false friends

28-II-2023 04:27:31 PM

There's a certain amount of words which came into both Serbian and English from other languages, mostly Latin, but have different meanings in each language.

Even native English words may mean something else in Serbian, for several reasons:


1) they were misunderstood when coming into Serbian


2) they were understood well first time, but changed their meaning in English meanwhile


3) they were understood well first time, but changed their meaning in Serbian meanwhile

Of course, there is also all the Greek and Latin which is wrongly used in English - just look up "pathetic", and remember how it's used today.