Our names are Cynthia and Paula Penovi and we are identical twin sisters who started our journey as translators around 10 years ago in Argentina. We are the co-owners of Argentum Translations, a minority and women-owned family business that provides translation and language services for businesses. Our company was born as an initiative to break down language barriers for our community and build strong linguistic and cultural bridges so that everybody can communicate as if they spoke the same language and shared the same culture.

As we all know, communication is critical to ensure successful healthcare. Lexical borrowings, calques and literal translations that may sound natural to the untrained ear could end up leading away from the meaning that was originally conveyed, while contributing to the impoverishment and erosion of the target language. That is why today I am going to share some insight into four of the most common false friends that I have encountered in the medical setting, their polysemy and some lexical equivalents and alternatives. Simple words like “condition”, “severe”, “intoxicated”, and “control” may not be translated into Spanish the way you imagined.