What is the worst false friend in Esperanto for English speakers?

Aktuala, by a distance, because it is common, it is invisible, and getting it wrong produces a sentence that still parses. It means current, present-day, of-the-moment: la aktuala situacio is the situation right now. It does not mean actual in the English sense of real-as-opposed-to-apparent, and the adverb aktuale does not mean actually. The word you wanted is efektiva, or the adverb efektive. The Reta Vortaro's own note on the entry opens by calling it an eminent false friend, which is about as blunt as a dictionary gets. Being honest about it: the dictionary does record some English-influenced senses, so you will occasionally see them in the wild. It does not bless them, it advises a more precise word, and a sentence built on the English reading is one your reader has to stop and unpick.

Does kurioza mean curious in Esperanto?

Only in the half of the English word that means strange, odd or worth a second look: kurioza historio is a curious story. It never means curious in the sense of inquisitive, and this is one of the very few places where the Reta Vortaro stops describing and starts instructing - its remark on the entry says plainly not to use the word in the sense of scivola. For a person who asks questions you want scivola for a specific curiosity about something, and scivolema for the standing character trait. English is the odd one here: it packed two unrelated ideas into one word centuries ago and has been living with the ambiguity ever since.

What is the difference between speco and specio in Esperanto?

Speco is a kind, a sort, a type - the everyday word, and the one you want almost always: kia speco de libro, what kind of book. Specio is the biological rank, tagged in the dictionary as botany and zoology, and it means species in the taxonomic sense only. Homo sapiens is a specio. A kind of bread is a speco. The trap runs one way: reaching for specio when you mean a kind of thing is wrong, whereas speco can legitimately cover species in loose talk. Note also that this pair has nothing to do with speciala, which is an ordinary adjective meaning special.

Does pretendi mean to pretend in Esperanto?

No, and the mistake is expensive because the wrong sentence reads perfectly well. Pretendi means to claim something as yours by right: li pretendas la rajton je la tero, he claims the right to the land, the way a pretender claims a throne. English keeps the old sense in exactly that word, pretender, which is the hook worth hanging it on. To pretend in the make-believe sense is ŝajnigi, built transparently from ŝajni, to seem, plus the -ig- that makes you the cause of it. Putting on airs is afekti. And the pretentious family is genuine Esperanto: pretendema means pretentious, senpretenda means unpretentious.

Why does a designed language have false friends at all?

Because Zamenhof took each borrowed root at the value western Europe gave it, and English is the member of that family that wandered off. Aktuala matches French actuel, Spanish actual and German aktuell, all of which mean current; it is English that quietly moved actual to mean real. Kontroli matches French controler and German kontrollieren, both of which mean to check; English promoted control to mean command. Larĝa matches French large, meaning wide; English borrowed the word and inflated it to big. Eventuala matches French eventuel and German eventuell, meaning possible; English pushed eventual to the far end of the timeline. Run the list and the pattern holds almost every time. These are not Esperanto's false friends. They are English's, and the rest of the continent has been quietly agreeing with Esperanto about them for two hundred years.

False Friends: The Esperanto Words That Lie to English Speakers

The short version

Esperanto's vocabulary is borrowed from western Europe, which is why it feels easy to an English speaker, and it is exactly that easiness that sets the trap. A few dozen words look like English words and are not. The three big ones are aktuala, which means current and not actual (you wanted efektiva); eventuala, which means possible-if-circumstances-allow and not eventual (you wanted fina); and kurioza, which means strange and never inquisitive, to the point that the dictionary prints a note telling you not to do it (you wanted scivola). Then a working list: pretendi is to claim by right, never to pretend (ŝajnigi); kontroli is to check or audit, never to control (regi); larĝa is wide across, not large (granda); demandi is to ask a question, never to demand (postuli); atendi is to wait, not to attend (ĉeesti); sorto is fate, not a sort (speco); magazeno is a warehouse or a department store, not a magazine (revuo); hazardo is chance, not a hazard (danĝero); specio is a biological species and nothing looser (speco again); rento is unearned income, not the rent on a flat (luprezo); fabriko is a factory, not fabric (ŝtofo); and simpatio is mutual liking, not compassion (kompati). Two words that are not traps at all get a paragraph each, because learners suspect them wrongly: grandioza is straight praise with none of the English sourness, and the senco / senso / sensenca family is an internal Esperanto muddle rather than an English one. The pattern underneath the list is worth more than the list: almost every entry is a word that English borrowed from Latin or French and then dragged somewhere private. Esperanto took the same root at its continental value, which is the value French, Spanish, Italian, German and Russian still give it. These are false friends of English, not of Esperanto.

