9. False Friends

Hello, Welcome. I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. Musing Interruptus is a podcast for sharing thoughts and stories and enjoying idiomatic phrases. You can read along; just click on continue reading in the description to open a Google Doc with the transcription of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, subscribe, follow, and share, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Drop a comment with your answers to today’s questions! I love hearing from you! The background music is called Sino de Cobre by Blue Dot.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m an English teacher. I have been an English teacher for 25 beautiful years. One of my favorite topics is “false friends”. I don’t mean people who pretend to like you and spend time with you on false pretenses. The kind you aren’t supposed to love, and regrettably end up giving your heart to—those I don’t like. Every now and again it has happened to me. I’ve had my share. Luckily, today we are going into the world of trickery, one in which we can play silly games just by talking. False friends are words that look or sound the same in two languages. My favorites in English and Spanish are fabric — fábrica, avocado — abogado, actual — actual, agonizing — agonizante, ass — as, brink — brincar, cull — culo, excited — excitado, grit — gritar. Some situations can be inadvertently funny and of course, borderline ridiculous if you misuse false friends. For instance… Continue reading