It looks English, but it's not!

[jcairns82]

As I'm starting to learn some dutch, I'm noticing that there's a lot that is the same in both English and Dutch.  Then there's some items that look like English, but it's something different.

A few I can think of are:

Bang in Dutch means Afraid

Glad in Dutch means Rubber

What are some other things that people can think of?

[Daedalus]

Glad actually means slippery; rubber is simply rubber in Dutch as well.

Here's some more:

van means 'of' or 'from'

met means 'with'

loop means 'walk' (as in 'I walk')

wit means 'white'

[jcairns82]

Ah, thanks for clearing up my mistake.  I've been doing some courses on memrise and must've mixed that up.  Some nice additions to the list too that I've seen, but didn't recall.

[Qub1]

There are actually a lot of words that are the same in Dutch and English. Here are a few:

auto means auto

bank means bank but can also mean couch

tent means tent

blank means blank

And there are a few words which look really similar:

soep means soup

ballon means balloon

aap means ape

deur means door

persoon means person

And so on. However when it comes to grammar, it's a different story completely.

[Daedalus]

Here's a few more:

of means 'or', a confusing one, especially with van meaning 'of' :confused:

as means 'axis', 'axle' and 'ashes'

drop means 'liquorice'

[nicky]

Yeah, I am Dutch myself and I notice that a lot of Dutch words are very similar to English. There are also a lot of so-called 'nederengels' (Dutchenglish) words that are accepted English words in the Netherlands. They are even in the Dutch dictionary, the van Dale.

A few examples:

Date

deal

feedback

meeting

design

gadget

image

bullshit

single

sale

reporter

Those words are so common here in the Netherlands that we don't even think about the fact that they are English, because they are Dutch for us.

You can see more 'Nederengelse' words when you search for Nederengels on google.

[Daedalus]

Here's some more Dutch words that should not be confused with English:

door means 'through' or 'by'

list means 'cunning plan'

look is the generic name for 'allium'

leek means 'layman'

teen means 'toe'

toe is often used in a construction to mean 'to' (example, 'to home' is 'naar huis toe'). It's also used to mean something like 'getting something extra' or it can mean 'dessert'

been means 'leg'

[Trellum]

Here's some more Dutch words that should not be confused with English:

door means 'through' or 'by'

list means 'cunning plan'

look is the generic name for 'allium'

leek means 'layman'

teen means 'toe'

toe is often used in a construction to mean 'to' (example, 'to home' is 'naar huis toe'). It's also used to mean something like 'getting something extra' or it can mean 'dessert'

been means 'leg'

Gee, just when I thought the ''false friends'' words we had to learn about when I was learning english were tricky, I come across this  :cry:  Oh well, it looks like I'll have to pay a lot more attention than I thought!  It really sucks those words look exactly like the english words we commonly use... that can be so confusing   Thanks for sharing this list   Later today I'll study the lesson two of my dutch audio course... I'm getting there!!!

[pandandesign]

Here's a few more:

of means 'or', a confusing one, especially with van meaning 'of' :confused:

as means 'axis', 'axle' and 'ashes'

drop means 'liquorice'

It's very interesting to see some of the meaning of the words here. Thank you for sharing! I didn't know 'of' means 'or'.

[Kotro]

There are not many instances of English-looking words in Portuguese, unless, of course, they are of English origin. However, there is one English sounding word that I have seen causing some minor confusion among English speakers and Portuguese speakers, which is the word "puxe". The reason it's so confusing is because it's part of the combination "push/pull" found on many doors throughout the world. Portuguese uses "empurre" for "push", and "puxe" (which sounds exactly like "push") for "pull". You often see English speakers in Portugal pushing doors they're suposed to pull, and Portuguese speakers pulling doors they're supposed to push.

[Hedonologist]

I'm surprised what I think is the most common one hasn't been mentioned

want = because

[Daedalus]

That's a good one. It can be difficult to come up with these though.

I've got another one. If you're ever in a Dutch speaking place, and someone suddenly shouts something about 'beer', don't get too excited about the prospect of having a glass of the cool, alcoholic beverage; they're likely just warning you that there's a bear on the loose.