Esperanto's vocabulary was borrowed from western Europe on purpose, which is why an English speaker can read a paragraph of it on day one and feel clever. That feeling is mostly earned. , , , , interesa: you already knew them, and there are thousands more.

And then there is this sentence, which a learner wrote to me and which I understood perfectly and wrongly:

Mi legis pri la aktuala situacio en la magazeno.

He meant I read about the current situation in the department store. I read I read about the actual situation in the magazine. Two false friends, one short sentence, and a conversation that carried on for several minutes at cross purposes because nothing about either half looked wrong.

This article is the working list, sorted by how each word goes wrong, because the failure types are learnable even when the words are not.

The argument, first

There is a temptation to file all of this under designed language, still has warts. That is not what is going on, and the real explanation is more useful to carry around.

Almost every entry below is a word English took from Latin or French and then quietly moved. Zamenhof took the same root at the value the rest of western Europe gave it, and the rest of western Europe still gives it that value:

Esperanto	French	German	English's private drift
aktuala	`actuel`	`aktuell`	actual = real
eventuala	`eventuel`	`eventuell`	eventual = final
kontroli	`controler`	`kontrollieren`	control = command
larĝa	`large`	-	large = big
	-	`akkurat`	accurate = precise
magazeno	`magasin`		magazine = periodical

Read the columns and the odd one out is not the constructed language. So the correct posture is not Esperanto is being difficult but my language wandered off and I have to remember where everybody else stayed. It also means these traps mostly do not exist for a French or Spanish or German learner, which is worth knowing if you ever teach the language.

Type one: the meaning has shifted sideways

The root is the one you recognise. The sense sits next to the English sense rather than on top of it, and the English reading is not available at all.

- current, not actual

The big one. means current, present-day, of this moment, and the adverb aktuale means currently, never actually.

La situacio estas malfacila. - The current situation is difficult.

For English actual, meaning real as opposed to apparent, you want efektiva, and for actually you want efektive. The Reta Vortaro's own remark on the entry opens by calling it an eminent false friend, which is unusually direct for a dictionary.

The honest caveat, because this article is about being precise: the dictionary does record some English-influenced senses of alongside the main one. It does not endorse them; it advises reaching for a more exact word so the sentence stays readable. Which is the same advice, more politely put.

- possible, not eventual

means possible, contingent, depending on circumstances. It points at a branch in the road, not at the end of it.

Skribu al mi, eventuale telefonu. - Write to me, or ring if that turns out to be easier.

English eventual means final, the thing that happens at the end after everything else. That is fina or , and eventually is fine, or . The two words point in opposite directions along the timeline, which is why the mistake is never harmless.

- strange, not inquisitive

English curious carries two unrelated ideas: that is a curious object and I am curious about it. Esperanto's kurioza took only the first.

historio. - A curious story, an odd one.

For the inquisitive sense you want scivola - literally wanting to know - for curiosity about a specific thing, and for the standing character trait. The Reta Vortaro prints an explicit instruction on this entry telling readers not to use in the sense of , and a dictionary that stops describing and starts instructing is a dictionary that has seen the mistake a great many times.

- wide, not large

Larĝa is a measurement across: a wide street, a broad river. It has a figurative reach much like English broad ( interests, a wide-ranging view), but it has no general sense of big.

strato, sed malgranda domo. - A wide street, but a small house.

Large is granda, and it always was. French large means wide too; English is the one that inflated it.

- fate, not a sort

Sorto is fate, destiny, the thing that happens to you. It is not a kind or a category, which is speco.

Tia estis lia . - Such was his fate.
Kia de libro? - What sort of book?

- chance, not a hazard

Hazardo is chance, randomness, the unforeseeable. A game of chance is a hazardludo. What English calls a hazard is a danĝero or a risk.

The verb hazardi does carry a gambling flavour, so the risk sense is not wholly absent from the family - it just is not in the noun.

