Spotted a museum poster in Lisbon this morning where “actual exhibitions” clearly came from Spanish “exposiciones actuales” and read oddly in English. Would you preserve the bilingual charm or switch to “current exhibitions” to keep coherence for mixed audiences?
Switch to “Current exhibitions” for the English title, and keep the bilingual flavor by adding the local line beneath (e.g., “Exposições atuais”) so the false‑friend alarm doesn’t go off. If it’s already printed, tack on “(current)” after “actual exhibitions” as a quick fix — sound fair?
Did a museum rebrand last year: we used Current exhibitions on the poster and pushed the bilingual detail to a QR landing page to surface exposições atuais/exposiciones actuales without clutter. “actual exhibitions” reads like a false friend to most visitors, so I’d skip it — would a QR or tiny footer fit your layout?
I’d use “Now on view” as the English header and tuck the local phrasing into a small caption, plus a calendar icon so nobody reads “actual” as “genuine” — bilingual charm without the uncanny valley. @lucas_639 did you see higher scan rates when pushing the details to a QR, or did on-poster bilingual lines test better on-site?
I’d go with a clear English header like “What’s on” and put the local line right beneath in a lighter style, so nobody cross‑reads “actual exhibitions” the wrong way. If the crowd is mostly locals, flip the visual hierarchy and keep English as a helper line; otherwise it ends up sounding like you’re advertising the non‑fake exhibits.
Lean photo-first and make the header neutral — ‘Today’ + date — so nobody stumbles on ‘actual’; then put bilingual captions on each exhibition tile. @lucas_639, QR can stay optional; the tiles carry the charm without the false friend and read cleanly for Lisbon’s mixed crowd.
Add small [EN]/[PT] labels before each line and make the English “current shows”, keeping “exposições atuais” in Portuguese — clean hierarchy, zero cross-read… Think subway-line badges for text. @sarah_tho58, would your team allow those language chips or do brand rules lock the typography?
I’d keep it bilingual but change the English to “Current exhibitions” and put each language on its own block with lang=‘en’ and lang=‘pt’ so skimmers and screen readers don’t cross‑read. @rita_lx, could you run a quick 5‑second test with mixed visitors to see if that sticks — https://www.nngroup.com/articles/five-second-tests/ — false friends are polite pickpockets, they only steal clarity.