Bilingualism’s False Friends by Raul Guerrero
Now that science has corroborated that bilingualism makes us smarter, and profoundly benefits the brain, as reported by the New York Times, people are brushing up on their Spanish. At least resorting to words both languages have in common—not few. In 1060 the French invaded the British Iles and injected English with a heavy dose of Latin, accounting for over fifty percent of its vocabulary, and of course Spanish derives from Latin.Be careful! The French coined false amies for similar words meaning different things in different languages. Some differences can be amusing and others dangerous. Linguists like to recall the story of President Carter on a visit to Mexico, he said: Estoy muy embarazado por no hablar español, “I am very pregnant for not speaking Spanish.” To be embarrassed is avergonzado. Not so funny to mistake estúpido for stupid. English has softened it to silly, but Spanish retained the original sense of the Latin stupidus, dense, obtuse, the typical block-head.
Here is a list of seven dangerous false cognates:
1. Molestar has nothing to do with the predatory act of molestation. Molestar is to bother, to annoy, as in no
