I found a song on youtube last week. [immer lacht](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkj3IVIO2Os). In the video the young women is smiling not laughing and it's been a couple of decades since I was in Germany. So, I mistakenly thought that *lachen* meant "to smile", not "to laugh".

But this got me wondering if *lachen* and *lächeln* being spelled so similar and also sounding so similar results in any overlap in meaning for Germans that doesn't arise with the English words "to smile" and "to laugh".

Are there any English/German bilinguals that could answer this?