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False friends or ‘amici falsi’ – is a term used in linguistics to indicate words or expressions in one language that are similar to words or expressions in another language. These words, however, don’t have the same meaning and this often causes us to use them wrongly or inappropriately.

Here are six common examples of English/Italian false friends:

1. parents vs parenti

parents =  genitori                                          parenti = relatives

1. factory vs fattoria

factory = fabbrica                                           fattoria = farm

1. library vs libreria

library = biblioteca                                        libreria = book shop

1. actually vs attualmente

actually = veramente                                   attualmente = currently

1. eventually vs eventualmente

eventually = in the end/finally     eventualmente = maybe / perhaps / if necessary

1. canteen vs cantina

canteen = mensa                                           cantina = cellar

As you can see the meanings are very different. A word of warning – there are many many more!

Never assume because a word or expression in English is very similar to a word or expression in Italian that it means the same. Always check! A useful link for a quick translation is www.wordreference.com. I would always advise you, however, to then check the meanings in more detail in a monolingual dictionary – not so much for the nouns but certainly for verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

Enjoy learning 😉

Fiona