False Friends

False friends are words in English that look or sound the same as a word in your language but mean something different in English.

 

For example:

'sympathetic'

in English means feeling sorry for someone.  It doesn't mean 'friendly' or 'nice'.

'smoking'

in English is the '~ing' form of the verb – not a kind of jacket!

 
False friends depend on your first language family.  If a word is a false friend in Spanish, it's probably one in Italian, Portuguese and French as well.  If it's a false friend in German, it's probably the same in Dutch or Danish and so on.

To do an exercise on some of these, click on your first language:
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