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Ask for help > False cognates - help me please
False cognates - help me please
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casc
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False cognates - help me please
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About false cognates... I was teaching false cognates and I gave a list for the students to copy, so one of my student said that appreciation, attend and argument are not false friends. He told me that some translators in portuguese give the similar meaning in Portuguese. How can I explain this? Now I didn �t understand. Can someone help me? |
31 Oct 2017
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yanogator
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Hi, casc, It looks to me like the Portuguese "apreciação" deals with estimating the value of or rating something, while the English "appreciation" deals with gratitude and recognition (either thankful or aesthetic). At dictionary.com, I did find that the second definition they give matches my understanding of "apreciação", but I have never used it that way, nor have I ever heard it used that way. I �m not clear enough on the meaning of "atender" to discuss it. I would say that "argumento" and "argument" are not good examples of false friends, because they can mean the same thing. The usual use of "argument" in English seems to correspond more to "disputa" in Portuguese, but it seems that "argumento" and "argument" sometimes have the same sense. I hope someone who is fluent in both languages can fill in the gaps here. Bruce |
31 Oct 2017
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Minka
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I have heard sentences like "I don �t think you appreciate the seriousness of the matter/problem." I think that might be like "aprecia��o".
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1 Nov 2017
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Maria Linz
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Dear colleague, a good dictionary will explain everything to you. |
1 Nov 2017
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lillizen
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Hello, casc! I think you could tell your student that those words (like many others) have more than one meaning and one of the meanings is a false cognate. For example, when "argument" means a "an angry quarrel or disagreement" it is a false cognate, but when it means "a coherent series of reasons, statements, or facts intended to support or establish a point of view" it is not. Definitions from the Merriam Webster Dictionary. Or simply use Portuguese, depending on your method and the students � level. (Argumento e discussão.) Also, based on this, you could create an exercise where the students read two sentences, one of which using the similar word with the same or similar meaning to Portuguese and the other one with a different meaning, a false cognate. e.g. (a) My son tried to convince me that school is not important. I asked him to explain why it is not important, but he couldn �t give me one good argument.
(b) Sheila had an argument with her friend and now they aren �t talking.
I hope this helps. |
1 Nov 2017
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