Persian-English False Friends: The Complete List

1Why Persian false friends work differently

Most false-friend guides are written for speakers of French, Spanish or German, whose languages share a large Latin vocabulary with English. A French speaker meets 'actuellement' and assumes 'actually'. That is a shared-root problem. Persian speakers have a different problem, and it is arguably a harder one.

Persian did not inherit its false friends from a common ancestor with English. It imported them, mostly from French, during the late Qajar and Pahlavi periods when French was the language of Iranian higher education, medicine and diplomacy. Those words settled into everyday Persian, kept their French meanings, and then a century later Iranian learners met English and assumed the familiar word must mean the familiar thing.

The result is a specific and very consistent error pattern. An Iranian learner does not usually confuse two English words with each other. They confidently use a Persian word, in an English sentence, with its Persian meaning, and have no reason to suspect anything is wrong. The word feels foreign already, so it feels like English.

This guide covers three groups: French borrowings that are not English words at all, English borrowings whose meaning shifted inside Persian, and the genuine shared inheritance between Persian and English that most learners never hear about. Every entry gives the sentence an Iranian is likely to produce and the sentence a native speaker would.

2The French trap: words that were never English

These are the most dangerous entries in the entire guide, because there is nothing to correct. The word simply does not exist in English with that meaning, so the listener hears either a different word or no word at all.

• کامیون (kāmion), from camion — say truck (US) or lorry (UK)
• مانتو (mānto), from manteau — say coat, or describe it as a long tunic
• شومینه (shumine), from cheminée — say fireplace
• آبونمان (ābonemān), from abonnement — say subscription
• کراوات (kerāvāt), from cravate — say tie or necktie
• لوستر (luster), from lustre — say chandelier
• دوش (dush), from douche — say shower; the English word douche is vulgar slang and should be avoided entirely
• سانس (sāns), from séance — say showing, screening or session
• رفوزه (refuze), from refusé — say failed the year or held back
• کنکور (konkur), from concours — say university entrance exam

Tip: دوش is worth singling out. The English word that sounds closest to it is an insult in American English. This is the one mistake on the list that can genuinely embarrass someone in a work meeting.

3English words Persian borrowed and changed

This second group is subtler. The word really is English, so a dictionary will confirm it exists, and the learner's confidence goes up. The problem is that Persian narrowed, widened or entirely relocated the meaning.

• کلاس (kelās) also means classiness — 'he has class' works in English, but 'this restaurant has class' is unusual; say stylish or upmarket
• سالن (sālon) means a hall or auditorium, not a hair salon
• سرویس (servis) can mean the school shuttle bus, or the bathroom
• کنترل (kontrol) usually means the TV remote — say remote or remote control
• نایلون (nāylon) means a plastic bag, not the fabric
• ست (set) means a matching outfit — say matching or coordinated
• اسپرت (esport) means casual clothing, not sport or e-sports
• تست (test) often means a multiple-choice question, not the whole exam

4The 20 that cause the most damage

If you only memorise one section, memorise this one. These are ranked by how often they appear in real Iranian English and how badly they derail the sentence. Each line gives the Persian word, the sentence an Iranian is likely to produce, and the sentence a native speaker would use.

• مرسی — 'Mercy for your help' → 'Thanks for your help'
• فیش — 'Bring me the fish' → 'Bring me the receipt'
• ماشین — 'I came with my machine' → 'I drove' / 'I came by car'
• شانس — 'I had chance' → 'I was lucky'
• فامیل — 'My family is 40 people' → 'My extended family is 40 people'
• تیپ — 'I like your tip' → 'I like your style' / 'your outfit'
• اتیکت — 'Check the etiquette' → 'Check the label' / 'the price tag'
• کنترل — 'Give me the control' → 'Pass me the remote'
• سرویس — 'I take the service to school' → 'I take the school bus'
• شارژ — 'My phone has no charge' (meaning credit) → 'I'm out of credit' / 'out of data'
• پارتی — 'He got the job with party' → 'He got the job through connections'
• دوش — 'I took a douche' → 'I took a shower'
• کنسرو — 'I ate conserve' → 'I ate canned food'
• ویزیت — 'I paid the visit' → 'I paid the consultation fee'
• سرم — 'They gave me serum' → 'They put me on an IV'
• آمپول — 'The doctor gave me an ampoule' → 'The doctor gave me an injection' / 'a shot'
• نسخه — 'Give me the version' → 'Give me the prescription'
• کلاس — 'This cafe has class' → 'This cafe is stylish'
• سالن — 'We met in the salon' → 'We met in the hall' / 'the auditorium'
• نمره — 'My number was 18' → 'My grade was 18' / 'I scored 18'

Tip: Notice how many of these are not exotic vocabulary. They are the words you need on an ordinary day: your car, your receipt, your phone credit, your grade. That is exactly why they survive so long.

