Falsos amigos médicos: elige la palabra correcta

False friends in medical Spanish: pick the correct word in context to avoid dangerous confusions.

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Dannis

2 min reading time

At a doctor's, pharmacy Language Vocabulary Idioms

Keywords:

constipado (catarro)estreñido embarazada avergonzado intoxicado (por comida)borracho

Llevo dos días con mocos y tos. Estoy ____.

Correct: 0/8

Hints for this Quiz

Think: a runny nose and a cough mean a cold, not a bowel problem.

In Spain, constipado means “with a cold”, not “constipated”; the natural sentence is estoy constipado. For “constipation” Spanish uses estreñido – this false friend is often confused by learners. In Spain they also say tener catarro to talk about a cold.

Key idea: it’s about difficulty going to the bathroom.

Estreñido = “suffering from constipation”. This is exactly the word you need; in Spain constipado means “with a cold”, not “constipated”.

Look at the context: it’s a pregnancy test, not an emotion test.

Embarazada = “pregnant”; avergonzada = “feeling shame/embarrassed”. The pair embarazada/avergonzado is a classic false-friend trap for learners. (In Spain constipada means “she has a cold”, it’s unrelated to pregnancy.)

Think about a feeling of shame, not a physical condition.

Avergonzado/a = “embarrassed/ashamed”. Embarazada means “pregnant”, a completely different meaning. These distinctions are important in everyday medical and personal contexts.

It’s about bad seafood, not alcohol.

Intoxicado (por comida) = “food poisoned / with food poisoning”. It’s not about alcohol. For being drunk you use borracho.

Think: the cause is alcohol.

Borracho = “drunk”. In Spanish medical contexts, intoxicado usually refers to being poisoned (for example, food poisoning), not “tipsy” from alcohol.

A blocked nose is about a cold.

When you have a blocked nose, in Spain people say estoy constipado (“I have a cold”). Estreñido refers to constipation, not a runny or blocked nose; it’s a very common false friend for learners.

You need the noun for “constipation”, not a word about having a cold.

You need a laxative when you have estreñimiento (the noun related to the adjective estreñido – “constipation”). In Spain constipado means “a cold”, not constipation.