camera Noun
Looks like camera Really means room
A photo camera is una macchina fotografica.
Some Italian words look like an English word you already know, then mean something completely different. Here are 18 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 Italian are words that look like an English word but mean something completely different. For example, camera means room, not camera, and caldo means hot, not cold. This free guide lists 18 real Italian false friends: the English word each one resembles, what it truly means, and how to say the English sense correctly.
All 18 Italian false friends.
Looks like camera Really means room
A photo camera is una macchina fotografica.
Looks like cold Really means hot
Cold is freddo, the opposite of caldo.
Looks like morbid Really means soft
Morbid or gruesome is morboso.
Looks like parent Really means relative
A mother or father is un genitore.
Looks like library Really means bookshop
A lending library is una biblioteca.
Looks like estate Really means summer
An estate or property is una proprietร .
Looks like rumor Really means noise
A rumor is una voce or una diceria.
Looks like sensible Really means sensitive
Level-headed sensible is sensato.
Looks like actually Really means currently
For actually, say in realtร .
Looks like pretend Really means to demand, expect
To pretend or fake is fingere.
Looks like educated Really means polite
Educated as in schooled is istruito or colto.
Looks like factory Really means farm
A factory is una fabbrica.
Looks like magazine Really means warehouse
A magazine you read is una rivista.
Looks like fame Really means hunger
Fame or renown is la fama.
Looks like firm Really means signature
A firm or company is un'azienda or una ditta.
Looks like lecture Really means reading
A lecture or talk is una conferenza.
Looks like vacancy Really means holiday
A job vacancy is un posto vacante.
Looks like annoyed Really means bored
Annoyed as in irritated is infastidito.
Data verified as of July 2026.
False friends stick when you meet them inside a real sentence. Lingo7 lets you read real books in Italian 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 Italian overlap heavily because both borrowed from Latin, Greek, and French, or share older roots. The spelling stayed close while the meaning drifted, so Italian camera still reads like "camera" to an English eye even though it means "room".
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 camera or caldo 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 Italian 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 Italian words that look almost identical to an English word but mean something different, like camera, which looks like "camera" but means "room". 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. Italian camera actually means room, not camera. A photo camera is una macchina fotografica. This is one of the most common Italian 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 Italian words like camera and annoiato 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. Italian 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 18 of the most common ones, from camera (looks like camera) to annoiato (looks like annoyed). Reading in context is the surest way to keep them straight.