Breakdown of Mi prima se puso a reír en medio de la presentación, y fue un momento aún más vergonzoso.
Questions & Answers about Mi prima se puso a reír en medio de la presentación, y fue un momento aún más vergonzoso.
Literally, “se puso a reír” is “she put herself to laugh”, but idiomatically it means “she started laughing / she began to laugh.”
- ponerse a + infinitive = to start / to begin doing something
- Se puso a reír. → She started laughing.
- Me puse a llorar. → I started crying.
The “se” is part of the reflexive verb ponerse, which here expresses a change of state or starting an action, not a true “doing something to oneself.” It’s just how this structure is formed in Spanish.
Meaning:
In practice, reír and reírse both mean “to laugh”, and in many contexts they are interchangeable.
- Se puso a reír.
- Se puso a reírse.
Both are understood as “she started laughing.” The version without “se” after reír is more common in this specific structure (ponerse a + infinitive), but “se puso a reírse” is also heard.
Grammatically:
- reír is the basic infinitive.
- reírse is the pronominal/reflexive form, often used in everyday speech.
You don’t need both reflexive pronouns at once (like “se se puso a reírse”); only the first se (from ponerse) is needed.
Yes:
- prima = female cousin
- primo = male cousin
So “Mi prima se puso a reír” means “My (female) cousin started laughing.”
If the cousin were male, the sentence would be:
- Mi primo se puso a reír en medio de la presentación…
- en medio de la presentación = in the middle of the presentation
- durante la presentación = during the presentation
They’re close, but “en medio de” is more specific: it suggests something happened at the midpoint or right in the thick of it, often with a feeling of interruption:
- En medio de la presentación, sonó mi teléfono.
→ Right in the middle of the presentation, my phone rang.
“Durante la presentación” is more general and could be at any time while it was happening.
In this context, “la presentación” is not a false friend; it really does mean “the presentation” (a talk, slide presentation, speech, class presentation, etc.).
However, presentación can also mean other things depending on context:
- la presentación de un producto → product launch
- la presentación de un libro → book launch / book event
- la presentación personal → self-introduction / personal appearance
Here, it’s the normal, work-or-school-type presentation.
“Fue” is the preterite of ser, used for completed events or clearly defined moments in the past.
- Fue un momento aún más vergonzoso.
→ It was (a specific, finished moment) even more embarrassing.
If you said “Era un momento aún más vergonzoso”, it would sound off here, because we’re talking about a single, specific event that’s clearly over, not an ongoing background situation.
The choice of “fue” fits the idea of one particular embarrassing moment, treated as a complete unit in the past.
- aún más = even more
- vergonzoso = embarrassing
So “aún más vergonzoso” = “even more embarrassing.”
About the accent:
- aun (no accent) can mean “even” or “although.”
- aún (with accent) usually means “still” or “yet,” but in modern usage in many places you’ll also see “aún” used where “aun” = even is intended.
In this sentence, it functions as “even”:
- un momento aún más vergonzoso → a moment even more embarrassing.
Many writers now use “aún” almost everywhere in everyday text, though strictly speaking the RAE recommends:
- aun más → even more
- aún no → not yet / still not
You will encounter both spellings.
They are different:
vergonzoso → embarrassing / shameful (describes things or situations)
- un momento vergonzoso → an embarrassing moment
- una situación vergonzosa → an embarrassing situation
avergonzado → embarrassed / ashamed (describes people who feel that way)
- Estoy avergonzado. → I am embarrassed.
- Ella se sintió avergonzada. → She felt embarrassed.
So you cannot say “un momento avergonzado”; moments do not feel emotions. The correct option is “un momento vergonzoso.”
Momento is a masculine noun, so it takes “un”:
- un momento → a moment
- el momento → the moment
In Spanish, most nouns ending in -o are masculine:
- el libro, el perro, el vaso, el momento
There are some exceptions, but “momento” follows the standard pattern.
The subject of “fue” is “un momento aún más vergonzoso.”
Full idea in English:
- (That) was an even more embarrassing moment.
In Spanish, the subject can appear after the verb, especially with ser:
- Fue un momento vergonzoso.
→ It was an embarrassing moment.
Spanish doesn’t need an explicit “it”; “fue” already contains the subject in its structure, and the noun phrase comes after it.
Yes, you could say:
- Mi prima empezó a reír en medio de la presentación…
Meaning: Both “se puso a reír” and “empezó a reír” mean “she started to laugh.”
Nuance:
- empezar a + infinitive is the more straightforward, neutral “to begin to do something.”
- ponerse a + infinitive can sometimes add a slight nuance of suddenness or spontaneity, especially with emotional or physical reactions:
- Se puso a llorar. → She (suddenly) started crying.
- Se puso a gritar. → He started yelling.
In many cases, they’re interchangeable, and both are very common.
This sentence is perfectly natural in both Latin American Spanish and Peninsular (Spain) Spanish.
- Mi prima se puso a reír en medio de la presentación, y fue un momento aún más vergonzoso.
There is no region-specific vocabulary or grammar here. Any minor differences would come from pronunciation or prosody when spoken, not from the written sentence itself.