qué pena

What it means

1. 1.

   Sorry; excuse me. The standard Colombian apology for small offences, from bumping into someone to arriving late. 'Qué pena con usted' is the full polite form.

2. 2.

   How embarrassing. Colombian pena is embarrassment rather than pity, which reverses the phrase's meaning relative to Spain, where qué pena means 'what a shame'.

3. 3.

   As a modifier of the self: dar pena is to feel too shy to do something. 'Me da pena preguntar' — I'm too embarrassed to ask.

Literally: What shame — but 'pena' here is embarrassment, not sorrow.

Examples with translations

• Qué pena con usted, no lo vi.

  I'm so sorry, I didn't see you.

• Me da pena bailar delante de tanta gente.

  I'm too shy to dance in front of all these people.

• Qué pena, ¿me regala un tinto?

  Excuse me, could I get a coffee?

  Note: Opens a request to a stranger. Note regalar used for an ordinary purchase — another Colombian habit that startles visitors.

Where it comes from

The divergence is in pena itself: Colombian Spanish kept the older sense of 'embarrassment, shyness' where peninsular Spanish moved to 'pity, sadness'. Nothing was invented; the two varieties simply drifted in different directions from a common word.

Other forms

Spellings and variants:

qué pena con usted, penoso

Similar terms:

disculpe, perdón