Spelling Differences
Orthographical differences in English, French and German words
Orthographical Differences in Similar Words
I typically use more than one language in the course of a day, which sometimes leads to some confusion or uncertainty. One area this affects is spelling, as there are some nearly identical words among a set of languages with subtle spelling differences. The following is a compilation of such words.
French | English | German | other |
---|---|---|---|
abandonné | abandoned | ||
abréviation | abbreviation | ||
accordéon | accordion | Akkordeon | |
adresse | address | Adresse | |
agressif | aggressive | aggressiv | nl. agressief |
alarme | alarm | Alarm | it. allarme |
ambassade | embassy | ||
appartement 1 | apartment | ||
auteur | author | Autor | |
bagage | baggage | ||
ballet | ballet | Ballett | |
café | coffee | Kaffee | |
calendrier | calendar | Kalender | |
caractère 2 | character | Charakter | nl. karakter |
carotte | carrot | Karotte | |
chili | chili/chilli3 | Chili | |
comité | committee | Komitee | |
coton | cotton | ||
courant | current | ||
danse | dance | ||
défense | defense (US), defence (UK) | ||
dépendant | dependent | ||
dette | debt | ||
environnement | environment | ||
exemple | example | ||
exercice | exercise (never -ize) | ||
galerie | gallery | Galerie | |
garantie | guarantee 4 | Garantie | |
garde(r) | guard | ||
gouvernement | government | ||
gril | grill | Grill | |
guitare | guitar | Gitarre | |
horizon | horizon | Horizont | |
indépendance | independence | ||
licence | license (US), licence (UK) | Lizenz | |
littérature | literature | Literatur | |
loterie | lottery | Lotterie | nl. loterij |
mariage | marriage | ||
marier | to marry | ||
mécanique | mechanical | mechanisch | |
négocier | negotiate | ||
parlement | parliament | Parlament | nl. parlement |
plateforme | platform | Plattform | |
protocole | protocol | Protokoll | |
ressource | resource | Ressource | |
rhétorique | rhetoric | Rhetorik | nl. retoriek |
rythme | rhythm | Rhythmus | |
squelette | skeleton | Skelett | nl. skelet |
symétrique | symmetric(al) | symmetrisch | |
tendance | tendency | Tendenz | |
terrasse | terrace | Terrasse | |
trafic | traffic | ||
transfert | transfer | Transfer | |
yaourt, yogourt | yogurt | Jogurt, Joghurt |
Arabic names
The way Arabic names are transliterated depends on the language and is often inconsistent within the language itself.
The guttural /q/ sound is usually represented with Q
in English, producing transliterations such as Qatar and Quran. French and German, on the other hand,
tend to prefer a K
in such cases.
Thus, the difference between /k/ and /q/ can be seen in English transliterations (Kuwait vs. Qatar), whereas they usually fall together in French and German (de. Kuwait and Katar). In French, Qatar became the preferred transliteration as an influence from English; Katar was the preferred spelling previously.
French | English | German |
---|---|---|
Qatar (Katar) | Qatar | Katar |
Coran | Quran (Koran) | Koran |
Koweït | Kuwait | Kuwait |
The name Gaddafi has a ridiculous number of
different transliterations.
The first letter typically being a G
in English and German boils down to the fact that the usual Q
is pronounced as
/g/ in Libya, lending to the spelling Gaddafi (and similar). However, the French press seems to prefer
Kadhafi for some reason.
Footnotes
-
There are a few words where French has an additional syllable: appartement, département, environnement, gouvernement. If you speak French you might notice that the extra
e
(compared to English) is usually omitted in French speech. ↩︎ -
Having
c
and notch
as in the other languages makes sense given the pronunciation of /k/, but actually most words of Greek origin have ach
pronounced as /k/: chrétien, chromosome, psychologue, technique. So one must remember by heart whether there is ac
or ach
. ↩︎ -
American English prefers "chili" while "chilli" dominates in British English. ↩︎
-
This is a pattern—English often has
gu
where you only findg
in French. [Etymology of gu-] ↩︎