The one that springs to mind is the German bekommen v the English to become.

They are basically the same word and at one point might’ve meant the same. Now there is no common meaning.

I know that 先生 also used to mean “teacher” in Mandarin, but slowly changed to the generic honorific. Obviously that change has taken place after Japan stopped borrowing words from Chinese.

Not exactly written the same, but in Catalan a cold with nose congestion is called a constipat or costipat (similarly constipado in Spanish).

Of course this can mean a very bad day¹ for you if you’re in an English speaking country and know some but not enough English, and, trying to find the right word, ask the nearest pharmacist for some over the counter medicine for your “constipation”.

More of an outright enemy than a false friend, really.

1. Blowing off both ends with every sneeze kind of bad, probably.

I’m going to spoiler tag this because it’s a slur but I’ve always found this one the most comical

The Scandinavian languages are very similar and we can usually understand each other pretty well just using our native tongues, though there are some funny traps and false friends. Norwegians are entertained that in Sweden we drink “bärs” (beer), because it sounds exactly like “baesj” (shit). And are astounded that we can “pula” with almost anything, as in “tinker/fiddle around” in Swedish and “fucking” in Norwegian. Oh yeah, a Norwegian ex gf found it hilarious that we have “rågkusar” (a type of rye bread) in the stores, as “kusa” in norwegian mean “cunt”. Also in Swedish a common slang word for shoes is “dojor/dojer”, which on the west coast of norway is very similar to “daejer” that means tits. So don’t go in a shoe store asking for a nice pair of “dojer” unless you know exactly what you are doing.

On a sidenote, I must give credit to the best Swedish word I know; “Skamsköljning”. Literally “shame-rinsing”. As in remembering something stupid you did and the feeling of shame washing over you. In Norwegian it is probably “pule-svejs”, fuck-haircut. The funny hair you have after a good banging.

In Danish, and probably other Scandinavian languages, the word for speed, is ‘fart’. In older days it also meant movement, so it is part of a bunch of other words. Therefore we have word like

• Fartkontrol (speed control)
• Fartpilot (cruise control)
• Topfart (top speed)
• Middelfart (city in Denmark)
• Overfart (ferry crossing)
• Fartbump (speed bump)
• Fartblind (unaware of one’s speed)
• Fartplan (timetable)
• Nedfart (descent)
• Dampfart (steam navigation)
• Indfart (entry road)

Greek: Ναι (ne) means yes. Greeks often move their head up and down to say yes.
Bulgarian: Не (ne) means no. Bulgarians often move their head up and down to say no.

So if someone says ne and moves their head up and down it could be a Greek saying yes or a Bulgarian saying no. In reality the movements are not the same but it would probably be confusing to an outsider.

Spanish and Italian have a few funny ones:

Burro: Donkey (Spanish) / Butter (Italian)

Porro: joint (of weed, you know) / Leek

Orto: Ass (not everywhere, but where I lived, it had that meaning) / vegetable garden

There’s probably more, but these come to mind now.

English/german has Gift and Die.

Probably others but idk.

In German, we’ve somehow adopted the English word “Handy” to refer to mobile phones. Problem is, if you actually use it as a noun in an English sentence, it’s a slang word for “handjob”. 🫠

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In American English (AmE) and British English (BrE), the verb “to table” is used in legislative debates. But the meaning is diametrically opposite: AmE uses the verb to mean the abandonment of a bill, analogized as though leaving it on the bargaining table to rot. Whereas the BrE verb means to introduce legislation, as in “bringing a bill to the table”.

Both clearly share the same origin – a piece of furniture – and yet diverged as to what act is described by the word.

Other confusion arises from the verb “to sanction” which can mean “to allow” but sometimes also “to prohibit” or “make punishable”.

And a more modern addition in slang vernacular: “to drop”. In the context of artists, “dropping a mix tape” would mean to introduce new music. But “dropping a vocalist” means that the band has fired their singer. It would be confusing if both uses were found in the same sentence.

An Australian Cunt is quite different from the American one

mare:

• french: pond
• english: female horse
• italian: ocean
• dutch: message

P.S the word for what you’re describing is either homonym (spelled the same, sounds the same) or a heteronym (spelled the same, sounds different). Wiktionary has a good table

I remember the Czech word Pozor. It means “Attention” and is seen everywhere on all sorts of signage.

In Russian, however (and possibly other slavic languages), it means shame/disgrace.

I’m sure there were jokes about it when Russians were the invaders, but can’t remember any.

Then there’s Finnish/Estonian

But my favorite is “nahkhiir”, which means leather (nahk[a]) mouse (hiir[i]), i.e. a bat. (in Finnish it would be nahkahiiri, but bats are called lepakko)
Batman is consequently called Nahkhiirmees in Estonian, i.e. Leathermouseman.