Breakdown of Sentimos vergüenza ajena y, por si fuera poco, empezamos a bostezar.
y
and
a
to
empezar
to start / to begin
sentir
to feel
la vergüenza
shame / embarrassment (humiliation)
ajeno
someone else's
bostezar
to yawn
por si fuera poco
as if that weren't enough
Questions & Answers about Sentimos vergüenza ajena y, por si fuera poco, empezamos a bostezar.
Why does the phrase por si fuera poco use the imperfect subjunctive here?
This phrase literally translates to "in case it were little." It uses fuera, the imperfect subjunctive of ser, because it sets up a hypothetical, contrary-to-fact situation. You are escalating the argument by dramatically pretending the first point wasn't already bad enough, even though it was.
Could I swap por si fuera poco with encima in this sentence?
What does vergüenza ajena literally translate to?
It translates literally to "someone else's shame" or "alien shame." While English often uses phrases like "secondhand embarrassment" or the slang "cringing," Spanish has this perfectly precise, standard noun phrase to describe feeling embarrassed on behalf of someone else.
Just as a refresher, why do we need the a between empezamos and bostezar?
In Spanish, verbs that express the beginning of an action, such as empezar and comenzar, always require the preposition a before a following infinitive. You can't just put the two verbs together directly like you do in English.
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