Hello everybody!

Have a look at the following dialogue:

A: Is there a beamer in the office?

B: Excuse me?

A: You know, a beamer for the presentation. So we can look at it on the screen.

B: Oh! You mean a projector!

This is what we call a “false friend”.

The German word for projector is “Beamer”.

The word “beamer” does exist in English, but it has a completely different meaning:

beamer (noun)

Definition:

slang for a BMW car

Example:

A: What would you do if you won the lotto?

B: I would buy a new car – probably a beamer.

Here are more examples of German false friends:

I hope you found this post useful, and don’t forget, watch out for false friends!

All the best,

Derek