5Shopping, clothes and everyday life

Daily errands produce a dense cluster of these, because this is precisely the vocabulary Persian borrowed most heavily.

• مانتو (mānto) — coat or long tunic; there is no single English equivalent, so describe it
• کاپشن (kāpshen) — from French capuchon; say jacket or winter coat
• شلوار جین — jeans; fine, but say 'a pair of jeans'
• ست کردن (set kardan) — to match; say 'these match' not 'these are set'
• تیشرت — t-shirt; correct, one of the safe ones
• پوتین (putin) — boots; unrelated to the surname it resembles

• اتیکت — label or price tag, never etiquette
• تخفیف — discount; the safe English word, use it
• فروشگاه زنجیره‌ای — chain store
• نایلون — plastic bag or carrier bag
• کارتن (kārton) — cardboard box, not cartoon; 'cartoon' in English means an animation or a drawing

• کنسرو (konserv) — canned food or tinned food
• ماکارونی (mākāroni) — used in Persian for pasta generally; English 'macaroni' is one specific shape
• سوسیس / کالباس — sausage / cold cuts or deli meat
• آبمیوه — juice; say fresh juice if it is freshly squeezed
• شام (shām) — dinner; be careful with the English word 'sham', which means a fake

6Health and medicine: the high-stakes ones

Persian medical vocabulary came overwhelmingly from French, because French was the language of Iranian medical training for generations. This is the category where a false friend stops being embarrassing and starts being dangerous, especially for anyone who has moved abroad and is describing symptoms to a doctor.

• اورژانس (orzhāns), from urgence — say emergency room, the ER, or A&E in the UK
• دکتر — doctor is correct, but in English you see a doctor rather than go to the doctor's visit
• قرص — tablet or pill
• آزمایش — test or lab test; 'analysis' is a French-influenced choice that sounds clinical in English
• عمل — operation or surgery, not 'act'
• معاینه — examination or check-up

Tip: If you have moved to Canada, the UK or Australia, rehearse this section specifically. Describing symptoms is the one situation where being misunderstood has a real cost, and it is also the situation where stress makes you fall back on the Persian word.

7Work, university and paperwork

Administrative Persian is dense with French, and this vocabulary comes up in exactly the settings where you most want to sound competent: job interviews, university applications, immigration paperwork.

• نمره (nomre) — grade or score, not number
• کنکور (konkur) — the national university entrance exam; explain it, do not translate it word for word
• رفوزه (refuze) — failed the year, or was held back
• لیسانس (lisāns) — bachelor's degree; English 'licence' is a permit
• فوق لیسانس — master's degree
• دکترا — PhD or doctorate
• مدرک (madrak) — degree, certificate or qualification depending on context
• استخدام — hiring or recruitment
• قرارداد — contract
• مرخصی — leave or time off, not 'vacation' when you mean sick leave
• پروژه — project, one of the safe ones
• شرکت — company; 'firm' is narrower and usually means law or consulting

8Technology and the internet

Newer borrowings came from English rather than French, so they are safer overall. The failures here are about meaning drift, not origin.

• کنترل — remote control; say remote
• لپ‌تاپ — laptop, safe
• فلش (flash) — say USB stick, flash drive or thumb drive
• هارد — hard drive
• سایت — website; 'site' alone can mean a physical location
• چت کردن — to chat, safe
• پروفایل — profile, safe
• اکانت — account, safe
• کد (kod) — code, safe, but 'code' for a postal code is postcode or ZIP code

Tip: The technology cluster is where Iranian learners are usually strongest, because these words arrived directly from English in the internet era rather than through a French intermediary a century ago. Trust yourself more here.

9True cognates: where Persian and English really do agree

Here is the part almost no Iranian learner is taught, and it is genuinely useful. Persian and English are both Indo-European languages. They separated thousands of years ago, but a core layer of vocabulary survived in both. These are not borrowings in either direction; they are shared inheritance.

