Do English slang words translate the same into Spanish?

Question

Example. In English, chicken is technically a fowl or food, but if you call somebody a chicken it means you are accusing them of being weak and scared. If you call somebody el pollo in Spanish, does the same insult occur? This was simply an example, and may not work, but maybe some do cross the border, if you will.

Answer 1

Apparently this example does work:

1. cobarde (familiar) (cowardly) (action)

   • to be chicken -> ser un/una gallina

(from the dictionary here).

But in general you should be careful not to translate slang directly. It often doesn´t work, and when that happens it will make you incomprehensible in Spanish.

To give an example going the other direction (translating Spanish slang directly into English), imagine someone said to you "my half orange met the big fish today" -- you probably wouldn´t know they meant "my wife met the bigwig today."

However, if you are interested in slang, check out the many books on Spanish slang at amazon...