Introduction

It's EuphoricTurtles fault.

we don't want efficiency, we want brilliant misunderstandings caused by small spelling/translating mistakes.

So I was inspired to compile a small list of false friends. I'll start by just writing html by hand, but later I might create a database.

False friends

A false friend is:

A word or expression that has a similar form to one in a person's native language, but a different meaning (for example English magazine and French magasin ‘shop’).

See Meaning of false friend in English at Lexico.

So here goes, in alphabetical order (probably) each item is followed by a lst of languages and a note stating the meaning of the word in that language. The meanings are of course written in English because that is my first language:

pilas

Spanish: battery, Portuguese: penis. Source: EuphoricTurtle

rolig

Norwegian: calm, peaceful, Swedish: funny. Source: me

Some resources

there are lots of half hearted lists of false friends on the web. Most of them deal with only two languages and many of them stretch the meaning or are just sloppily edited. Nonetheless they might be of some value to someone else trying to create the ultimate false friends list so here they are in no particular order:

Falske venner på norsk og engelsk

A curious multilingual mishmash of information on odd topics in astronomy, mathematics, language, etc.

Wikipedia

An explanation of what constitutes a false friend illustrated with a few examples from several languages including Finnish, Estonian, English, Dutch, German, and French.

Cambridge Dictionary

Gives a single example in the definition of false friend. A useful complement to the Oxford English Dictionary.

What Words Are False Friends?

A short article on the subject on ThoughtCo. which claims to be a premier reference site. Could be I suppose.

Wiktionary