Five “false friends” in Spanish

“False friends” are words that sound similar in two languages but have different meanings. Here are five examples:

Actualmente (Currently)

Actualmente estamos trabajando en esto.	We are currently working on this.
Juan vive en California actualmente.	Juan currently lives in California.

Actualmente does not mean actually, be careful with this! If we want to express the truth or facts of a situation, we should use de hecho (in fact) or realmente (in reality/in fact) instead:

Actually, Peter is from Long Island.	De hecho, Peter es de Long Island.
Are you actually listening to me?	¿Me estás escuchando realmente?

Billón (Trillion)

Numbers work differently in Spanish:

Number	In English	In Spanish
1,000	One thousand	Mil
10,000	Ten thousand	Diez mil
100,000	A hundred thousand	Cien mil
1,000,000	One million	Un millón
10,000,000	Ten million	Diez millones
100,000,000	One hundred million	Cien millones
1,000,000,000	One billion	Mil millones
10,000,000,000	Ten billion	Diez mil millones
100,000,000,000	One hundred billion	Cien mil millones
1,000,000,000,000	One trillion	Un billón

Also, remember commas and periods are reversed in many Spanish speaking countries: One thousand: 1.000 (mil). One point five: 1,5 (uno coma cinco).

Carpeta (Folder)

Carpeta does not mean carpet.

¿Me puedes pasar esa carpeta?	Can you pass me that folder?
Había dos carpetas sobre la mesa.	There were two folders on the desk/table.

So how do we say carpet in Spanish? We use a word that comes from Arabic: Alfombra.

I should vacuum the carpet.	Debería aspirar la alfombra.
There’s a huge carpet in my living room.	Hay una alfombra enorme en mi sala.

Emocionado, da (Excited; in some contexts, touched or emotionally moved)

Emocionado or emocionada does not mean emotional:

Estoy muy emocionada.	I’m very excited.
Alberto estaba muy emocionado por su nuevo trabajo.	Alberto was very excited about his new job.

Facultad (School or department inside a college, e.g. Law School)

This one is tricky, as both terms are used in an academic environment in both languages. However, they mean different things:

Faculty, in English, refers to the teaching staff at a college or department. The correct term for this in Spanish would be profesorado. The term facultad, in Spanish, refers to a specific department or school inside a college, and not to the professors teaching in it. In some contexts, it can also refer to the actual building that hosts said department or school.

La Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Yale ofrece un curso sobre propiedad intelectual.	Yale Law School offers a course on intellectual property.
Me encontré a Silvia en la cafetería de la Facultad de Económicas.	I ran into Silvia in the coffee shop/cafeteria at the School of Economics.