pena ajena

What it means

At a quinceañera in Guadalajara a cousin takes the karaoke microphone, picks a ranchera two keys too high, and keeps going through the second verse. The birthday girl laughs. Her grandmother does not look up from her plate, and neither does anyone else at table four. That is pena ajena: shame felt because of what someone else is saying or doing in front of you.

It is the Latin American form of the Spanish vergüenza ajena, and the reason is one word. In much of the Americas, pena itself means shame. The Diccionario de americanismos, published by the Spanish-language academies in 2010, records pena as shame or shyness felt when doing or saying something in Mexico, Central America, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia and Paraguay. A Mexican who says me da pena means “I am embarrassed”, not “I am sad”.

The same dictionary lists pena ajena for Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba and Colombia, defined as shame at someone else’s act or remark that is seen as ridiculous or mortifying. Spanish Wiktionary labels it Mexican.

Where it comes from

Pena comes from Latin poena, punishment or torment, which came from Greek poinē, according to the RAE. The RAE’s first sense today is great sadness, and its legal sense is a penalty. The sense of shame is marked in the RAE only for Central America, the Antilles, Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Venezuela. Ajena means someone else’s. Pena ajena therefore reads as “another person’s shame” in Mexico City and could read as “another person’s sorrow” in Madrid.

No coiner or first date is recorded. The phrase grew as a regional twin of vergüenza ajena, which the RAE lists under vergüenza as shame felt for what others do or say. English Wiktionary defines pena ajena as a Latin American synonym of that phrase.

How to use it

Me dio muchísima pena ajena verlo cantar en la boda. (Watching him sing at the wedding gave me so much secondhand embarrassment.) Casual Mexican Spanish.

My tía watches the morning show for the pena ajena, especially when the hosts try to dance. Casual bilingual English, with the Spanish phrase used as a noun.

What it is not

Vergüenza ajena. The feeling is identical; the dialect is not. Vergüenza ajena is the form in Spain and is understood everywhere, and the RAE records it as standard. Pena ajena is regional, used where pena already means shame. The two titles of one television comedy show the split: the Spanish original of 2017 is Vergüenza, and its 2022 Mexican adaptation is Pena ajena.

In the wild

• Pena ajena, Pantaya, premiered 19 May 2022, starring Adrián Uribe and Mónica Huarte: a Mexican adaptation of the Spanish series Vergüenza about a photographer who keeps saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
• Yuridia, “Pena Ajena”, on Sin Llorar, Sony Music México, released 7 February 2025.