REVISION: IT LOOKS LIKE ENGLISH BUT ISN'T-1

Good morning,

Most of you probably know that you have to be careful with false friends. False friends, or false cognates, are words in English that look like a similar word in Spanish/Catalan, but don't have the same meaning. For example, the English word sensible does not mean sensible in Spanish/Catalan, but rather sensato/assenyat (see the Daily Vitamins from the 27th of November, 2003 and from the 21st of October, 2005).

But there's another very similar phenomenon that causes even more confusion: it's the existence of English-looking words in Spanish/Catalan that aren't actually used in English at all, or are used very differently.

Consider the following Anglo-looking expressions in Spanish/Catalan and their correct translations into English:

Span/Cat: Camping
English: Campground

Span/Cat: Parking
English: Parking lot, car park, parking garage, parking place

Span/Cat: Footing
English: Jogging

Span/Cat: un Burguer
English: a fast-food restaurant

Span/Cat: Puenting
English: Bungee Jumping

English speakers do not say "We're going to stay in a camping during our holidays" but rather "we're going to stay in a campground during our holidays". And nobody does "footing", they "go jogging". And the list goes on and on.

Tomorrow we will look at a few more of these. In the meantime, if you have any questions about today's Daily Vitamin, please use the Daily Vitamin Plus! forum section on our website (www.ziggurat.es).

Have a good day.