There is no doubt many languages bear the grunt of false friends or cognates and surely Swedish can be an entrapment of sorts when it comes to said dubious company as one traverses the landscape of Scandinavian languages and their codifications whatnot and even worse if you happen to be bilingual Xicano that is, fully native in Spanish and English. These sort of false friends words are a challenge to any language learner since they are hurdles on the way to proficiency. Both visual and auditive associations induce a plethora of cognitive dissonance that must be negotiated as a good juggler would.
Exempli gratia:
Words in Swedish which are either homophone or homographs in Spanish that also might raise an eyebrow either when uttered or read. These, according to Chamizo-Domínguez (2008) in Semantics and Pragmatics of False Friends can be classified as chance false friends since «there is no semantic or etymological reason for the overlap»:
Both homophone and homograph
|
| lo |
 (Lynx) similar to Spanish lo (a neutrum Spanish article) |
| vete |
 (wheat) (conjunctive form of att veta, to know, old, not in use) Spanish imperative for go!. |
| kaka |
(cookie) homophone to caca in Spanish which means feces in Spanish |
| gata |
(street) in Swedish but female cat in Spanish |
| koka |
(boil) sounding like coca in Spanish which is either a drink or a drug |
| el |
(electricity) sounding like the personal pronoun in Spanish él (he) or the definite article el (the)
|
| ser |
(to see) but to be in Spanish, in the infinitive |
| putta |
(push) sounding like puta pejorative prostitute in Spanish |
| pippa |
(slang for coitus) but pipa in Spanish which is pipe in English |
| mina |
(possessive plural form of mine in Swedish) Spanish for mine as in mining
|
| en |
(one or the article a) Spanish: a preposition (in/on) |
| linda |
(to wrap or namesake in Swedish) but in Spanish it is an adjective (pretty) |
| basta |
(sauna) but enough in Spanish |
| Sole homophone |
| oj! |
(exclamative which means ouch!) but sounds like hoy (today) in Spanish |
| Sole homograph |
| hora |
Hour ins Spanish but hooker in Swedish |
| vi |
(we) in Swedish; saw in Spanish as in the past tense of ver (to see) |
| sur |
(sour) similar in spelling to Sur in Spanish which means south |
Just the same there are a number of Spanish words which are either chance false friends as a homophone or homograph for Swedish people:
| Both homophone and homograph |
| linda |
(to wrap or namesake in Swedish) but in Spanish it is an adjective (pretty) |
| basta |
(sauna) but enough in Spanish also in the Swedish frozen phrase ”och med det dí¤r basta!” and with that said enough! |
| ser |
(to see) but to be in Spanish in the infinitive |
| gata |
(street) cat in Spanish |
| ropa |
(clothes in Spanish) but shout in Swedish |
| pisa |
step on it In Spanish but in Swedish means to pee |
| por |
(preposition through in Spanish) but sounding like porr in Swedish which in turn is porn |
| loka |
(Sounds like insane in Spanish (loca)) which in Swedish is a renowned beverage except its spelled loka |
| Sole homograph |
| sur |
(sour) similar in spelling to Sur in Spanish which means south |
| paja |
(slang for masturbation in Spain but hay in Mexico) but in Swedish means broken |
English takes the lot though when it comes to chance false friends which tend to cause a lifting of the eyebrows for English speaking persons:
Both homophone and homograph aka homonyms to a degree
|
| bra |
 (good in Swedish) sounding like bra in English suffice to say, ugh! damn homonym |
| men |
 (but in Swedish) near homonym to men in English |
| hen |
 (S/he in Swedish) recent coinage though a chance false friend homonym in its own right |
| sex |
  (6 & sex in Swedish) chance false friend homonym & butt of jokes in Swedish |
| titt or the name tittis |
 (look or namesake?) near homonym to titty in English. |
| Sole homophone |
| fack |
 (union or slot in Swedish) near homophone to fuck in English |
| Â Sole homograph |
| hora |
(hour in Spanish) but prostitute in Swedish |
| barn |
 (children in Swedish) though a farm barn in English |
| slut |
 (finish/end in Swedish) though prostitute in English |
| kiss |
 (pee in Swedish) but kiss in English |
| bad |
 (shower in Swedish) but bad (wrong) in English |
| gift |
 (poison or married in Swedish) but present in English |
| kock |
 (Chef in Swedish) but near homonym to cock in English (often a fauxpas for Swedes as in I want to be a kock, they mean they want to be a chef) |
| dog |
 (die in Swedish) but homograph to canine in English |
| spring |
 (run in Swedish) but homograph to Spring in English |
| driver |
 (golf club in Swedish or to jest) but homograph to driver in English |
| hem |
 (home in Swedish) but homograph to hem (as in stich) in english |
| fall |
 (case in Swedish) but homograph to fall (autumn) or present tense of fall in English |
| jerker |
 (namesake in Swedish) but homograph to jerker (slang for masturbator) in English |
| fan |
 (devil in Swedish) but a homograph to fan in English |
| rape |
(canola in Swedish) but a homograph to rape in English |
Those are a few examples that if you happen to have English and Spanish as a mother tongue it surely creates a disarray in the head. Onne is often warned of said evilish words though no one really goes through the ropes when it comes to not just to head the warnings but going through the ropes of understanding that the words (or graphemes thereby) have several meanings (polysemy) in different languages. Nor how the brain goes about organizing said words to be readily read in the different languages in due process without having to stumble upon the various meanings of the words. I suppose that after a few stinging or negative reactions you just turn off the mother tongue and start treating every word with a new meaning and only afterwards compare the word with one’s L1. But one inevitably starts off by making fun of the weird similarities until they completely become more of a burden than a fun fact.
I suppose that habit makes habitual to understand the different impacts words have on the being. A clear example is the Swedish word for cookie in Swedish which is kaka. Now, kaka sounds very much like the word caca in Spanish which in turn means feces. Caca so happens to be a repulsive word for Spanish speakers and we tend cringe at the very utterance of it. It is unpleasant and brings about a plethora of nasty images. I suppose that time allows the brain and one to allow for versatility and juggling the many associations and even with time meanings we no longer use get relegated to the back burner or use it as an analogy at parties to friends of the same feather. We are able to negotiate the associations by sheer comprehension that the rules and norms governing a meaning of a word are always subject to the ruling and existential conditions in which the word is uttered. I am not reinforcing the idea of language being subject to the idea of nurture but in a sense language does become subjected to its environment since caca while being a homophone to the Swedish Kaka the fact of the matter is that the party that doesn’t share the same cultural baggage the meaning and thereby consequences upon hearing the word will become null and void. And since only one party feels the sting then it becomes obsolete in a sense. The impact has lost its sting.
