They're called "false cognates." My favorite one in Spanish is "embarazada," which would make you very embarrassed if you use it to mean "embarrassed" (as it means "pregnant.") There's the story of a female exchange student who told her host family "Tengo hombre" ("I have a man") when she meant to say "Tengo hambre" ("I'm hungry"). When informed of her error, she blushed and said "Estoy embarasada!", which only compounded her chagrin. (She said "I'm pregnant" instead of "I'm embarrassed.") :-) -----Original Message----- From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com] Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 11:03 AM To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Trailing-edge compute farm seeks gainful employment You're suffering from a misconception popular among immigrants from Germany and elsewhere, assuming that words spelled and even pronounced similarly actually mean the same. <snip>