There was a Brown Crow is an example of ‘false friends’- an informal term for words that appear or sound like words in their own language, but have different meanings in others. British officers used this linguistic trick to learn Hindustani when they were stationed in India. This was a crucial clue in the Feluda detective story Ghurghutiyar Ghatona by Satyajit Ray from which my blog takes its inspiration.

False friends can be very helpful when learning another lingo. But sometimes they can turn out to be ‘false friends’ and mean something completely different.

Example of false friends:

• embarazada (pregnant in Spanish) embarassed (ashamed in English)
• carte (card, menu in French) cart (carriage in English)

I wonder if this is an example of a false friend?

Source: BBC, Thought Co