I strongly agree with @Tom Au. This is also a "discussion" among speakers of Romance languages like Spanish for instance: ***"amigo"*** and ***"conocido"***; which happen to be EXACT translations of *"Freund"* and "*Bekannter*", and *"friend"* and *"acquaintance"* since *"conocido"* comes from the verb *"conocer"* which is an almost exact translations of *"to know"* and *"kennen lernen"*. ---------- On the other hand, since German and English are Germanic languages and as a native Romance speaker I could tell easily several pairs of words (or grammatical forms) that do not match one in Spanish, French or Italian but they do in German-English. For example (en-de-es): > **Wie** - How - *Cómo* > **Wie viel** - How much - *Cuánto* > **Wie lang** - How long - *Qué tan largo* In general almost every *"Wie"* + adverb (or adjective) construction allowed in German is literally translated (I think transliterate is the verb) into English. I can only think of *"Wie später"* and *"How soon"* as a not so much of an exception.