• مادر (mādar) and mother
• پدر (pedar) and father
• برادر (barādar) and brother
• دختر (dokhtar) and daughter
• نام (nām) and name
• ستاره (setāre) and star
• نو (now) and new
• لب (lab) and lip
• ابرو (abru) and eyebrow
• دو (do) and two
• سه (se) and three

These correspondences are systematic rather than coincidental, which is why they are worth knowing. Once you notice that Persian d- often corresponds to English d- in this core layer, دختر / daughter and در / door stop looking like accidents.

One popular example is not a cognate. Persian بد and English 'bad' mean the same thing and sound almost identical, and this is a genuine coincidence — the two words have unrelated histories. It is a famous example precisely because real cognates are rarely that neat.

Tip: Use this section for morale rather than memorisation. Learners who believe English is completely alien to Persian give up faster than learners who know the two languages are distant relatives.

10Grammar interference, not just vocabulary

False friends get the attention, but the errors that most mark someone as an Iranian speaker of English are structural, and they come from Persian grammar rather than Persian words.

• Word order: Persian is subject-object-verb, so the verb tends to drift late in long English sentences
• خسته نباشید has no English equivalent — do not translate it; say 'thanks for your hard work' or nothing at all
• قربان شما / فدات شم do not translate; the register does not exist in English and a literal version sounds alarming
• Persian uses the present tense for the near future more freely than English does

11Why these mistakes survive years of study

Iranian learners often reach a high level in grammar and reading and still produce these errors in speech. That is not carelessness, and understanding why makes them easier to fix.

You never get corrected. A false friend usually produces a sentence that is grammatical and roughly understandable. Native speakers guess from context and move on rather than interrupting. The mistake is therefore never punished, and never noticed.

The word already feels foreign. Persian speakers have a reliable instinct for which words are borrowed. That instinct correctly flags مرسی and آسانسور as non-native, and then draws the wrong conclusion about where they came from.

Classroom English rarely covers it. Textbooks are written for a general international audience and cannot address Persian-specific interference. Your teacher probably shares your first language and therefore shares the same blind spots.

The words are high-frequency. You use ماشین and فیش and نمره constantly, so the wrong pattern gets thousands of repetitions while a rare word you learned correctly gets three.

Tip: This is why input from real content matters more than another vocabulary list. You need to hear a native speaker say 'receipt' in the situation where you would have said 'fish', enough times that the correct word arrives first.

12A five-minute self-test

Translate each Persian sentence into English before reading the answer. If you get more than three wrong, this guide is worth a second pass.

• مرسی، لطفاً فیش رو بده. → 'Thanks, could I have the receipt please?'
• با ماشین اومدم. → 'I drove' or 'I came by car'
• شانس آوردم که رسیدم. → 'I was lucky to make it'
• همه فامیل اومدن. → 'All my relatives came'
• کنترل رو بده لطفاً. → 'Pass me the remote, please'
• گوشیم شارژ نداره. → 'I'm out of credit' or 'My battery is dead' — decide which you mean
• دکتر برام سرم نوشت. → 'The doctor put me on an IV'
• نمره‌م ۱۸ شد. → 'I got 18' or 'My grade was 18'
• اتیکتش رو نگاه کن. → 'Look at the price tag'
• تیپت قشنگه. → 'I like your outfit' or 'You look great'

Tip: Say the English versions out loud rather than reading them silently. These errors live in speech, so they have to be corrected in speech.

13Catching false friends in real content

Lists are useful for diagnosis, not for repair. The repair happens when you meet the correct word in a real sentence, spoken by a real person, in a context you care about.

That is the practical case for learning from podcasts and video rather than from a textbook. When you hear a native speaker say 'Can I get a receipt?' at a counter, the situation and the word are stored together. The next time you are at a counter, 'receipt' arrives before فیش does.

• Watch or listen to content you would consume anyway, in English
• When a word surprises you, click it rather than guessing from context
• Check whether the Persian word you were about to use actually maps onto it
• Save the ones that surprised you, with the full sentence, not the word alone
• Review them until the English word arrives first

Saving the whole sentence matters more than usual for false friends. The word 'receipt' in isolation is easy. What you actually need is the situation that triggers it, and only a full sentence carries that.

Tip: FlexiLingo shows interactive subtitles on YouTube and podcasts, so you can click any word to see its meaning and CEFR level, then save it with the sentence it appeared in. That is precisely the workflow this section describes.