Palabras que dicen varias cosas?

Question

An interesting class incident caused my teacher to share several stories of Spanish words that have VERY different meanings in different countries, and all the unfortunate misunderstandings that resulted from them. (For example, as an exchange student in Costa Rica she told her host mother "que chulos!" which did not mean "adorable" like it did in her Puerto Rican Spanish.) What are some other words that have totally different meanings in different countries?

Mi profesora nos dijo historias de palabras que dicen cosas muy diferentes en paises diferentes, como "chulo". ¿Cuáles son otros palabras similares, y tiene alguien historias interesantes de los malentendidos que resultan?

Answer 1

A funny one. If you're in Madrid, puedes coger el autobus (catch the bus). Don't you use that in Mexico, it'd be a complete obscenity, as you'd have sex with the whole bus.

Answer 2

Hi Bailarina

There are already a few threads that have been opened related to this topic. Here is one that was opened by Heidita a few days ago:

Difference in meaning in both languages or regions: Be careful where you use these words

You might try doing a search of previous threads to come up with others