How to avoid false friends in English

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai - Go Unlimited to remove this message) Hi and welcome to the 3 English Experts. I'm Birgit. I'm Dave. And I'm Rebecca. And welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. So, hello everyone and welcome to this episode. And today we're going to talk about false friends. So, this is words that learners easily can mistake for another meaning. And there are quite a few of them. And every one of us has picked a few. And we will talk about them, obviously, quite common ones. And Rebecca, I think you want to start. Yes, I'm going to start with a real classic German one, which is how to translate the word Rezept. So, Rezept can be used for different things in German. So, you have Rezept when you're cooking something. So, it's your recipe. But they also get a Rezept when they go to the doctor. So, this is the classic one. They say, I got a recipe from the doctor. The classic story here is when my parents were here once and my mom broke her arm and she ended up in hospital, had to have surgery. And this is the point, even when you've got very good English, you can still make these mistakes. So, the doctor had fantastic English. He was really good and she was totally in love with this guy. Oh, he's so great. But then when she was leaving the hospital and he was kind of dismissing her, he said, well, I'll give you a recipe for your painkillers. And she said, oh, do I have to make them myself? And she thought she had to go home and cook up the drugs by herself. Of course, it's a prescription. It's not a recipe. And then the other word is also a receipt, like a Beleg. So, sometimes people mix up the Rezept and they think it's the receipt, the Quittung, the Beleg. So, you've got recipe is only really when you're cooking. You've got your prescription from the doctor and then your receipt is just your little Kassenbon. Yes. And I believe a good point, Rebecca, as you said, it doesn't depend on how good a learner is. These are words we don't use very often. Yeah. And it's just easy because it sounds like the same word. You think, oh, it sounds like recipe must be the same thing. But so often it's not. And this is not just a German thing. There's a lot of languages. I think in every language they have these words that sound similar to other words. And yeah, right. Dave, do you want to add something? Yeah, I just want to say with the word receipt, that's also important that you don't say the P in receipt, although it's written in the spelling. And secondly, I'm sure you learned it at school, Rebecca, as well in the English lessons, how to spell words like receive. So there's a special little phrase. A little ditty. Shall I do the little ditty? Shall we do it together? One, two, one, two. I before E except after C. There you go. I always goes before the E except when it comes after the C. Yes. Very good. I'd forgotten about that, Dave. Very good. Okay. Is it my word? Shall I go for one? Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to try and focus on business words, finance words. The big one, I suppose, is the German word Rate. And then of course, Germans translate it into rate in English. Unfortunately, that's not the right word. Rate has an English meaning, of course, but the word for Rate is installment. So for example, if you want to buy a new car, anything that's more expensive, then you usually place a deposit, some money down in some way or form, and then the rest you pay in installments, we say in English. So to pay in installments. The word rate in English, which is of course spelt the same, in German would mean a Zatz or Tariff or Aktienwechselkurs or something like that. You often see this in conjunction with the word interest rates, for example. All righty. All righty. Birgit? Okay. My first, fourth friend would be to notice. People use that very often incorrectly when they want to say to take a note, Aufschreiben. To notice is Wahrnehmen, Realize. That's easily to be mistaken by German learners. And I'm stating another one in the same context. It's to presentate. I hear very often, für präsentieren. It sounds a bit similar, yes, but it's to present. Yeah. That's really common. I hear that. I don't know why. It kind of sounds nice. Präsentate. It kind of fits, doesn't it, with presentation. I'm going to präsentate. Why not? I think we should start having präsentate. Let's put that into English. It's one of those words that you hear it so often you start to wonder, am I making a mistake? Maybe I'm wrong, but no, it's not. It goes into common knowledge. Yes, it's become a thing. It's become a thing. It's to present in front of a group and to take a note. While you have a notebook, you have all these devices referring to Notizen machen. It's always note, isn't it? Notebook, notepad. Exactly. Okay, so I've got one that is a kind of different type of false friend, because it's one of these words. Who created this? I don't know, but somebody in Germany decided that the word for an old classic car should be an old timer. It's a bit like handy. Who decided we're going to call mobile phones handies? Who did that? I don't know. There must be Vodafone marketing or somebody somewhere. But someone decided that, yeah, classic cars and we would call it, of course, a classic car or a vintage car. So as in old but good. Yes. And they call them old timers. So I've often heard people say in my free time, I'm in an old timer club. I've got that or I collect old timers. Now, of course, an old timer in English is actually an old person. So I went round the old people's home and had a chat with the old timers. Are we the old timers down in bookkeeping? The guys who have worked here for years and they're all getting ready to retire. That's an old timer. It's not a car. That was another thing. I think when my parents were here once, there was a big sign on the billboard saying old timer rally. They were like, what? A rally, a rally of old people. What are they talking? What are they upset about? Yeah. Old timer rally. But very interesting is that you hardly ever hear that word. I've never come across English people using that in my presence. Old timer for old people. No, it's not really common. It's quite specific. It's kind of a bit slang. It's just like, oh, the old timers. For example, if you're driving and there's an old person driving really slowly in front of people about, come on, old timer, come on, meaning the person, not the car. But maybe that's when somebody decided in Germany, oh, they don't use it very often. So let's call our cars old timers. We're going to steal that word. Maybe. I have no idea. I have no idea. Funny one. But yeah. Okay. Dave, you got some more? Yeah. What about Kredit in German? Of course, you think that that's credit in English, but it isn't. Credit in English is Guthaben or Gutschrift for something. And the literal translation of Kredit in German is a loan. So if you want something from your bank, you go to the bank for a loan, not for credit. Okay. Just to let you know. The banks. Mm hmm. The next one I have got is, of course, people mistake when they want to say I want actually that they say I