Words

[cheb]

I like 'There's too much space between Coach and and and and and and and Horses.

Punctuate as you will.

Rose and it's homophones has the most meanings in the OED IIRC.

[JackyJoll]

In the beginning was the…

[Count Steer]

Les French aren't averse to this sort of thing either (see ver, vers, vert above). Take 'côte' - coast/seashore, hillside/slope*, rib, border etc then chuck in côté - side and they start getting as bad as us.

* so Côtes Rôtie wine is, literally 'roast/toast slopes wine'.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Les French aren't averse to this sort of thing either (see ver, vers, vert above).

In your tent you auntie is waiting for you.

Ask an Italian what Piano means

[Count Steer]

Then you have the odd ones out the Hungarians (and Finns). But the Hungarians are surrounded by the Greek/Latin lot.

'a nyelv egy nagyon furcsa dolog'

Oh yeah, then you have the Basques with a language that looks more like Aztec to me!!

[ABF]

English is well known fir adopting foreign words. I suspect it is why we have so many words, far more tha many languages. Sometimes we stick with more of less the original sound, sometimes we translate it into English sounds (tall boy for haute bois).

This is true; Welsh was spoken in London a long time before English existed.  And the Welsh-Cornish connection is tangible. And the Gaelic ...

[petrolpete]

Le ver vert va vers le verre vert.

French can be the worse for this I can think of the.word "crepe" which if feminine is the good old pancake but when masculine refers to a mourning veil. This caught out some Yankee guy who thought he knew french when I was at a funeral in France as he referred to the lady with the pancake on her head. Bit of a tough language to get right.

[Noggin]

Blame the Greeks and the Romans for most of it. Blame the Indians for lots of adopted words from bungalow (house in the style of Bengal) to chutney and beyond. Lots of words of similar origins shared with the French - it was, much to the dismay of some no doubt, the language of court before we got a German royal family.

The differences are interesting too (if that sort of thing interests you ) - Welsh and French for window are almost the same but we got window from Old Norse vindauga, literally 'wind eye' - so, obvs, pre-glazing 'cos it's where the wind got in. We'd probably call it a 'light eye' now.

PS Lots of people 'know' the Welsh for microwave - 'popty ping' but it's really, officially, 'meicrodon'.

English is well known fir adopting foreign words. I suspect it is why we have so many words, far more tha many languages. Sometimes we stick with more of less the original sound, sometimes we translate it into English sounds (tall boy for haute bois).

It gets worse...an hautboy is an oboe and an hautbois a sort of strawberry and a tallboy isn't just a chest of drawers, it's a long stemmed glass or a chimney extension for a smoky chimney.

Try above and below in French -

au dessus
en dessous

the pronunciation difference is so minimal for a non native speaker that it's ridiculous - I have reverted to Sur and sous !!! Ok, not exactly the same but I have more confidence that people will know what I mean !!

[Newey]

The word "Condone" sounds the opposite of what it means.