`simpatia` - likeable, not compassionate

Simpatio is a mutual favourable inclination: liking, affinity, the thing between two people who get on. It is not pity and it is not fellow-feeling in adversity.

Li estas tre simpatia viro. - He is a very likeable man.

For English sympathetic in the sense of feeling for somebody's misfortune, you want a, built on kompati, or a for the understanding flavour. Be careful with the bilingual glosses on this one: dictionaries do print sympathetic against simpatia, because the English word is itself two words in a trenchcoat.

- punctual, not accurate

means turning up when you said you would. English accurate is preciza or ekzakta or ĝusta.

This entry has the best dictionary note on the whole list. The Reta Vortaro does record a second sense of meaning exact - and tags it (e), to be avoided. It is the one word here where the dictionary names the mistake and then tells the reader off for it.

`konvena` and `senzorga` - two smaller ones

Konvena is about fitness and propriety - suitable, seemly, what the occasion calls for. English convenient is oportuna, which is itself perfectly friendly (oportuno really does mean opportunity).

Senzorga parses as without care and means carefree, untroubled, not careless. The blame-carrying word is a or a. It is a nice illustration that Esperanto's transparent morphology tells you the pieces and not the connotation.

Type two: the field or the register has narrowed

Here the Esperanto word is not wrong so much as confined. It lives in a technical or formal setting, and using it in general conversation is like saying I shall now ingest a comestible.

- the biological rank only

Specio is tagged in the dictionary as botany and zoology. It is the taxonomic rank: the set of organisms that interbreed and pass on their characteristics. Homo sapiens is a .

Anything looser - a kind of bread, a type of problem, a sort of person - is speco. The trap runs one way only: can cover species in loose talk, while cannot cover kinds.

And neither is related to speciala, which is the ordinary adjective special and behaves itself.

- the substance, not the medicine

This one is usually taught wrongly, including by people who ought to know, so here it is as the dictionary actually has it. Drogo is a medicinal, poisonous or narcotic substance used in pharmacy - the pharmacologically active stuff, not the finished product and not specifically the illegal kind.

Three words, three jobs:

- the active substance, in the pharmacist's sense.
medikamento - the medicine you are actually given. The dictionary defines it, neatly, as a used as a remedy.
o - the street drug, with the -- of contempt doing the work. A o is an addict.

So the false friend is not drogo means narcotic. It is that modern English has narrowed drug to mean the illegal thing while keeping the pharmacy sense in the background, and Esperanto keeps both in the open with a separate word for the ugly end. Everyday modern Esperanto has drifted the same way English did - most of the time you meet in the wild it is about narcotics, and o means drug abuse - but the dictionary sense is the broad one, and the word to reach for is the specific one either way. Ask the kuracisto for a , not a .

`asisti` - a professional's presence, not everyday help

Asisti is defined as being present out of official duty in order to help: a professor, a priest, a doctor, a judge. Asisti is what a surgical assistant does.

It is therefore neither plain ĉeesti (be present) nor plain helpi (help). The load-bearing part is the official framing. Can you help me carry this? is ?, and asisti there would read as though you were billing by the hour.

Worth flagging as a register trap rather than an outright prohibition: some bilingual dictionaries gloss asisti flatly as to assist, so you will meet it used loosely. The safe move is helpi, which is never wrong.

`rento` - unearned income, not the rent

Rento is periodic income from lent money, securities and the like: private means, an annuity, the thing a rentier lives on. Rentumo is the rate of return.

What a tenant pays a landlord is luprezo or lupago. The dictionary lists those two as a single joint entry sharing one definition, so it expresses no preference and neither should you. The verb family around them is the useful part: lui is to rent as the tenant, is to let out as the landlord, luanto is the tenant and luiganto the landlord.

- a warehouse, not a magazine

Magazeno is a store in the storage sense: a warehouse, a depot, and by extension the big shop that keeps a lot of stock, i.e. a department store. It follows French magasin exactly.

The thing you read is a revuo, or a gazeto for the newsier end. There is also a , one vowel away, which does mean an illustrated periodical and which careful writers avoid in favour of . Two words that differ by a vowel and mean a shop and a magazine is exactly the kind of thing a language cannot design its way out of.

and

is a short story - the dictionary caps it at around fifty pages and a small cast. A full-length novel is a romano.

is a secondary school on the central European model, not a place with weights in it. The gym is a gimnastikejo, and the sporto happens there.

