This post was originally posted on Babelhut.
Every once in a while, we all run into a word that deceives us about its meaning. Often it is because the word looks similar to a word in your native language, which happened to me today on twitter. I had just discovered an excellent blog called ReVerbSpanish and I had tweeted about it. The author of that blog, Eleena, sent me this tweet:
@peterjcarroll ¡Muchas gracias por tu voto de confianza! Espero que no te decepcione .
Decepcione? I read that and thought to myself, “Why would she hope to not deceive me?” It was clearly dictionary time. It turns out that the verb decepcionar means to disappoint. I felt silly, but I’ve learned a new word and I won’t make that same mistake again!
Are there any false friends in your language of study that have deceived you before? Tell us in the comments!