Most French and English cognates are genuinely helpful: a word like important or question means exactly what it looks like it means, and leaning on those similarities can fast-track your French vocabulary. But a smaller set of words, called faux amis (“false friends”), look like an English word while meaning something else entirely, sometimes not even the same part of speech. This post covers the false cognates that trip up learners most often, organized by where they tend to cause the most confusion.
The Classics: Faux Amis Beginners Hit First
Sensible is spelled identically to its English look-alike, but it means “sensitive,” not “sensible” or “reasonable.” Calling someone une personne sensible is a compliment about their emotional depth, not their good judgment.
Elle est très sensible aux critiques. (“She’s very sensitive to criticism.”)
Sale looks like the English word for a transaction, but as a French adjective it means “dirty.” Une chambre sale is a messy room, not a room for sale (that would be à vendre).
And la librairie is one of the most famous faux amis in French: it means “bookstore,” not “library.” A library, where you borrow books rather than buy them, is une bibliothèque.
J’ai acheté ce roman à la librairie du coin. (“I bought this novel at the local bookstore.”)
Verbs That Aren’t What They Look Like
Travailler looks related to “travel,” but it means “to work.” (There’s an old English word, “travail,” that has the same root.) The verb for travel is voyager.
Je travaille à Lyon depuis trois ans. (“I’ve been working in Lyon for three years.”)
Attendre looks like “to attend,” but it means “to wait for.” If you want to say you’re attending an event, you’d use assister à instead.
Il attend le bus depuis vingt minutes. (“He’s been waiting for the bus for twenty minutes.”)
And rester, despite its resemblance to “rest,” means “to stay” or “to remain,” with no connection to sleeping or relaxing. The verb for rest, in the sense of resting up, is se reposer.
Work, Money, and Time
Le patron doesn’t mean “patron” in the sense of a customer or supporter; it means “boss.”
Mon patron est en réunion toute la matinée. (“My boss is in meetings all morning.”)
Actuellement is one of the most commonly mistranslated false friends: it means “currently,” not “actually.” For “actually” in the sense of correcting a misconception, French uses en fait.
Actuellement, je travaille sur un nouveau projet. (“I’m currently working on a new project.”)
And la journée means “day” (specifically the span of daytime hours), not “journey.” A journey, in the sense of a trip, is le voyage.
Quick Reference: More Faux Amis to Watch For
These are common enough to be worth recognizing on sight, even without a full explanation for each one.
| French word | Looks like it means | Actually means |
|---|---|---|
| comment | comment (remark) | how |
| la figure | figure (number, shape) | face |
| le livre | liver | book |
| l’occasion | occasion (event) | opportunity |
| la prune | prune (dried fruit) | plum |
| le raisin | raisin | grape |
| blesser | to bless | to wound, to hurt |
| le stage | stage (theater) | training course, internship |
| le store | store (shop) | window shade |
| affronter | to affront | to face, to confront |
| retirer | to retire | to withdraw |
| le roman | romance | novel |
| la nouvelle | novel | a piece of news, a short story |
| le surnom | surname | nickname |
| la caution | caution | deposit, guarantee |
| la chance | chance | luck |
| le car | car | bus, coach |
| le collège | college | middle school |
| sympathique | sympathetic | nice, likeable |
A few of these, like le collège, are especially worth remembering if you’re discussing school or education with a French speaker: French secondary education splits into le collège (roughly middle school, ages 11 to 15) and le lycée (high school), and neither maps directly onto the American concept of “college.”
Next Steps
False friends are a specific hazard within the much larger, and mostly helpful, overlap between French and English vocabulary. If you want to see that overlap covered from the informal side, our post on French slang and informal language looks at the everyday words that don’t show up in a dictionary of cognates at all. And if today’s confusion was a grammar mix-up rather than a vocabulary one, our guide to French reflexive verbs covers another area where French and English patterns diverge in ways that catch learners off guard.
Recognizing a faux ami on a vocabulary list is one thing; catching it in the middle of a fast conversation is another. Regular practice with a native speaker, through a platform like italki, is the most effective way to build the instinct to notice when a familiar-looking word doesn’t mean what you’d expect.
