A dish :- - is a piece of crockery ( plate, glasses, forks.....) or a kind of food course - and a plate is the thing you eat in.

On our table, we have things that we put food on. If they are almost flat, we called them "plates." If they are like large cups that could hold soup, tazones, we call them "bowls." If they are in between, we call them "dishes." Collectively, we call them "the dishes" (vajilla). "I have to wash the dishes." "I got them a set of dishes as a wedding present; the set has eight plates, eight bowls, eight cups, and eight saucers." As a second meaning, we also use "dish" to mean "an item of food make by combining ingredients and cooking them," i.e. plato.

The problem is that in French, Spanish and Italian the translation of the English word 'dish' sounds like the English word 'plate' but in English the meaning is not the same. So a common mistake by learners of English is to say "Paella is a traditional plate from my country" but the correct word in this sentence is 'dish'.

As an item of crockery, they are very similar. A dish usually has more raised edges to hold more food, and a plate is flatter. The one you eat off is a plate. So - typically you dish food from a dish to a plate ;)