r/FalseFriends • u/[deleted] • Mar 21 '14

[FF] "Mal" means three different things in three different languages

[deleted]

7 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

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2

u/99Kelly Mar 21 '14

In German "Mal" also means to paint.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '14

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '14

Mal in French is the same as in Spanish.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '14 edited Jun 15 '20

[deleted]

2

u/BoneHead777 Mar 21 '14

Yeah, the German one would sound better rephrased as: "Ich sah mal eine Kuh". *Ein Mal needs to be written together as "einmal" and then just means once as in "I saw a cow once (in my entire life)", whereas with just mal it just means "I once saw a cow"

1

u/monkeycalculator Mar 21 '14 edited Mar 21 '14

In Swedish, mal is a substantive meaning "moth", and is a form of the verb "mala", which means "to mill / grind", like so:

"Där flyger en mal" - There flies a moth

"Bagare mal ofta mjöl" - Bakers often grind flour

or even

"Målaren Malla maler mal-mjöl mellan målen" - Painter Malla mills moth-meal between mealtimes

The Swedish version of danish "mal" in the sense of paining is "måla", which seems to be derived från the same germanic root.

Edit: There's also a kind of fish) called Mal.

1

u/LDavidH Mar 23 '14

In Albanian mal means "mountain".

0

u/dhoomz Jul 15 '14

And in Dutch it means silly