false friends

What is this?

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.

9-III-2006 - 9-VIII-2023 go home  
in English
in Serbian it means
is similar to
which means
historic downtown
centar grada, stariji od 80 godina
istorijski centar grada
the once downtown, which moved elsewhere later
partial
pristrasan
parcijalan
covering only a part of it, not applicable to the whole
representation
zastupljenost preko poslanika ili advokata
reprezentacija
1) team representing a country in an international tournament
2) cost of courting business partners - bar tabs, presents
semaphore
tabla sa rezultatima na utakmici
semafor
traffic light
local, adj.; locale, n.
mesni, ovdašnji
lokal, n.
business space, where a tavern or retail shop is; often denotes just the cafe or tavern
confection
slatkiš, smesa, bogat ili delikatan komad odeće
konfekcija
mass produced clothing
paragraph
pasus
paragraf
an article or a specific subarticle in a law or other regulation
manual labor
fizički rad
ručni rad
craft, handmade
arbitrage
istovremena prodaja i kupovina nečega na raznim mestima i profitiranje na razlici
arbitraža
getting a verdict in a dispute from an independent and agreed upon authority, outside court
distributor
razvodna kapa (kod benzinskog motora)
distributer
company or utility delivering en masse (electricity, newspapers to kiosks, movies to theatres etc)
distribution
raspodela (u novčanom i statističkom smislu)
distribucija
a system for mass delivery (of electricity, radio signal, newspapers etc)
caution
pažljivo
kaucija
redeemable value of bottle
title
naslov, zvanje, tapija
titl
subtitle