Freak in English does not mean the same as Friki in Spanish! Nerd, geek, freak.

I often hear and correct my English learning students misusing freak and they think that it means the same as freaki / friki in Spanish which basically means geek.

Today I saw these wonderful explanations in images from Vaughan English @GrupoVaughan on Twitter, and I had to share them with you!

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From @VaughanEnglish Como se dice Friki en inglés?

Wonderful image from @VaughanEnglish on Twitter

Como se dice friki en inglés? Image from @vaughanenglish

Image credit – @vaughanenglish on Twitter

Como se dice Fiki en inglés? From @vaughanenglish on Twitter

Image credit – @vaughanenglish on Twitter. Thankyou!

Freak

Freak comes from Freak show, the terrible part of old time circus shows where they showed people who were deformed or who were not accepted as normal people. Today if we call someone a freak it is very insulting and offensive, like calling someone a freak of nature – un-natural. It doesn’t have the same meaning at all as friki in Spanish.

Geek

Geeks, generally, refers to people who love video games, science fiction, fantasy books and films, technology, and have watched all the series of Star Trek etc. I am a bit of a geek 🤓

So geek could be the translation of friki.

Nerd

Nerd is like geek but is putting more emphasis on the fact that the person studies a lot. They have the best marks in class and often don’t worry so much about their image and style.