German: 5 False Cognates

Check out five German false cognates from learnoutlive.com:

http://learnoutlive.com/false-friends-5-german-words-dont-mean-think/

Let us know what you think! Connect with us @C_LaCross

Spanish: False Cognates

 Hey Spanish teachers and learners, check out this great list of false cognates from happyhourspanish.com. Enjoy!

http://www.happyhourspanish.com/10-false-friends-spanish/

How do you teach your students about cognates and false cognates?

 
Let us know what you think! Connect with us @C_LaCross

German: Wordplay - Gift

Chris here again with some fun word play between German and English. Let's take a look!

German: Falsche Freunde / False Cognates (Video)

Chris here again with a fun video for fellow German learners and teachers. This video covers several of the so-called 'false friends' or false cognates that you find between German and (American) English.

• Which ones are you already familiar with? Which false cognates were you unaware of?
• Do you know of any false cognates not covered by the video?

Let us know what you think! Connect with us @C_LaCross

German Video: Oliver Pocher - Schwarzfahren

Hello all, Chris here. Today I would like to share a set of videos with Oliver Pocher who is riding in the German subway system without a ticket. This is called schwarzfahren in German. These two videos offer a humorous look at riding in this particular type of public transportation in Germany. You can help introduce your students to some key vocabulary such as the aforementioned schwarzfahren and Kontrolleur, and kontrollieren. This is a good opportunity to present your students with this particular false cognate. Ask the students if having your tickets "controlled" is the real meaning of this word in translation. These would be good videos to show in conjunction with the well known short film Schwarzfahrer.

German: False Cognates

Hello all, Chris here. Today I would like to share a few false cognates between German and English which students are likely to mix up. I always find it useful to present some of these early on so that students learn the corrects words before they get int he habit of using them incorrectly. In many cases the cognates can lead to some humorous sentences. Nevertheless, using the wrong word will drastically change the meaning of a sentences and can lead to serious misunderstanding. Here are a few common ones:

             English/German                                                 German/English
actual/actually --> eigentlich               vs          akutell       --> current, up-to-date

also                  --> auch                      vs          also            --> thus, therefore

(to)become     --> werden                   vs          bekommen --> to get, receive

fast                 --> schnell                    vs           fast             --> almost

gift (present)  --> (das)Geschenk       vs           (das)Gift    --> poison

I will present more of these in future posts!

• What other false cognates do you know?
• What are false cognates between other languages? French vs. Spanish etc?
• How would you teach your students about these false cognates?
• Should these be explicitly taught or implicitly as they arise?