As an English speaker learning German, I face endless confusion and frustration with many of the short question words that are “False Friends”
Such as:
Wer (where) - Actually means who.
Wo (Who) - Actually means where.
Wie (We) - Actually means how.
Was (was) - Actually means what.
Also (also) - Actually means so.
Will (will) - Actually means to want.
And the completely arbitrary gender assignments!
For example.
The year is: Das Jahr, a neuter word.
The month is: Der Monat, a masculine word.
And the week is: Die Woche, a feminine word.
And then there’s directly counter-intuitive examples of words that seem like they Should be a gender other than what they are, such as:
The little girl - Das Mädchen (Neuter, not feminine)
Breasts - Der Busen (Masculine! Boobs is masculine!)
Person - Die Person (Feminine! Why isn’t this word neuter?!"
Die Brust (some parents give milk from it)
!= Der Busen (sometimes the full upper torso front, the chest)
!= Das Euter (breast of milk giving animals)
I think each language has some trait that feels arbitrary, hard to learn. I think the purpose is, to be able to figure out foreigners who didn’t “drink the language from mother’s breast”. I believe, historically/evolutionary, language speakers had to quickly sort out infiltrated traitors.
Overall, false friends are everywhere because our brain works in associations.