FALSE FRIENDS
AND
SUFFIXES
FALSE FRIENDS
False friends are pairs of words in two
languages or dialects (or letters in two
alphabets) that look or sound similar, but
differ in meaning.
EXAMPLES
 NOTICE- darse cuenta NOT “noticia”
 PAVEMENT- acera NOT “pavimento”
 SENSITIVE- sensible NOT “sensitivo”
 MATRON- cuidadora NOT “matrona”
 CONFIDENT- seguro de sí mismo NOT
“confidente”
SUFFIXES
 In linguistics, a suffix (also sometimes
called a postfix or ending) is an affix which
is placed after the stem of a word.
Common examples are case endings,
which indicate the grammatical case of
nouns or adjectives, and verb endings,
which form the conjugation of verbs.
Suffixes to form names
 Names formed from verbs
-ment:
-tion:
-er:
-sion:
-or:
agree
agreement
rotate
rotation
sing
singer
confuse
confusion
collect
collector
 Also some names are formed with the addition
of suffixes –ity, -ness, -ence/-ance, -ship to
adjectives,verbs and names.
-ity:
-ship:
-ness:
-ence:
-ance:
common
comunity
relation
relationship
mad
madness
obedient
obedience
appear
appearance
Suffixes to form adjectives I
 The suffixes –ed and –ing are added to some verbs to form
adjectives.
-ed: crash
-ing: interest
crashed
interesting
 The suffixes –ful and –less are added to some names and help us to
know the meaning of the resultant adjectives.
-ful: peace
-less: harm
peaceful
harmless
Suffixes to form adjectives II
 Finally also some adjectives are formed adding
the suffixes –ous, -al, -able, -ive,-ant/ent some
names and verbs.
-ous:
-al:
-able:
-ive:
-ant:
-ent:
continue
continuous
vacation
vacational
profit
profitable
express
expressive
resist
resistant
obbey
obedient
Exercise false friends
 1-Did you know that Chrissie got _______________
pregnant
(embarrassed/pregnant) on holiday in Ibiza?
 2-The ________________
(signature/subject) I hate
subject
most is maths.
kind
 3-Begoñia is a very ________________
(kind
/sympathetic) person.
stirring
 4-Keep ________________
(removing/stirring) the soup
the whole time.
 5-I couldn't agree more. That's a very
________________
(sensible/sensitive) idea.
sensible
EXERCISE SUFFIXES
economical
 My car is really very (economic) ____________
 There was a (comedy) __________
comedian opera on TV last





night.
He's a very (ambition) _________
ambitious man.
The school organises (education) ___________
educational
visits.
She cries a lot because she's really very (sense)
sensitive .
_________
They held a long (philosophy) phylosophical
__________ discussion
about the subject.
The plane was caught in an (electricity) ____________
electrical
storm.
WORK REALISED BY:
Javier Pérez
Rafa Ros
David Romero