Choose a language pair, type a word, and check whether it is a known false friend.
| English word | Real English meaning | False friend look-alike | What the look-alike really means | Correct translation |
|---|
Why false friends cause real communication mistakes
A false friend is a word that looks or sounds like a word in another language but carries a different meaning, and the mix-up is not harmless. A French learner who says "I am attending a conference" to mean "I am waiting for a conference" confuses a listener, and a UK traveller in Germany who asks for "Gift" to mean "a present" is, in German, asking about poison.
Six false friends worth learning first
| Word | Real meaning | Often confused with |
|---|---|---|
| actually (EN) | in fact | French "actuellement" (currently) |
| library (EN) | a place with books | French "librairie" (bookshop) |
| gift (EN) | a present | German "Gift" (poison) |
| handy (EN) | convenient | German "Handy" (mobile phone) |
| embarrassed (EN) | feeling ashamed | Spanish "embarazada" (pregnant) |
| exit (EN) | a way out | Spanish "éxito" (success) |
Limits of this checker
This tool lists documented false friends between English and French, German, or Spanish only, and it does not cover every false friend in existence, only well known cases. Some pairs are partial false friends, where the word shares one meaning but not others depending on context or register, rather than complete false friends with no overlap at all. Meaning can also shift with slang, regional use, or an older sense of the word, so treat every entry as a common case, not an absolute rule.
How to spot a false friend in practice
When a translation feels too easy, that is often the moment to check it. If a word looks identical or near identical across two languages, pause and ask whether the "obvious" translation actually changes the meaning of the sentence, especially with everyday verbs and adjectives such as "attend", "large", or "fast". A bilingual dictionary entry with a meaning wildly different from what you expected is the clearest sign, which is exactly what the table above is built to surface quickly. For related vocabulary work, see the CEFR Level Guide.