Are there any specific French words that are often confused with English words

There are indeed specific French words that are often confused with English words. These are typically known as “false friends” (faux amis), where words look or sound similar in both languages but have different meanings. For example:

• “Actuellement” in French means “currently,” not “actually.”
• “Library” in English vs. “Librairie” in French, where the latter means “bookstore” not a library.
• “Monnaie” in French means “change” (coins), not “money” in general.
• “Sensible” in French means “sensitive,” not “sensible” in English.
• “Assisté” in French often means “attended” or “present,” not the English “assisted.”

These kinds of confusion arise because the words are cognates but have diverged in meaning across the two languages. This is a common phenomenon for English and French due to their intertwined histories.

If more detailed examples or specific thematic sets of such words are needed, further information can be provided. Would a list of common false friends between French and English be helpful?

References

• Dissociated mechanisms for phonetic and lexical learning in a second language

• Crossing Town: Montreal in Translation

• Clues to Better English: 150 Words Often Confused or Misused, Pictorially Illustrated, 501 Self-Checks

• On the ‘Stickiness’ of Words. A Comparative Language Study Screening the Internet for English, German, French and Latin Phrases

• Effect of Phonetic Association on Lexis Learning In Natural Language Context: A Comparative Study Of English, French and Turkish Words

• The Phenomenon of Loan Words That Often Used in Social Media

• English Speakers’ Implicit Gender Concepts Influence Their Processing of French Grammatical Gender: Evidence for Semantically Mediated Cross-Linguistic Influence

• How to pronounce silent letters in English and French

• Visual words in notes English language SDN Layungsari 2 Bogor City

• Cross-cultural Study of the Concepts of “Shame” and “Guilt” in English and Romanian

• Linguistic Aspects of Translation Between French and English

• ANGLICISMS IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE: LINGUISTIC AND SOCIAL ASPECTS

• Using Event-Related Brain Potentials to Assess Perceptibility: The Case of French Speakers and English [h]

• Au-delà des genres: décalages stylistiques entre l’anglais et le français

• Teenagers’ Attitudes Towards Franglais in France and Francophone Switzerland

• Anglicisms in French Vocabulary in the Early 21st Century

• Exploring the Influence of French on the Pronunciation of the Letter h in English Words

• A Challenge Set for French —> English Machine Translation

• How language affects children’s use of derivational morphology in visual word and pseudoword processing: evidence from a cross-language study

• Indeterminacy in L1 French grammars: the case of gender and number agreement