Type three: it is simply a different word

No overlap to salvage, no shared corner. The resemblance is a coincidence of spelling and the meanings have nothing to say to each other.

- to claim, never to pretend

The expensive one, because the wrong sentence reads perfectly.

Li la rajton je la tero. - He claims the right to the land.

Pretendi is to claim something as yours by right, the way a pretendanto claims a throne. English keeps the identical sense in the word pretender, which is the hook worth hanging the whole entry on.

To pretend, in the make-believe sense, is i: ŝajni plus the -- that makes you the cause of the seeming. Putting on airs is afekti. And note that the pretentious family is genuine Esperanto and not a mistake: a is pretentious, senpretenda is unpretentious.

- to check, never to control

Kontroli is to examine something in detail in order to find out whether it was done properly: to check, to verify, to audit, to inspect. There is no power in it at all.

la nombrojn. - Check the numbers.

To control, in the sense of rule or command, is regi. This is the same split French and German make, and it is a genuinely useful one: English uses a single word for check the figures and run the country, which is not a distinction worth losing.

- to ask a question, never to demand

Demandi is to ask for information, and that is its whole job.

Li , kie mi loĝas. - He asked where I live.

To demand, in the sense of insisting on something by right or by force, is postuli. There is a third word in the neighbourhood and the dictionary carries a specific warning about it: peti is to ask for a thing or an action, and the Reta Vortaro's note tells readers to avoid using where they mean peto. So I asked him to help is , never .

- to wait, not to attend

Atendi is to wait, or to expect.

Mi mian amikon. - I waited for my friend.

To attend an event is ĉeesti, to be present at it, or partopreni if you took part. says you stood outside it.

- a factory, not fabric

Fabriko is the building where things are made at scale, and fabriki is to make them there.

Cloth is or teksaĵo. Two footnotes worth having: carries an old second sense of matter, substance, so it is a small trap of its own; and English to fabricate meaning to invent a lie is elpensi or mensogi, certainly not fabriki.

`i` - to make real, not to realise

i is to make something planned actually exist - to realise a project, in the sense English still keeps in realise an ambition. Its synonyms are i and plenumi.

The other English realise, the one meaning to become aware, is konscii or i. is, ... is not a sentence in Esperanto.

- a pencil, not a crayon

Krajono is a thin column of graphite in a wooden case: a pencil. A coloured pencil is a kolorkrajono, and the wax thing a child scribbles with is a vakskrajono or a paŝtelo. This one catches people because it is a word you meet early and use often.

Two that are not traps at all

Learners suspect these and should not.

Grandioza is straight praise. Strikingly, imposingly large; impressively majestic. English grandiose has soured over the last century into pompous, overblown, pleased with itself, and Esperanto did not follow it. is a compliment. The pejorative job belongs to pompa or a. (It is also not granda with a suffix on it: Esperanto has no -ioz- to add, and grandioz- is a single borrowed root.)

The / family is an internal muddle, not an English one. Senco is meaning, is a physical sense, and the adjectives senca and sensa belong to them respectively. The word that catches people is sensenca - which is plus plus -a, without meaning, i.e. nonsensical or absurd. Nothing to do with English senseless meaning unconscious, and nothing to do with the senses. It is a good reminder that Esperanto's transparency is a promise about the pieces, not about the whole.

What to take away

The three you must learn today: is current (you wanted ), is possible (you wanted fina), is strange (you wanted ).
The verbs: is to claim (i), is to check (), is to ask a question (), is to wait (), i is to bring about ().
The nouns: is fate (), is a warehouse (), is chance (), rento is unearned income (luprezo), is a factory (), is a short story (), is a pencil.
The narrowed ones: is the biological rank only, asisti is a professional's attendance, is the pharmacist's substance and is your medicine.
The adjectives: is wide (), simpatia is likeable (a), is punctual (), konvena is fitting (), senzorga is carefree (a).
Two acquittals: is warm praise, and is + + -a, nothing more sinister.
The pattern: English borrowed these roots and moved them. Esperanto and the rest of the continent stayed put.