will sometimes, not all the time, but that happens because that's, of course, so close to Ich will. But of course, I will is Ich werde. And that's a future tense. Yeah. That happens quite regularly. Well, I have a little story on that one where with my aunt and uncle, they had a business and they dealt with a German company. And unfortunately, the German representative didn't speak all that good of English. And he wrote to my aunt and uncle, who, of course, don't speak any German whatsoever. He wrote a little email. And in the email, he said, I will have something blah, blah, blah. So I will have the invoice in euros. And of course, my aunt and uncle read this email and thought, you arrogant person. I will have it. It's like, well, maybe we won't send it in euros. Maybe we'll send it in pounds. Maybe we won't even send you one at all if you write to us like that. I always say to people, don't use I want. Anyway, we have a phrase, another little ditty where we say, I want never gets. You say to kids, right? When they say, I want ice cream. I want never gets. I would like you would like something. And I always say that we're not Rammstein. Ich will. It's I would like. Don't use want. I need to add that because I do teach that. I will actually means I want. But yes, maybe I should stress a little more on it. It's nicer to say I would like to. Yes. I want never gets. OK. OK. I have one more. The boss. So the German word for boss, as everybody knows, a lot of people know is the chef. I remember when I first came to Germany and they were always telling me. So my chef told me this. I was like, wow, you have a cook? Someone in your house? You have your own personal chef? I would love that. What does he cook? Very confusing. So of course, it's your boss. It's not your team lead or whatever. Your supervisor. It's not your chef. Your chef is Gordon Ramsey to me. I mean, I don't know if I'm right here, but to me, a chef is really like the top guy in the kitchen. He's not just someone who cooks burgers at the weekend. I don't know. He's really like the chef. He's the top of the kitchen. He's not just a cook for me. There's a difference between a cook and a chef. Right. It's not the same thing. And it's definitely not in your office. I think cooking your lunch normally. And how do you feel about the chief referring to your boss? Also, OK, or not? The chief is terrible. That's the other one. OK. Yeah. OK. It's my chief. Chief is executive officer. I mean, that's where it comes from. It does. But you don't call the chief executive officer the chief. No. Although that's his title, you would say he's the CEO. Chief for me is like chief of police. You have the sort of sort of ranking ranking. And otherwise it's kind of. Yeah. So that's another one. Oh, it's an Indian chief. Exactly. OK. Dave, another one. Yeah. So back to business. Rentable in English is, of course, profitable, not rentable, because rentable is, for example, a flat or something that you could rent, literally rent out. So meet bar or meet face. OK, so again, rentable in English would be profitable. And the last one for me would be actual, shouldn't be or isn't actual, because actual is wirklich eigentlich it's current, the current, my current job. That's very often. Yeah. And again, I've seen emails where they've written an email to the UK people saying, please send us the actual figures, which actually means send us the real figures. You send us nonsense. You're hiding something. They're cooking the books. Send us the actual figures. And the UK people are like, what? When, of course, they mean the current or the latest figures, the latest current figures, not actual figures. Yes. So it can cause confusion. And that's the main thing with false friends. They are bad to you. They look nice, but they're bad. Dave, when you came to Germany, did you, were there any that you made like in German where you thought it was the same? Because I have a couple that I did, actually. Can you think of any? Not off the top of my head, but maybe if you said you thought of something, maybe then, oh, yeah, I remember. I used to have a friend of mine, a German friend, and she often used to say, ja, ich bin total irritiert. And I used to think she was irritated. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because irritated in English means you're annoyed, like annoyed about something, upset about something. But, of course, in German, it can mean this, like, ja, ich bin verwirrt, kind of, irritiert, confused. And I always think, what is up with this girl? Why is she so annoyed all the time? So like, why is that annoying? That's not annoying. I don't know. Yeah, for years, it took me years to figure out. Ah, OK, it means something else. But yeah, I think they are easy to mix up. I can't think of anything else. The only thing I often I do when you have conversations with someone who lives in Germany, like you, Rebecca, often I would say, talk about, I know it's not really the same subject, but for example, I would talk about the Hauptbahnhof. Yes. Because we would never say main train station, main station. I often speak to other English-speaking people and say Hauptbahnhof. I would also say Steuerberater. The Finanzamt. I would always call it the Finanzamt. I would never call it anything else. Yeah, that's true. There's these words that just kind of become part of your normal language. That's true. Yeah, absolutely. And we have another interesting word for you, I think, because we thought about that. If somebody's not being really honest to you, what that means in English. And those two came up with two-faced, two-faced person. Two-faced, yeah. Falscher Fufziger, we thought in German. So it's someone who thinks your friend, like the word, you think, this is my friend, because I know this, but not really. And what you said, too, about the taking you ages to realize that irritation was maybe not what she meant. It takes so long before people tell you. I mean, you might have looked strangely at her. And I have another story where somebody just told me, he's worked in Germany for quite a long time. And only recently, a colleague or somebody working, a co-worker told him it should be Bürger instead of Burger. So there's a pronunciation. Oh, that's a rough one, the Burger. It's Bürger, yeah. So Bundesbürger, so that should be difficult for you also. Yeah, we always joke about the Bürgergeld, you know, it's money for, the Bürgergeld, we're getting money for burgers. Brilliant. That's a good, you must take that also. Okay, so I hope you enjoyed that podcast episode today. Next time we are going to talk about motivation. So as everyone knows, language learning is a long journey. It's a marathon, as Dave says, it's not a sprint. And so we're going to talk about how to stay on track, tips and tricks that we use to just keep going, not to give up and keep motivated. So hopefully you'll press play again and listen to us next time. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you so much for pressing play today. If you have any comments, questions, or perhaps suggestions for future episodes, feel free to contact us at our website, 3englishexperts.com. Have a great day and see you next time.