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The error that does not look like one
What makes false friends worth a lesson rather than a footnote is the failure mode. A grammatical error announces itself: the listener hears something wrong and compensates. A false friend produces a well-formed sentence with a different meaning, and nobody compensates because nobody notices — which is exactly what happened to Alex's email. Attualmente il progetto è in ritardo is correct Italian telling a client something he did not intend to say, and it went out. Two of the pairs on this list have consequences beyond the mild. Telling an Italian colleague that a topic is sensibile says the topic is emotional rather than delicate, which inverts the point you were making. And asking a pharmacist for un preservativo when you wanted a food preservative is a well-attested tourist experience; the word you want is un conservante. Note Nadia's rule, which is the most useful sentence in the lesson and is statistically sound: where an Italian word closely resembles an English one and a plainer Italian alternative also exists, the resemblance is usually the trap and the plainer word is usually what you mean.