A list of false friends

quamp · 11 Sep 2011

I'm sorry if this has been done before, but a search turned up nothing.

In terms of linguistics, false friends are two words from different languages that sound the same but mean something different. This is sometimes erroneously called a false cognate. I know a few of them, but I wanted to get as complete a list as possible of Japanese/English false friends.
Here are some examples:
Kanji/kana| romanji | sounds like| actually means
地図 | chizu | cheese | map
バイト | baito| bite or bait | work (especially part-time work)
書 | sho | show | document/penmanship

So what other false friends are there?

Toritoribe · 11 Sep 2011

地図[chizu] and チーズ[chīzu], 書[sho] and ショー[shō] are recognized as COMPLETELY different pronunciations in Japanese. We never confuse short vowels with long vowels.
バイト, which is from a German word "arbeit", is also different from "bite", since it has the vowel "o" at the end of the word.

How about 愛(love) and "I(the first person pronoun)", 舞い(dance) and "my(the first person possessive pronoun)"?

Mike Cash · 11 Sep 2011

In my opinion the worst culprits in the false friend category are practically any of the 外来語 (borrowed words). It happens far too often that the meaning/usage of the word is something quite different from what you expected.

Toritoribe · 11 Sep 2011

Just like （電気の）コンセント, サイダー or スキンシップ?

Mike Cash · 11 Sep 2011

Toritoribe said:
Just like （電気の）コンセント, サイダー or スキンシップ?

Just like those.

Or ジュース, スライド, ガラス/グラス, ガム/ゴム, フレコン, フリータイム, メタボ, バイク, アイス, etc.

eeky · 11 Sep 2011

Toritoribe said:
地図[chizu] and チーズ[chīzu], 書[sho] and ショー[shō] are recognized as COMPLETELY different pronunciations in Japanese. We never confuse short vowels with long vowels.

What happens with cases like ね and ねえ (sentence end emphasis / seeking agreement) or うん and ううん ("umm")? Is the long/short vowel distinction so ingrained in native Japanese speakers that they always speak an exact number of "beats", and that number is always clear to the listener, or do you sometimes hear indeterminate vowel lengths?

Toritoribe · 11 Sep 2011

When the meanings are quite different between the short vowel and the long vowel, as in your example うん(yes) and ううん(no), the speaker would choose the correct one unconsciously. If the listener feels it's ambiguous and can't determine which is correct even from the context, s/he would ask back, just like 「うんかううんか、どっち？」.

eeky · 12 Sep 2011

Oh, OK, I didn't mean to choose an example where the meaning changed.

In English, which doesn't have such a strong vowel length distinction, people say things like "u...um", "ye...ah", "ri...ight", etc., where the vowel is extended to arbitrary length. Are there similar cases in Japanese where a vowel can be extended for emphasis, hesitation etc., without actually making a difference to the meaning? If so, in those cases, do Japanese still mentally count "beats"?

I'm not sure if え...えと and あの...う might be examples in Japanese. Let's say they are. Then, I'm asking, for example, if Japanese speakers would always perceive that they were saying えと, ええと, えええと, etc., or whether in some cases they would perceive that they are just making a vowel sound of indeterminate length (and it doesn't matter).

Toritoribe · 12 Sep 2011

うーん, うーーん, うーーーん or maybe sometimes うんーーー(hmmm) are basically the same but these are definitely different from the short vowel うん(yes/luck). Similarly, えっと, えーと, えーーと, or えーーーと are different from えと（干支 "oriental Zodiac"）. As an exception, the phrase えーっとね could be pronounced as the short vowel えとね occasionally. This would be a rare case, I think.

eeky · 13 Sep 2011

OK, thanks. Sorry to labour this, and I hope I'm not testing your patience too much, but I still haven't quite got to the bottom of the question I originally had in mind.

In English we usually say the word "yes" (for example) as a reasonably short and compact syllable. Sometimes, for certain effect, someone might drag it out like "ye...s". If you asked that person how many "e" sounds were in the second utterance compared to the first, they would have no exact idea. They would just know that they had extended the "e" sound longer than usual.

If a Japanese person says え...と, do they always know exactly whether they said えーと, えーーと or えーーーと, or might they think, like the English speaker, that they just made the え sound longer by some indeterminate amount?

Toritoribe · 13 Sep 2011

Among えーと, えーーと, and えーーーと, we don't count the length of of the long vowel exactly, just like your example "ye...s" in English. The key point is the number of the moras of the word. The interjection えーと has three (or more) moras even if it's pronounced えっと, whereas えと(oriental Zodiac) is always two moras.

eeky · 13 Sep 2011

Toritoribe said:
Among えーと, えーーと, and えーーーと, we don't count the length of of the long vowel exactly, just like your example "ye...s" in English.

Right, I see. Thank you!

A list of false friends

quamp

止まれません!

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

eeky

先輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

eeky

先輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

eeky

先輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

eeky

先輩

Similar threads