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Tuesday 29 July 2014

307: False friends

The term "false friends", from a language point of view, means those words which sound the same in the foreign language but which have a different meaning. In Russian there are quite a few of these false friends, some of which are shown here, on the Master Russian site.

I came across this poster at a bus stop the other day - it is quite common to see "public service" announcements - and, as you can probably guess, it is instructions on how to recognize the symptoms of stroke. The Russian word for stroke is инсульт, which is pronounced insult. The primary usage of the English word insult is translated into Russian as оскорбление.
1.   can't smile or the mouth is skewed at an angle?
2.   can't lift both arms, or is one weaker?
3.   can't pronounce their name clearly.
4.   Doctors have just 4.5 hours to save the life of the patient.
I'm in UK at the moment and on Sunday I will be in Scotland and will take a train ride on the Jacobite steam train on the West Highland Railway line from Fort William to Mallaig. Parts of the journey (Glenfinnan viaduct) were used as the backdrop in some of the Harry Potter films. The scenery is magnificent. Looking forward to it very much.





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