False Friends in Spanish: Common Mistakes Explained

Learning a language always comes with a few challenges, and “false friends” are one of them. But what exactly is a false friend? False friends are words in two different languages — in this case, English and Spanish — that look and/or sound similar but actually have completely different meanings.

For example, in Spanish, if you want to say that you are embarrassed, you might be tempted to say “Estoy embarazada.” It sounds logical, right? However, what you are actually saying is that you are pregnant. Below are some other commonly used — and commonly confused — Spanish false friends.

Common Spanish False Friends

• actual — often mistaken for “actual” or “real,” but it really means “current” or “present-day”
• asistir — often mistaken for “assist,” but it actually means “to attend” or “to be present”
• atender — often mistaken for “attend,” but it means “to serve” or “to take care of”
• billón — often mistaken for “billion,” but in Spanish it means “one trillion” in American English
• campo — often mistaken for “camp,” but it means “field” or “countryside”
• carpeta — often mistaken for “carpet,” but it means “folder”
• constipado — often mistaken for “constipated,” but it means “having a cold” or “stuffed up”
• embarazada — often mistaken for “embarrassed,” but it means “pregnant”
• emocionante — often mistaken for “emotional,” but it means “exciting” or “thrilling”
• en absoluto — often mistaken for “absolutely,” but it actually means “absolutely not”
• éxito — often mistaken for “exit,” but it means “success” or “a hit”
• largo — often mistaken for “large,” but it means “long”
• molestar — often mistaken for “molest,” but it simply means “to bother” or “to annoy”
• recordar — often mistaken for “record,” but it means “to remember” or “to remind”
• sensible — often mistaken for “sensible,” but it means “sensitive” or “emotional”
• sopa — often mistaken for “soap,” but it means “soup”
• suceso — often mistaken for “success,” but it means “event” or “incident”