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Your say - False friends 2q556j

Tuna Can Hotel (English/Turkish) 3q1i2f

We were traveling in western Turkey and found a sign advertising the Tuna Can Hotel. We instantly thought of an open tin of tuna with small creatures crawling over it. However, it turns out that can in Turkish means "spirit, soul". The c is pronounced more like a j. Tuna means "Danube". So it turned out that there was nothing fishy about the hotel but that it was very poetically called "Spirit of the Danube".

Sent by: Lucha

Comments 682840

Tuna 2011-05-25

Yes, Yelda is right. Tuna and Can are both male names (actually Tuna is a unisex name in Turkey), also there are names such as Tunahan or Tunacan, which, in this case, might refer to Tunacan. But "Spirit of the Danube" sounds pretty nice.

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Carol Erzen 2008-03-10

My husband and I run a hotel near OluDeniz called the Hotel Tunacan.

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Yelda 2005-06-16

Both Tuna and Can are also Turkish men's names. So the hotel might simply be called "Tuna Can's hotel".

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