English and Portuguese have a lot of words in common. Lots of science words and names of things like hospital and taxi sound close enough for everyone to move forward in a friendly fashion. These are our word friends. There are also false friends. False friends can cause trouble. If someone asks you to put the meat in the frigideira and you put it in the fridge, you were the victim of a false friend because the meat should have gone into a pan. If you say you are excitado about your plans and everyone looks uncomfortable, it was a false friend at fault because excitar only refers to sexual excitement. If you push painfully into a door marked puxa, it was false friends again, puxa means pull in Brasil. Friends are important when learning a language. False friends are also important.
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