Now, in three out of ten target languages, this was translated as 'hand number two'. What was obviously meant was the hand that ticks away the seconds. False friends are words that have the same appearance in different languages, but very different meanings. An example is the German selbstbewust which translates literally into self-conscious but does not have any of the english negative connotations. It merely means confident.
Some languages are very hesitant to welcome foreign words into their vocabulary.
German and Flemish for instance are very inventive in creating their own native terms. Dutch on the other hand, has always been very hospitable. Most other languages are more elaborate. As a result, software strings translated from english, will expand in character count from anywhere between 20 and 50 percent. Now a crowded panel in English is not a pretty sight to begin with, but it may become virtually unuseable in translated versions, unless there is room for resizing, sometimes redesigning.