
14 Mar What’s the difference between sensitive and sensible?
When should I use sensitive, and when should I use sensible? Are they the same?
I have really sensible skin.
– Swisstake
No, you don’t have sensible skin – not really. If you constantly need to moisturise or break out in rashes often, you have sensitive skin.
False Friends
There’s a difference between sensitive and sensible, and many Swiss and German learners of English find this confusing, since sensitive is sensibel in German. This is what we call a false friend – a word that sounds similar in some languages but doesn’t exactly mean the same thing.
Sensible
In English, sensible is an adjective used to describe something wise or full of sense. Synonyms include rational, reasonable, practical, logical and prudent, among others.
We can also say that a sensible person has common sense – a kind of basic knowledge or judgement that everyone agrees on and accepts to be true.
Sensitive

A sensitive person feels things deeply and might get offended or hurt easily. Someone who cries when watching movies is sensitive, for example. Sensitive can also be used to describe things which are easily affected, damaged or injured, such as skin or even teeth, which can be very sensitive to cold food or drinks.
Translation
In German, sensitive is sensibel or empfindlich, while sensible is vernünftig, sinnvoll or bewusst.
Pronunciation
In German, sensibel is pronounced ‘senSIbel’, with a stress on the ‘si’. In English, however, the stress falls on the first syllable: ‘SENsible’.