Podcast 48 - False Friends

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Jack: Hi everyone. I’m Jack and every week we talk about football and help you with your English.

Rich: This week, we’re going to talk about the latest news from the Premier League and we’re going to speak about embarrassing and awkward moments. The language focus is on false friends which are words that look or sound the same in English and your language but actually have very different meanings.

Jack: And later, Rich will make this week’s Premier League prediction and we have another football phrase for you to guess in our football vocabulary game.

Rich: Leicester are once again 7 points clear at the top of the Premier League table after Tottenham slipped up at the weekend.

Jack: Yes, we’re going to talk about the race for the title in a bit more detail later on, but it’s looking really good for Leicester City. Can we take a look at a couple of the phrases you used in that sentence, Rich?

Rich: Of course, I’m sure one of the words was clear, wasn’t it?

Jack: Yes it is, I’m not sure it is that clear!

Rich: Clear has lots of different meanings. You just said I’m not sure it is clear. In your sentence it means easy to understand so if something is not clear, it’s not easy to understand. In my sentence, clear means some distance away from something, you might say the plane is clear of the clouds when it flies above them. Leicester are 7 points clear at the top of the table or 7 points clear of Tottenham.

Jack: That’s much clearer now, thanks. The other phrase you used was to slip up. You said Tottenham slipped up at the weekend.

Rich: Ah, yes. To slip means to fall over or nearly fall over. You usually slip because the floor is wet or icy, or you slip on something like a banana skin - maybe because you’re not paying attention. And to slip up is a phrasal verb which means to make a careless mistake or error.

Jack: So, Tottenham slipped up because they only drew 1-1 with West Brom when everybody thought they would win.

Rich: Exactly.

Jack: Right, well, we’ll talk a little bit more about the Premier League title race later on.

Rich: We had a new football phrase for you to guess last week. I think it was the most difficult one we’ve had because nobody got it right.

Jack: But some of you used phrases that were nearly right. I think the closest were KOPHG from South Korea who said ‘historic comeback’ and Pavlo from Ukraine who said ‘comeback’. These phrases have similar meanings to the right phrase but are used as nouns and we were looking for a verb.

Rich: Aragorn1986 from Montenegro was also close when he said ‘to bounce back’. This is a verb but is not usually used within the same match. You usually ‘bounce back’ from a defeat or a difficult situation. So, if you lose a match 4-0 one week and then win your next match you can say the team bounced back.

Jack: The phrase we were looking for was ‘to come from behind’. When a team is losing a match but wins in the end, you can say, ‘they came from behind to win’.

Rich: Last week, Liverpool came from behind to beat Borussia Dortmund. They were losing 2-0 at halftime but won the match 4-3.

Jack: You always have an excuse to talk about that match, Rich! What else did we ask our listeners in last week’s podcast?

Rich: We asked them to talk about changes they think will happen in the next few years. It was good to see everybody having a go at the future perfect, which was last week’s language focus.

Jack: SalvaGH from Spain thinks that technology will have changed football by 2030 and he will also have got a good job by then.

Rich: Good luck to SalvaGH with the job hunting! Freddy from Ukraine thinks that Chinese clubs will have become more successful by then.

Jack: It could happen. There is a lot of money in Chinese football at the moment. Kwesimanifest from Ghana thinks Manchester Utd will have won lots more trophies, AssemJuve thinks Liverpool will have won the Champions League again and Aragorn1986 thinks we will see players with heart monitors to check that they are not in danger.

Rich: I think that is a good idea. Elghoul from Algeria said that Algeria might have won the World Cup by 2030 and with a player like Leicester City’s Riyad Mahrez they might do it!

Jack: We’re going to speak more about Leicester and Riyad Mahrez in our next section.

Rich: What’s the latest from the Premier League, Jack?

Jack: As we mentioned earlier, Tottenham Hotspur slipped up at the weekend. They could only draw 1-1 at home to West Bromwich Albion. But, there were no nerves at Leicester despite being without their star striker, Jamie Vardy, who was suspended for the match. The Foxes took the lead after only 10 minutes and Leicester beat Swansea City 4-0.

Rich: it was a great day for Leicester’s Riyad Mahrez. He scored the first goal and after the match he took a helicopter to the PFA awards ceremony in London. He won the PFA Player of the Year award and is the first player from Africa to ever win it.

Jack: His season just gets better and better!

Rich: You agreed with Mahrez as the winner. In our vote last week, over 80% of you thought he was going to win it and he did!

Jack: Tottenham’s Dele Alli won the Young Player of the Year award. He’s scored some great goals this season and I’m sure he’s recovered from that embarrassing miss a couple of week’s ago against Stoke. Did you see it?

Rich: Yes, he went round the keeper and somehow hit the post instead of putting the ball in an empty net. It was embarrassing, but he scored a great goal a few minutes later!

Jack:  Any more news, Rich?

