Although they're both Romance languages, Catalan and Spanish aren't as close to each other as some think. There are even false friends between the two, one of which today caught out public prosecutor Miguel Ángel Carballo in Spain's National Audience court; from the dock, former Catalan police chief Josep Lluís Trapero had to correct him.

In Spanish, "ja" is the sound of laughing, "ha" in English. In Catalan, the word "ja" is written the same, albeit pronounced differently, but is an adverb meaning "already" or "now", which in Spanish would be "ya".

The prosecutor explained that on 25th September 2017, police commissioner Ferran López sent Trapero an email reading, in part: "Ha! We've got [...]." The prosecutor appeared to be translating on-the-fly from a written document. After a little confusion, Trapero tried to explain that an accurate translation would be: "We've now got [...]."

Today was the second day of questioning from the prosecutor to Trapero, charged with rebellion over his actions during the 2017 independence push. The trial continues.