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Showing posts from June, 2015

10 Portuguese/Spanish False Friends

Portuguese/Spanish Flags Although Portuguese and Spanish are closely related to the point to be somehow mutual intelligible, there are also important differences between them, which can pose difficulties for people acquainted with one of the languages who attempt to learn the other. In this article, I will focus on the Portuguese learner’s point of view that approaches to the Spanish language. He always has to pay attention to “ false friends ”: In Spanish “estar embarazada” means ‘to be pregnant’. In Portuguese “estar embaraçada” means ‘to be embarrassed’ or ‘to be entangled’. Nevertheless, Spanish has the term “embarazoso/a “meaning ’embarrassing’.’Pregnant’ in Portuguese is “grávida”. Portuguese/ Spanish False Friends: Embarazada Spanish “vaso” means ‘drinking glass ‘, while in Portuguese “vaso” means toilet (from “vaso sanitário”). A ‘drinking glass’ in Portuguese is “copo”, while Spanish “copa” is a wine glass. Here a top ten of the most frequent errors done by