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The article suggests a new method of working on Russian vocabulary with foreign students, based on the associative similarity and semantic difference of lexemes with international roots. Errors in the use of these language units relate to semantic interference, when the lexical baggage of the native language is projected onto the foreign language being studied. Using associates as one of the methodological techniques will allow you to combine global and national, general and specific approach. Working with pairs of associates will help to avoid linguistic embarrassments, language and speech errors, enrich the linguistic and cultural competence of students. Teachers, except for classes at the initial stage, rarely use translator’s false friends. This method will help to correct this omission. The corresponding manual can be used as a supplementary material when working on vocabulary at an advanced stage of training. It is based on pairs of associates: дата/date; крест/crest; директор/director, etc. The pairs were selected based on the dictionaries of the translator’s false friends. Among the pairs, associates of two types stand out, which can conditionally be called “not at all” and “not the same”. The selected pairs are combined into thematic blocks that are relevant to the audience’s speech practice: “Education”, “Work”, “Transport”, “Leisure”, etc. Each topic section has several pairs: from 5 to 15. To work with each pair, the following types of exercises are offered: introductory, substitution, translation (intermediary language – English), and communicative. The introduction of each pair is accompanied by linguocultural commentary.