also the word for wine in Irish opposed to what it means in French without the accent though : fíon
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Great examples by Jinyoung! Just wanted to add some more fun ones:
- Boleh: to be allowed, permitted (Indonesian) / to be able to (Malay)
- Bisa: to be able to, snake’s venom (Indonesian) / just snake’s venom (Malay)
- Butuh: to need (Indonesian) / female genital part (Malay)
- Buntut: animal tail (Indonesian) / human bottom (Malay)
- Cakap: to be capable (Indonesian) / to speak (Malay)
- Kereta: train (Indonesian) / car (Malay)
- Pengacara: lawyer (Indonesian) / MC, show host (Malay)
- Percuma: useless, unfruitful (Indonesian) / free of charge/costs (Malay)
Also, ‘iced water’ in Malay is ‘air kosong’ which is a bit paradoxical in Indonesian as it would mean ‘empty water’, despite having some ice in it. Then again, Indonesian call plain water ‘air putih’ (‘white water’) which also does not make any sense because water is not really white. How fun.
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Korean / Japanese
희망 (hope) / 肥満 (fatness)
머리 (head) / 森 (forest)
공부 (study) / 昆布 (a kind of seaweed)
이 (tooth) / 胃 (stomach)
언어 (language) / 斧 (axe)
구조 (structure/rescue) / 駆除 (extermination)
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I thought of another one:
Miel : honey in español and lamb in română
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esposa=wife esposas=handcuffs or several wives, you choose!
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Deutsch: der See - das Meer
Nederlands: het meer - de zee
On the wikipedia are lots of examples in different languages: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/False_friend
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You guys are incredible! Thank you for adding so many wonderful examples. I love reading them so keep 'em coming! I’m learning so much 
Please let me know if anyone objects to having their first name (name you have on here) mentioned on the podcast. If so, I can just mention the example without a name, but I like to give credit where it’s due.
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I don’t mind if you share, my real first name is Tiffany. This is such a fun topic.
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Very thoughtful Heather 
Same here, I don’t mind.
Good luck with the podcast.
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Same I don’t mind at all 
A few more between french and spanish
Entender = comprendre souvent confondu avec le verbe entendre = oír
Embarazada = enceinte et non embarrassé
Gato = chat et non gâteau = pastel
Constipado = enrhumé et non constipé = estreñido😆
Subir = monter et non le verbe subir en français
Débil = faible et non débile = estúpido
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Don’t mind Heather having my name, no big deal here from my point of view
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I don’t mind either, in the unlikely event you want to use anything I’ve posted! 
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I don’t mind it as well! It’s really an interesting topic ~
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Succes with your podcast about this important topic in language acquisition. It can be funny and can get painful sometimes 
you can mention my name.
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Takashi, I just want to make sure I say these correctly on the podcast. Do these examples have the same pronunciation? I can read hangul.
@heatherk
Same or very similar:
肥満 ひまん himan
森 もり mori
昆布 こんぶ kombu
胃 い i
斧 おの ono
駆除 くじょ kujo
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Arigatou!! 
On another note, why doesn’t Japanese just write everything in hiragana and katakana? Kanji are so complex 
@heatherk
I don’t know the exact reason, but I have a very basic question: Should we abandon kanji just because it’s a little bit complex even though the language has a long history of using it? Actually, native speakers don’t have any serious issues with kanji (the literacy rate is 99% in Japan), so there is no crucial reason to abandon it. Of course learning kanji is sometimes tough, but after learning it, it’s not difficult any more and texts written with kanji are much easier to understand than those only in kana. So it’s just a matter of preference: 1) keep using complex kanji and keep reading texts easily or 2) chose to use a simple writing system and read texts (only in kana) with more difficulty than before. I can’t say which one is better.
Also, without kanji there will be too many homonyms in Japanese like:
ひ = day/sun? fire? ratio?
かんそう = dryness? impression? completion of a run?
さい = rhinoceros? difference? dice?
and many other examples.
I assume these homonyms will be used much less after abandoning kanji (to avoid misunderstanding) and the richness of the vocabulary could be lost.
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Just found an interesting one for Irish… díospóireacht = debate, although it sounds alot like ‘diaspora’, which is actually diaspóra in Irish.
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Takashi-san, arigatou gozaimasu! I’m still very much a beginner in Japanese so I’m sorry if my question seemed rude or ignorant. I really appreciate your detailed response. I didn’t even think of distinguishing homonyms/homophones. That’s interesting and gives me hope that you find reading texts with kanji easier.
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