False friends (III): english-spanish

Palabra original (inglés) Original word (english)	Traducción correcta (español) Correct translation (spanish)	Falso amigo (español) False friend (spanish)
Billion (1000.000.000)*	Billón (1.000.000.000.000)
Carpet	Alfombra	Carpeta
File	Archivo	Fila
Jam	Mermelada	Jamón
Target	Meta, propósito, objetivo	Tarjeta

*In the example of billion, the translation problem isn't in the spelling of the word in Spanish, but in the concept. Whilst in English, one billion is a thousand million, in Spanish is a million of millions.

False friends (II): German-Spanish

Today I write a new post about false friends, this time between german and spanish. Some days ago I talked you about one of them in the post about the Steppenwolf. As you could see, the translation of some word into its false friend can produce a strange target text to the reader and with a different meaning than we expected.

Palabra original (alemán) Original word (german)	Traducción correcta (español) Correct translation (spanish)	Falso amigo (español) False friend (spanish)
alt	viejo	alto
Firma	empresa	firma
Gymnasium	Enseñanza de grado medio	gimnasio
Mantel	abrigo	manta, mantel
Rat	consejo	rata

False friends (I): English-Spanish

False friends are words in a language, which are very similar to other words in another language, but actually have a different meaning. Today I show you some of these words in English that have a false friends in Spanish. It is very important to consider these words before translating, because if we translate the false friend, we would change the meaning of the text.  

Palabra original (inglés) Original word (english)	Traducción correcta (español) Correct translation (spanish)	Falso amigo (español) False friend (spanish)
Actually	Realmente	Actualmente
Constipated	Estreñido	Constipado
Embarrassed	Avergonzado	Embarazada
Eventually	Finalmente	Eventualmente
Sensible	Sensato	Sensible