In this example, the following sequence is a region of the human mitochondrial genome with the two overlapping genes MT-ATP8 and MT-ATP6.
When read from the beginning, these codons make sense to a ribosome and can be translated into amino acids (AA) under the vertebrate mitochondrial code:
 |Start|AAC GAA AAT CTG TTC GCT TCA ...
 |Start|123 123 123 123 123 123 123 ...
 | AA  | N   E   N   L   F   A   S  ...
However, let's change the reading frame by starting one nucleotide downstream (effectively a "+1 frameshift" when considering the 0 position to be the initial position of A):
 A|Start|ACG AAA ATC TGT TCG CTT CA...
 -|Start|123 123 123 123 123 123 12...
  | AA  | T   K   I   C   S   L    ...
Because of this +1 frameshifting, the DNA sequence is read differently. The different codon reading frame therefore yields different amino acids.