Amsterdam is famous for its canals. Except, it doesnt’ have that many. That is, in Dutch it hasn’t. The Dutch word for canal is kanaal, pronounced similar to canal. A kanaal is a wide and straight waterway used by small and large transport ships. The best known kanaal Amsterdam has is the “Amsterdam Rijn Kanaal”, a kanaal connecting Amsterdam to the river Rhine. We also have the Marktkanaal and the Amstelkanaal — connecting the river Amstel to the river Schinkel. We have a few more that you haven’t heard of.
When you visit Amsterdam, you take a canal boat tour. It takes you through waterways like this. You call that a canal. We call it a gracht. We have Herengracht, Keizersgracht, Prinsengracht, and a whole lot more. A gracht is a “canal” that was dug around the city for both defense and transportation. As the city expanded, new grachten — grachten is plural of gracht — had to be dug to accomodate the expanding city.