I'm going to cheat a little bit this week cause I want to talk about the French concept of faux amis. Technically, we do have an English equivalent for this. It's called "false friends," which is a literal translation from the French. However, I still think the phrase qualifies for my blog since I'd never even heard of "false friends" in English until I looked it up just now. Faux amis, on the other hand, is a very commonly used term among the French.
Basically, "false friends" are two words from different languages that sound similar--and might even have a common origin--but in fact have different meanings.
In my work as a translation editor, I've come across some lovely mistranslations involving faux amis. For subtitles in a video about how to draw Luffy from One Piece, the previous translator had written "Luffy a un gros tête" as "Luffy has a gross head." Poor Luffy! I doubt that he bathes very often, but still, he's not gross!
In fact, gros simply means "big" or, depending on the context, "fat." As with most anime characters, Luffy's head is disproportionately large.
Other common descriptors that are easy to mix up include:
- sympathique ("nice/friendly")
- joli ("pretty")
- sensible ("sensitive")
- excitant (sexually exciting, "arousing")
Also, unique, a word that we borrowed straight from French, doesn't just mean "unique." In French, it also means "single" or "only": for example, an enfant unique is an "only child."
There are plenty of verbs in the faux amis category as well.
- Rester means "to stay," not to rest.
- Demander means "to ask," not to demand.
- Achever looks like "to achieve" but actually means "to finish/end" or, depending on the context, "to kill."
- Attendre means "to wait," while assister actually means "to attend"
Some other fun (or potentially embarrassing) faux amis:
At the grocery store, you could ask if the canned veggies have préservatifs in them, but I wouldn't recommend it. They'll probably just look at you like you're crazy and then point you towards the condom distributors available in every subway station.
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| I also found one of these in the bathroom at the public high school where I used to teach. WTF France? |
You can look to your friends for assurance, but if you want assurance ("insurance"), I'm afraid you'll have to buy it.
Also, if you go to a librairie you'll have to pay for your book. If you'd rather just borrow one, head down to the local bibliothèque instead.
If a French person tells your that there's a délai of five days on your order, don't worry. It's hasn't been delayed. You'll receive it within a "period" of five days.
And no, a femme d'affaires is not a "woman of affairs" but actually a "business woman."
Actuellement ("currently") in world infos ("news"), the old Kim regime in North Korea shows no signs of failing any time soon. However, the young Kim's régime ("diet") seems to fail on a regular basis.
The examples go on and on--I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands. This begs the question: why is faux-amis such a basic, daily concept for the French, while the English phrase "false friends" is so obscurely academic?
When talking about this last week with a French friend, he expressed disbelief that English speakers could be lacking an equivalent for faux-amis. "How is that possible?" he asked. I replied, "Because most English-speakers live in geographically isolated countries and we don't think about how our language relates to others."
That might be a gross over-simplification, but I would still be willing to bet money that it's true. The French, for all of their well-known pride in their own language, are still in the midst of a linguistically diverse continent. They have to deal with other languages at every border--whether Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, or English. But England Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada...? We're all about as isolated as countries can be. Granted, with Spanish gradually infusing daily life and culture in the US, maybe this idea of "false friends" will become more important to us. Maybe we'll even come up with a phrase of our own for it.
After all, "false friends" was taken directly from the title of a French book intended to help translators working between English and French. It was called Les Faux Amis ou les trahisons du vocabulaire anglais ("False Friends, or the Betrayals of English Vocabulary"). Published in 1928 by Maxime Kœssler and Jules Derocquigny, it was later followed up by the thrilling sequel, Autres Mots anglais perfides ("Other Perfidious English Words").
Priceless titles, eh? I suppose they considered the perfidious nature of English words to be in keeping with the perfidious nature of the English people. This historic lack of trust and basic misunderstandings between the English and French run all the way down into the roots of our languages. Can you imagine trying to negotiate an important treaty back in the time before dictionaries and professional translators? No wonder the Hundred Years War lasted so long.
In any case, the French seem to have been preoccupied with this idea for quite a while now. With globalization still on the rise, I wonder if anglophones will eventually catch on to this too--or perhaps the predominance of the English language will be enough to keep most of us blissfully unaware of such linguistic complications.
P.S. I wonder if the concept of "false friends" is more well-known in Canada, with their sizable francophone minority. Anybody know?
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