: beauty case [SLOW] beauty case |
| Michael: which means "vanity case" in Italian. It's an English phrase but does not exist in English. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Ofelia: A presto! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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