DECEPTIVE WORDS: UNDERSTANDING FALSE FRIENDS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of "false friends" occurring between the Russian and English languages. False friends are described as lexical units that look, sound, or are written similarly but have completely different meanings; these are considered the most common sources of mistakes among language learners. The article explains how such misinterpretation is often encountered by Russian speakers while learning English. The presence of similar forms encourages learners to trust a "familiar word," which leads to regular confusion and continuous misunderstandings. Consequently, semantic confusion, incorrect sentence construction, and a loss of clarity may occur during communication.