Embarazada

Embarazada (Spanish pronunciation: [embaɾaˈθaða]) is the Spanish word for pregnant. It is a false friend for native English-speaking students of Spanish who may attempt to say "I'm embarrassed" by saying "estoy embarazada". This phrase actually means "I'm pregnant" in Spanish. This may be confusing to Spanish speakers who are not familiar with the English word.

When Parker Pen entered the Mexican market, its advertisements which claimed that Parker Pens "won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you" was mistranslated to "No te embarazará chorreándose en tu bolsillo", which means "Won't leak in your pocket and impregnate you".

The correct way to say "I'm embarrassed" in Spanish is using the phrase tengo (meaning "I have shame") or the more formal phrases me da vergüenza or estoy . Yet, in Spanish, there also exists the adjective , meaning the same as "embarrassing" in its denotation of something that causes a sensation of unease, but not of shame. Complicating the issue further, embarazada can sometimes also mean "hampered", or "hindered". This more closely mirrors the original meaning of the English word embarrass.

Embarazada is a past participle, meaning that it indicates a state resulting from a previous action. In English, past participles usually end in -ed (e.g., destroyed), and embarazado therefore translates directly into English as "impregnated". It is a conjugated form of embarazar "to impregnate". As the word embarazado is masculine, it is rarely encountered in Spanish. It is more common for the word embarazada to be used to describe pregnancy. However, embarazado can be used as a past participle in perfect tenses, as in: "Javier ha embarazado a María." (Javier has impregnated María.)

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