Spanish-Portuguese False Friends to Keep an Eye Out For

Spanish and Portuguese are both Romance languages sharing the same Latin root. As a result, there are thousands of Spanish and Portuguese words that look and sound similar and mean pretty much the same thing.

There are cases, nonetheless, where semantics have grown apart as time went by, which led to what we call false friends

Accordingly, false friends (aka false cognates) are words that look and sound similar but mean different things. 

Now, words in this category don’t necessarily mean totally different things in either language. 

There are many cases where they merely represent different shades of the same original meaning. Although used in different contexts, they are still semantically relatable.

Also, a Portuguese word can have two meanings of which the one with the least currency matches the dominant meaning of the Spanish cognate (and vice versa). These word pairs are often labeled as false friends as well.    

With that said, let’s look at a few common Spanish-Portuguese false friends. 

Reading tips! Here’s an analogous read for English-Portuguese false friends: 50+ English-Portuguese False Friends to Keep an Eye Out For

Common Spanish-Portuguese False Friends

	Spanish	Portuguese
1	acordarse recall; remember	acordar wake up
2	barata cockroach; cheap	barata cheap
3	cadera hip	cadeira chair
4	cena dinner	cena scene
5	embarazada embarrassed; ashamed	embaraçada pregnant
6	escoba broom	escova brush
7	escritorio desk	escritório office
8	exquisito	esquisito
9	largo long	largo large
10	oficina office	oficina workshop
11	polvo dust	polvo octopus
12	propina tip	propina tuition fee (pt-pt); bribery (pt-br)*
13	rato a little while	rato mouse
14	rojo red	roxo purple
15	rubio blond	ruivo redhead, ginger
16	traer bring	trair betray

* Read the following article to learn more about how European and Brazilian Portuguese compare: European vs. Brazilian Portuguese – How Different Are They, Really?