One difficulty that arises when learning new words in a new language is whether the meaning of new lexical items aligns with pre-existing conceptual categorizations/representations. Previous research (e.g., Eddington & Tokowicz, 2013) refers to the lack of such alignment across languages as translation ambiguity. Jiang (2002) has proposed that learners are largely dependent on metalinguistic awareness in translation ambiguity resolution. If pre-existing metalinguistic awareness is a factor in learning and using translation-ambiguous items, it should be the case that experienced language learners (i.e., multilinguals) will outperform language learners with less experience. This would be expected to be the case since they – as a part of their previous successful acquisition of additional languages – have experience with the phenomenon. While experienced language learners have been found to be overall better at vocabulary learning than inexperienced language learners (Kausihanskaya & Marian, 2009; Papagno & Vallar, 1995; Van Hell & Mahn, 1997), the present study aims to investigate whether there is an additional effect for specifically translation-ambiguous items. This study compared language learners with little experience in foreign language learning (L1 English, N = 30) and experienced language learners (L1 Swedish and L2 English, N = 30). The participants learned both translation ambiguous and non-translation ambiguous items using virtual flashcards with a picture and the target item. During learning, time spent on each virtual flashcard during learning was recorded as were response time and accuracy during assessment. The experienced language learners were indeed overall faster during learning (est. -617ms, p = < 0.01), corroborating previous research. The difference between the groups decreased over the course of learning (est. 55ms, p = < 0.01). For translation ambiguous items, no significant differences between the groups were found in terms of accuracy. Furthermore, both groups were affected by translation ambiguity during assessment in that they used significantly more time on translation ambiguous items (est. 834ms, p = < 0.01). However, the experienced learners were comparatively less affected by translation ambiguity (est. - 513ms, p = < 0.01). It can be hypothesized that this is due to their pre-existing awareness of the phenomena as well as how to deal with it.