False cognates, also known as “False Friends” in everyday language teaching, are those words that look the same in both languages but don’t share the same meaning. A classic one in Spanish is embarazado, which means pregnant, not embarrassed. I’m sure no Spanish teacher is ever surprised when their 7th graders announce they’re pregnant several times a semester.

I’ve been studying Spanish for over 10 years, so I can usually spot and remember the false friends, and adeptly avoid them. However, every once in a while I still translate directly, and things go awry. Like last night, for example, when my roommate was eating a version of Top Ramen and we were joking about how her diet has really gone downhill lately.

I attempted to say that the soup was pure salt and preservatives: “Esa sopa está llena de preservativos.” Unfortunately, the word I was looking for was conservantes, as I later learned, not preservativos, because what I actually said was, “That soup is full of condoms.”  

Needless to say, she lost her appetite.

Why was it this easy to find a picture of condom soup on the internet? Source.

About The Author

Jenny

Jenny Marshall studied Language, Culture, and Society at the University of California Santa Barbara, and now teaches English in Spain. Here she writes about the intersection of language and culture, and lives a life translated by travel.