FALSE FRIENDS IN TRANSLATION: WHY SIMILAR WORDS MISLEAD TRANSLATORS

Abstract

False friends—words that look or sound similar across languages but differ in meaning—are a frequent source of translation errors because they trigger automatic (and often wrong) associations. The term is commonly traced to Kœssler and Derocquigny’s 1928 work on faux amis, highlighting how deceptive similarity can “betray” translators during comprehension and production. This article explains why false friends occur, how they operate as lexical interference, and why they are especially dangerous in professional translation where speed and familiarity encourage shortcut decisions. Drawing on translation pedagogy that treats meaning as context-dependent and warns against dictionary-first substitution, the paper proposes practical control steps: verify sense through co-text and domain cues, test collocation and register, and keep a personal “risk list” of high-frequency deceptive pairs. Short examples illustrate typical error patterns (semantic mismatch, pragmatic drift, and domain confusion) and show how careful contextual analysis prevents mistranslation. The article concludes that false-friend awareness is a core competence for translator training and quality assurance.