abogado Noun
Looks like avocado Really means lawyer, attorney
To say avocado (the fruit) in Filipino, use abokado.
Some Filipino words look like an English word you already know, then mean something completely different. Here are 14 of the most common traps, each with the English word it resembles, what it really means, and how to say the English sense instead.
False friends in Filipino are words that look like an English word but mean something completely different. For example, abogado means lawyer, not avocado, and Linggo means Sunday, not lingo. This free guide lists 14 real Filipino false friends: the English word each one resembles, what it truly means, and how to say the English sense correctly.
All 14 Filipino false friends.
Looks like avocado Really means lawyer, attorney
To say avocado (the fruit) in Filipino, use abokado.
Looks like lingo Really means Sunday, or a week
To say lingo (slang, jargon) in Filipino, use salitang balbal.
Looks like salvage Really means to kill someone extrajudicially, to summarily execute
To say salvage (to rescue) in Filipino, use sagipin.
Looks like gimmick Really means a night out or hangout with friends
To say gimmick (a promotional trick) in Filipino, use pakulo.
Looks like blowout Really means treating friends or coworkers to food, often to celebrate a birthday
To say a tire blowout in Filipino, use sumabog na gulong.
Looks like brownout Really means a complete power outage, what US English calls a blackout
In US English a full outage is a blackout, not a brownout.
Looks like viand Really means the ulam, the meat or vegetable dish eaten with rice
To say food in general in Filipino, use pagkain, not viand.
Looks like abused Really means presumptuous, exploitative, someone who takes advantage or oversteps boundaries
To say abused (mistreated) in Filipino, use inabuso.
Looks like disgrace Really means an accident or mishap
To say disgrace (shame) in Filipino, use kahihiyan.
Looks like torpid Really means too shy to express romantic feelings
To say torpid (sluggish) in Filipino, use makupad.
Looks like delicacy Really means a sense of propriety or tact that keeps someone from acting improperly
To say delicacy (fine food) in Filipino, use masarap na putahe.
Looks like reclaim Really means a complaint
To say reclaim (get something back) in Filipino, use bawiin.
Looks like utility Really means a janitor or general maintenance or errand worker in an office
To say a utility bill in Filipino, use bayarin sa kuryente o tubig.
Looks like chancing Really means opportunistically groping someone in a crowd
To say take a chance in Filipino, use subukan.
Data verified as of July 2026.
False friends stick when you meet them inside a real sentence. Lingo7 lets you read real books in Filipino with sentence-aligned translation and native-narrated audio, so the true meaning attaches to the story instead of the English lookalike. Save the tricky words and review them later. Free to start.
A false friend is a word that looks or sounds like a word in your language but carries a different meaning. English and Filipino overlap heavily because both borrowed from Latin, Greek, and French, or share older roots. The spelling stayed close while the meaning drifted, so Filipino abogado still reads like "avocado" to an English eye even though it means "lawyer, attorney".
These slips are common because your brain rewards the shortcut: a familiar-looking word feels safe, so you skip the check. That is fine until abogado or Linggo changes the meaning of a whole sentence. Recognizing the pattern is half the fix. Knowing the handful of high-frequency offenders on this page is the other half.
The durable fix is not memorization but exposure in context. When you read Filipino and see one of these words doing its real job in a sentence, with a translation a tap away, the correct meaning wins. That is exactly what reading in Lingo7 is built for.
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False friends are Filipino words that look almost identical to an English word but mean something different, like abogado, which looks like "avocado" but means "lawyer, attorney". They exist because both languages inherited or borrowed from shared roots that then drifted apart. The fix is meeting them in real sentences until the true meaning sticks.
No. Filipino abogado actually means lawyer, attorney, not avocado. To say avocado (the fruit) in Filipino, use abokado. This is one of the most common Filipino false friends for English speakers, so it is worth learning early.
Memorizing a list helps for a day; context makes it permanent. When you meet Filipino words like abogado and chancing inside real sentences, with the translation one tap away, the correct meaning attaches to the situation instead of to the English lookalike. That is how reading in Lingo7 trains them out of you.
Yes. Filipino and English share a large amount of vocabulary through Latin, French, and centuries of borrowing, and that overlap is exactly what breeds false friends. This page covers 14 of the most common ones, from abogado (looks like avocado) to chancing (looks like chancing). Reading in context is the surest way to keep them straight.