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Why can familiar-looking words mean different things across languages?

English actual and Spanish actual look almost identical on the page. Their dictionary senses show why recognizing a word’s shape is only the beginning of understanding it in another language.

2–3 min

Questions you could explore

  • Which senses of the two words differ, and where could context matter?
  • How can a bilingual dictionary help test whether two similar-looking words share a meaning?

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Why can familiar-looking words mean different things across languages? | Speech Topic | speaking.app