qué pena
“qué pena” — what a shame in Spanish. Phrase, level B1. La pena is pity and sorrow: me da pena — I feel for them. In exclamations qué takes an accent. Qué lástima says the same. In a live sentence: “¿No podéis venir? Qué pena” — You can't come? What a shame. You can hear how it sounds right here. A word from the everyday Spanish course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Spanish | qué pena |
| Translation | what a shame |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
- qué penawhat a shame
Why it looks that way
La pena is pity and sorrow: me da pena — I feel for them. In exclamations qué takes an accent. Qué lástima says the same
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- ¿No podéis venir? Qué penaYou can't come? What a shame
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “what a shame” in Spanish?
«qué pena». In a live sentence: “¿No podéis venir? Qué pena” — You can't come? What a shame. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Phrase, level B1.
Why does this word look the way it does?
La pena is pity and sorrow: me da pena — I feel for them. In exclamations qué takes an accent. Qué lástima says the same. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how it sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.