Anna was enjoying a coffee with her Spanish-speaking friend, Lucía, when she accidentally knocked her spoon onto the café floor.

It landed with a loud clatter. Someone at the next table looked up.

Anna laughed nervously. She wanted to say something in Spanish—and a familiar-looking word came to mind.

“Estoy embarazada,” she announced.

Lucía’s face lit up.

“¡Felicidades!”

Congratulations?

Anna looked at the spoon on the floor. What exactly had she achieved?

One familiar word. One unexpected announcement.

Anna thought she had said, “I’m embarrassed.”

What she actually said was:

“I’m pregnant.”

In Spanish, embarazada means pregnant. Despite its resemblance to the English word embarrassed, it does not describe how you feel after spilling coffee, forgetting someone’s name or dropping your spoon in a quiet café.

Lucía had understood Anna perfectly. Unfortunately, Anna hadn’t understood her own announcement!

Meet the “false friends”

Words that look or sound similar in two languages but have different meanings are called false friends.

They’re convincing because recognising familiar patterns usually helps us learn. When we see a word that resembles one we already know, our brain offers a helpful shortcut:

“I recognise that. I can probably guess what it means.”

Sometimes the shortcut works. Sometimes it leads to unexpected congratulations.

The confusion can happen in the other direction, too. A Spanish speaker searching for the English word for embarazada might reach for embarrassed.

The words look friendly. Their meanings have other plans.

What could Anna have said?

A natural reaction to dropping the spoon would be:

“¡Qué vergüenza!” — “How embarrassing!”

To describe how she felt, Anna could also say:

“Me da vergüenza.” — “I feel embarrassed about it.”

And if she really wanted to announce a pregnancy?

Then “Estoy embarazada” would be exactly right.

How to avoid the trap

Learn a new word inside a small situation, rather than memorising its translation alone.

Picture someone announcing a pregnancy: embarazada.

Picture yourself waving enthusiastically at a stranger you mistook for a friend: embarrassed.

Those little scenes give the meanings somewhere to live—and make them harder to mix up.

If a false friend catches you out, a useful English phrase is:

“That’s not what I meant!”

Anna certainly could have used it.

Have you ever said something completely different from what you intended in another language? What happened?