The US Foreign Service Institute puts French in Category I, the group of languages closest to English, with an estimated 600 to 750 class hours for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency. Much of that closeness is vocabulary: centuries of contact gave the two languages thousands of shared words. Most of them mean the same thing on both sides of the Channel. A small, stubborn group does not, and those are the ones that make a fluent-sounding sentence say something you never meant.
What are faux amis, and why do they catch English speakers?
Faux amis ("false friends") are French words that look like English words but mean something different, and they catch English speakers because the resemblance makes them feel safe. You do not look up a word you think you already know, so the mistake survives for years.
Most false friends share a Latin root with their English twin. The two meanings simply drifted apart over time. Actuel kept the older sense of "present, current", while English "actual" moved towards "real". Neither language is wrong, they just stopped agreeing.
There are also partial false friends, which overlap in one meaning and split in another. Une formation can be a formation, but at work it almost always means a training course.
Which false friends cause the most embarrassing mistakes?
The embarrassing ones are a handful of everyday words with a physical or emotional meaning in French: préservatif, excité, blesser and chair.
- un préservatif means a condom. A preservative in food is un conservateur.
- Je suis excité. can suggest I am aroused or I am worked up. To say you are excited about something, use j'ai hâte (I can't wait) or je suis impatient de... (I am looking forward to...).
- blesser means to injure. To bless is bénir.
- la chair means flesh. A chair is une chaise.
- un raisin is a grape. A raisin is un raisin sec, a dry grape.
None of these will cause a diplomatic incident, but they are the ones French speakers remember, and gently tease you about later.
Which false friends come up at work?
At work, the costly false friends are the ones that change a date, a commitment or a fact: actuellement, éventuellement, assister, réaliser and supporter.
- Actuellement, je travaille sur le budget. (I am currently working on the budget.) "Actually" is en fait.
- Nous pourrions éventuellement décaler la réunion. (We could possibly move the meeting.) "Eventually" is finalement or à terme.
- J'ai assisté à la conférence. (I attended the conference.) To assist someone is aider.
- Nous avons réalisé le projet en six mois. (We carried out the project in six months.) To realise something is se rendre compte de.
- Je ne supporte pas ce bruit. (I can't stand this noise.) To support a colleague is soutenir.
- une formation is a training course, un stage is an internship, and un agenda is a diary or planner, not a list of topics, which is un ordre du jour.
Éventuellement is the most dangerous of the group. A French colleague who writes nous signerons éventuellement is telling you the deal might happen, not that it will.
What do the most common false friends really mean?
Here is the short list worth memorising, with the French meaning and the word you probably wanted.
| French word | What it really means | What you probably meant |
|---|---|---|
| actuellement | currently | actually: en fait |
| éventuellement | possibly | eventually: finalement |
| une librairie | a bookshop | a library: une bibliothèque |
| attendre | to wait | to attend: assister à |
| sensible | sensitive | sensible: raisonnable |
| une location | a rental | a location: un emplacement |
| la monnaie | change, currency | money: l'argent |
| rester | to stay | to rest: se reposer |
| passer un examen | to sit an exam | to pass an exam: réussir un examen |
| une déception | a disappointment | a deception: une tromperie |
How do you stop falling for false friends?
Learn the risky words as a short list, then check any lookalike before you use it in a sentence that matters. Reading a list once will not fix the habit, because in conversation you reach for the familiar word without thinking.
A few things help:
- Learn each false friend with a full example sentence, not as a single word pair.
- Learn the word you actually wanted at the same time: actuellement with en fait, librairie with bibliothèque.
- Before an important email, check every word that looks suspiciously like English. The OQLF's Vitrine linguistique and the Académie française's Dire, ne pas dire both explain usage clearly.
- Notice your own repeat offenders. Most learners have two or three, not twenty.
The reassuring part is that true friends far outnumber false ones. Important, possible, information and restaurant mean what you think, so trusting English is still a good instinct most of the time.
False friends are easy to understand on paper and surprisingly hard to stop saying, because the wrong word comes out before you can check it. Speaking with a native teacher who catches them in the moment is what finally breaks the habit. Yann, a certified French teacher, hears actuellement and éventuellement misused every week and knows which ones are worth fixing first. A free trial lesson at frenchwithyann.com is a good place to find out which false friends are still hiding in your French.
Common questions
What does faux amis mean in French?
Faux amis means "false friends". It is the name for words that look or sound alike in two languages but have different meanings, like the French actuellement, which means currently rather than actually.
What is the most embarrassing French false friend?
Préservatif is the usual winner: it means condom, not preservative, which is conservateur. Saying je suis excité to mean you are looking forward to something comes close, because it can sound sexual or overwrought.
Are most French words that look like English ones false friends?
No. Most lookalikes are true friends with the same meaning, such as information, important or possible. False friends are a minority, but they are frequent words, so the same few cause most of the mistakes.