False Friends and Cognates

False friends are words in two languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. An example is the English "embarrassed" and the Spanish "embarazada" (which means pregnant), or the word "sensible", which means "reasonable / razonable" and "sensitive" meaning "sensible" in Spanish...
Meanwhile a cognate is an easy word to remember because it looks and means the same thing as a word you already know. For example, "gratitude" in English means the same as "gratitud" in Spanish.


Here you have a list of the most common false friends:

http://spanishcognates.org/

Baby Cakes by Neil Gaiman

A few years back all of the animals went away.

We woke up one morning, and they just weren't there anymore. They didn't even leave us a note, or say goodbye. We never figured out quite where they'd gone.

We missed them.

Some of us thought that the world had ended, but it hadn't. There just weren't any more animals. No cats or rabbits, no dogs or whales, no fish in the seas, no birds in the skies.

We were all alone.

We didn't know what to do.

Islands in the world...

What is an Island? 

Islands are areas of land that are not connected to a continent and are surrounded by water. Small islands are sometimes called cays, keys, or islets. A group of islands is often called an archipelago. 

There are two main type of islands; continental islands and oceanic islands. Continental islands are part of a continental shelf. One example of this is Great Britain is an island that sits on the continental shelf of Europe. Oceanic islands are islands that don't sit on a continental shelf. Many oceanic islands are formed by undersea volcanoes like Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. 

Below are some of the major islands in the world: 

Greenland 

Greenland is by far the world's largest island that is not a continent. It covers 822,706 square miles which is more than double the second largest island, New Guinea. For such a large island, Greenland only has a population of around 56,000 people making it one of the least densely populated places in the world. This is because most of Greenland is covered by a sheet of ice. Greenland is part of the continent of North America, but politically has generally been part of Europe through the country of Denmark. 

Great Britain 

Great Britain is the ninth largest island in the world and is the largest island in the British Isles. It is the third most populated island in the world. The British Empire was centered here and at its peak in the 18th to 20th century was the largest empire in the history of the world. It is part of Europe and is located off the northwest coast of France. 

Madagascar 

Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world. It's located off the southeast coast of Africa. Madagascar is home to many animal and plant species that can't be found anywhere else on the planet. Around 80% of the plant and animal life on the island can only be found on Madagascar. It is so unique some scientists refer to it as the eighth continent. 

Honshu 

Honshu is the largest island that makes up the country of Japan. It is the seventh largest island and has the second most people after the island of Java with a population of over 100 million. The highest mountain on Honshu is the famous volcano Mount Fuji and the largest city is Tokyo. 

Luzon 

Luzon is the main island of a large number of islands that make up the country of the Philippines. It is the fifth most populated island in the world and is home to the city of Manila. Manila Bay is considered to be one of the best natural port harbors in the world due to its size and location. 

The 10 Strangest Islands in the World

The 25 Largest Islands In The World

Fun Facts about Islands of the World

• Java is the world's most populated island with over 130 million people.
• The highest mountain on an island is Puncak Jaya on the island of New Guinea.
• Some islands are manmade. One example of this is the Kansai Airport in Japan which sits on a manmade island.
• The term desert island is an island with no people on it. This does not mean that the island is a desert, but rather that it is deserted.
• Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the island of Corsica.
• The largest island in the Mediterranean Sea is Sicily.
• Around 1 in 6 people on the planet live on an island.

Top 10 Islands by size and population

Facts about language...

• There are more than 7,000 languages in the world.
• There are 50,000 characters in Chinese. You need to know 2,000 to read a newspaper.
• 12.44% of the world’s people speak Mandarin as their first language.
• There are 2,200 languages in Asia.
• 1/4 of the world’s population speaks at least a little English.
• 50% of educational time in Luxembourg is used for learning English, German, and French.
• There are 13 ways to spell the ‘O’ sound in French, only one in Spanish!
• There is a language in Botswana that consists of mainly 5 types of clicks.
• There are 2,400 languages classified as being ‘endangered’.
• 231 languages are now completely extinct.
• One language dies about every 14 days.
• Eastern Siberia, Northwest Pacific Plateau of North America, And Northern Australia are hotspots for endangered languages.
• There are 12 imaginary languages in Lord of The Rings.
• Esperanto is an artificial language, but is spoken by about 500,000 to 2,000,000 people, and 2 feature films have been done in the language.
• There are 24 working languages of the EU.
• There are 6 official UN languages.
• The bible is available in 2454 languages.
• The oldest written language was believed to be written in about 4500 BC.
• South Africa has 11 official languages – the most for a single country.
• The pope tweets in 9 languages.
• The US has no official language.
• You can us an ATM in Latin in Vatican City.

Want to learn more? Click here: http://www.did-you-knows.com/did-you-know-facts/english-language.php