Unreliable friends

False friends are an established idea in language learning. They link two languages in a deceptive way. They are pairs of words, one in each language. They are friends because they’re similar in sound or spelling. They’re false because their meaning is significantly different. They look like effective translations but they're not.

Two classic examples are embaraçada – embarazada and préservatif – preservative.

embaraçada (Portuguese) means embarrassed

embarazada (Spanish) means pregnant

préservatif (French) means a contraceptive

preservative (English) means a food additive

I’m proposing a related idea: unreliable friends. These are pairs of words which link two languages and translate each other, but do so with some slippage.

I like unreliable friends because they foreground the way languages borrow words and repurpose them. The idea of correct English or correct Portuguese is a fundamental misunderstanding. A language works by keeping pace with changing demands, by absorbing words from other languages and putting those words to work in different ways in their new context.

My unreliable friends connect (or confuse) Portuguese and English: balcão — balcony

Definitions of the most common uses of these words:

balcão (Portuguese) most often means a sales counter or service desk, and less often is used to mean a small platform projecting from the facade of a building and enclosed by a railing.

balcony (English) means a small platform projecting from the facade of a building and enclosed by a railing.

The common term in Portuguese for a small platform projecting from the facade of a building and enclosed by a railing is varanda, as in this dialogue from a language learning website:

And this estate agent is advertising an apartment with varanda on the sixth floor:

However, varanda in Portuguese also means a roofed platform along the outside of a house, level with the ground floor, which in English is called a veranda.

So the translations of the two unreliable friends balcão and balcony most often go like this:

balcão – counter

balcony – varanda

Unreliable? Yes, but I enjoy the strain and slippage, like the alternate sagging and tightening of the mooring ropes that hold a boat against the quay.

(Please let me know of any improvements or modifications you have to my claims about the meaning and use of these words.)

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