Different or other?
Your hair looks other different // Dein Haar sieht anders aus
Other and different are two adverbs that are sometimes confused by german learners of english.
Sometimes a student will say “Your haircut looks other” or “That dress looks other”.
What they really mean to say is, “Your hair looks different.”
I was thinking about a way to stop students translating from german into english in their heads when they talk. And how to explain why “other” is the wrong word in this sentence.
Here it is.
Often native speakers of a language leave things unsaid or implied when they talk. The unspoken part of the sentence might be… “Your hair looks different from the hairstyle you had the last time I saw you”. There is more about different from or different to or different than on the Cambridge English site.
Another tip is this – the word other is nearly always followed by a noun or pronoun.
If you want to read more about other and grammar, this post from Cambridge English explains when to use other very well.