Rich: Manchester Utd and Crystal Palace will play each other in the FA Cup Final. Utd beat Everton with a last minute goal and Palace beat Watford 2-1. It’s a repeat of the 1990 Cup Final and that finished 3-3 so I hope it’ll be a good game.

Jack: And this week it’s the semi-finals of the Champions League. Are you going to watch Manchester City play Real Madrid tonight, Rich?

Rich: I’ll be watching.  I think City have a good chance. I’ve heard Ronaldo might be injured, and Benzema, too.

Jack: Yes, that would be helpful for City. It would be really awkward if City played Bayern in the Final, wouldn’t it?

Rich: Why?

Jack: Pep Guardiola, Manchester City!

Rich:  Ah yes, of course. That would be awkward!

Jack: Awkward is a tricky word. It means something that makes you feel embarrassed. Like when there is an awkward silence between people that don’t know each other or when you get a person name’s wrong. Isn’t that right, John!

Rich: John?? What are you talking about?

Jack: I was just giving an example, Rich. Don’t worry about it. I wonder what City fans would think about Guardiola if Bayern beat City in the final? Do you think he’d be welcome when he starts his new job as City manager?

Rich: No, I don’t think he would. It would be a disaster. There are lots of awkward or embarrassing things that can happen when we’re speaking a foreign language. I can remember practising my Spanish a few years ago and someone asked me why I didn’t use my Spanish so much. I said it was because I felt embarrassed.

Jack: What’s wrong with that?

Rich: Nothing. If I had said it correctly. The problem was I thought the Spanish for embarrassed was embarazado because the words are very similar but it isn’t. Embarazado actually means pregnant. So  i said I didn’t like speaking Spanish because I was pregnant.

Jack: Where’s the baby, Rich?

Rich: Very funny. I have another one, when I first started teaching in Spain, in the winter, lots of my students told me that they were constipated. In English, this means that you can’t go to the toilet because you have problems with your digestion. I thought that this was very strange and it wasn’t until much later that I realised that constipado means to have a cold, in Spanish!

Jack: That must have been awkward. I saw something similar the other day. You know that here in the UK we were celebrating the Queen’s 90th birthday last week?

Rich: Yes

Jack: The German magazine Der Spiegel had a picture of the Queen on their front page and you’ll never guess what it said!

Rich: Go on.

Jack: It said Die Queen!

Rich: That’s a bit offensive.

Jack: It was because ‘the’ in German is ‘die’ so it didn’t say ‘die queen’ but ‘die queen’.

Rich: I wonder how many English speaking tourists saw that in Germany last week?

Jack: Quite a few I imagine. These types of words like embarrassed and embarazado in Spanish and ‘die’ or ‘die’ in German are called false friends. False friends are words that sound or look similar in two languages but are actually very different in meaning.

Rich: They exist in most languages. Normally it’s a very good thing to take risks with language and use a word that you think is similar in English and your own language.

Jack: But sometimes, the meaning might be different so it’s good to know about this so you can avoid awkward situations.

Rich: We’ve put a link in the lesson to some false friends in different languages. Have a look at them. Did you know about them?

Jack: That brings us to this week’s questions. Question 1: Would it be embarrassing for Manchester City and Pep Guardiola if City play Bayern Munich in the Champions League Final? Do you think it will happen?

Rich: Question 2: I spoke about something embarrassing that happened to Dele Alli and to myself. Can you tell us something awkward or embarrassing that has happened on the football pitch or to you?

Jack: And question 3: What false friends are there in your language? Have they ever caused you a problem when speaking English?

Rich: And remember, if you want us to correct your comments just write ‘correct me’ at the beginning of your message.

Rich: Right, do you have a new football phrase for our listeners to guess, Jack?

Jack: Yes, I do. This week’s football phrase is *********. It means to stop a player from playing because he did something wrong. Jamie Vardy was ********* for last week’s match against Swansea City because he received a red card in his previous match. He’s also banned or ********* for this week’s match against Manchester Utd.

Rich: Yes, they might miss him against Manchester Utd.

Jack: That’s the big match this weekend, right?

Rich: Definitely. It’s a difficult match for Leicester but they only need three points to win the Premier League title for the first time in their 132 year history. It’s an amazing story. Man Utd are in good form and are still trying for a top four finish. Leicester haven’t shown any nerves yet this season so I’m going to go for a 1-0 win to the Foxes with Riyad Mahrez scoring the winner to give them the Premier LEague title. Final score: Manchester Utd 0-1 Leicester City 1.

Jack: It could all be over this weekend. Wow!

Rich: Right, anyway that’s it for today - we’ve run out of time! Thanks for listening. And don’t forget to write your answers to our questions, your predictions and anything you want to say about the website or football English in the comments below.

Jack: Don’t forget if you sign in, you can score points to see if you can get your club, your country and your name to the top of our leaderboard.

Rich:  Bye for now and enjoy your football!