"No va" = "no funciona"
El aire acondicionado no va. El coche no va. Can you just say this instead of el aire acondicionado no funciona or el coche co funciona? Gracias.
4 Answers
Yep, "no va" is perfectly fine for "doesn't work." What's really fun is to have a Chevy Nova, though, because no va of course, not only means "doesn't go" but also, "doesn't work" as you mention. This joke is most amusing after being repeated several hundred times. 
My experience in Spain is this:
If something is not working, you say, "No funciona," or"Está roto."
It doesn't function. It is broken.
If you say "No trajaba," you get funny looks.
My understanding is that "funcionar" is for things and "trabajar" is for people.
Nova in Spanish is pronounced Nova and it means Nova. It is used just the way it shows as in Nova Scotia, Bossa Nova - it actually stands for “nueva” (new) it cannot be found in the Spanish dictionary but Catalán and Galician dictionaries translate nova as "new". As in English, it also means "a star which occasionally brightens". We cannot say nova means “no go” in Spanish because "no va" means somebody or something will not be attending or will not be somewhere - "Tony no va a clase hoy" "el carro no va a estar en la exhibición". The Spanish translation for “no go” (does not go) would be no funciona, no arranca, no trabaja, etc. but not “no va" or "no-va". To say that NOVA is the same as NO VA would be the same as saying that in English CARPET and CAR PET mean the same. I hope this helps.
You are correct - "no trabaja" is not the correct way to say no go - I simply wanted to give more examples of the difference between no va and nova - I am from México and struggled to use "no trabaja" as an example - but I figured that if we are using "no go" which is not correct in English, that I could use no trabaja. Thanks for the correction because I forgot the goal was to help someone tranlate correctly.
