False Friends Checker — Catch False Cognates in Your English
Pick your native language and paste your English — the checker flags false friends (false cognates) that look right, pass every grammar checker, and quietly change your meaning.
What is a false friend?
A false friend (or false cognate) is a word that looks almost identical in your language and in English but means something different. Spanish actualmente looks like actually but means currently; asistir looks like assist but means attend. Because the English word is spelled correctly and fits the grammar, no spell-checker or grammar checker will ever flag it — the sentence is «correct» and simply says the wrong thing. This tool scans your English for the known false friends of your language so you can catch the ones that slipped through.
Why false friends survive every checker
Grammar and spelling tools work on form: is the word spelled right, does the sentence parse? A false friend passes both tests — «I assisted the meeting» is a perfectly formed English sentence. The error is in meaning, and meaning is exactly what a checker blind to your first language can't see. Only a tool that knows which word in your language you were probably thinking of can warn you. That is why false friends are one of the most persistent tells of non-native English: they read fluent, but a native notices the meaning is off.
How to fix a false friend
Once flagged, the fix is usually a one-word swap to the word you actually meant: «I assisted the meeting» → «I attended the meeting»; «Actually, we have twelve clients» → «Currently, we have twelve clients». When you are unsure of the natural English word, Diglot's grammar checker explains the correction in your own language, and the paraphrasing tool rewrites the whole sentence so it reads the way a native would say it.
Take it further with Diglot
This free tool runs in your browser. When you want to act on what it shows — fix the grammar, tighten the phrasing, or make your English read like a native wrote it — that is what Diglot is built for. The free tier is meaningful for daily writing, no card required.
Frequently asked questions
- Which languages does the checker cover?
- Spanish, German, French, Italian, and Japanese, each with a curated list of the highest-frequency false friends that cause real English errors. Pick your language from the selector; the checker only looks for that language’s false friends.
- Will it catch every false friend?
- No — it checks a curated list of the most common, highest-impact false friends for each language, not every possible one. A clean result means none of the well-known traps appear in your text, not that the wording is guaranteed native. Use it as a fast first pass.
- Why did it flag a word I used correctly?
- A false friend is only wrong when you meant the other sense. «Actually» is a real English word — the tool flags it because speakers of some languages reach for it when they mean «currently». If you genuinely meant «in fact», the flag is a false alarm; you decide.
- Is my text uploaded anywhere?
- No. The check runs entirely in your browser — your text and language choice are never sent to a server or stored. You can safely paste confidential or unpublished writing.
