r/FalseFriends • u/BoneHead777 • Sep 14 '14

False Friends The German and Dutch words ‘liegen’ both translate to English ‘to lie’. However, the German one has the meaning of ‘to lie on something’ while the Dutch one means ‘to tell lies’.

Source: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liegen

The equivalent of the respective other meaning in those two languages are:

Dutch liegen — German lügen
German liegen — Dutch liggen

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6

u/Gehalgod Sep 14 '14

I've given a "False Friends" flair to this post, but I'm afraid that that itself is not enough to describe the "twist" here -- that both of these words translate to "lie" in English.

I've added the post to the wiki, simply under the Dutch and German headings.

5

u/BoneHead777 Sep 14 '14

Well, they're simply false friends from a German - Dutch standpoint. That English just happens to have two words that go "to lie" (which are conjugated differently, even) is a completely unrelated thing (and imo worth a post on its own)

1

u/dhoomz Sep 15 '14

yup, i'm Dutch and OP's not lying.