Be Careful with these Spanish Words

If you are a Spanish student, or someone who speaks Spanish but is not quite at the fluent level, you may have seen some word in Spanish that looks a lot like what you think is the English equivalent, but were surprised to find out that you were wrong. Try this example:

librería
Ok, if you don't know this word, what would you almost certainly think it meant in English?  You would say it looks so much like the word "library" so it must be library, and would bet anything that's what it is in English.
Sorry, wrong. Librería means "bookstore". So then what is library in Spanish? That word would be biblioteca.  Confused? Hey just remember that library in Spanish begins with a "b" and bookstore begins with an "l". Let me give a few more. Hey whether you are a Spanish student or a businessperson who does some business in the Spanish- speaking world these will come in handy. Not a huge list here, but there are quite a few of these tricky words called "false cognates" ,  more commonly known as "false friends".
carpeta
Don't ask a Spanish-speaking guest how they like your "carpeta". They will say to you "What carpeta? You never sent me one."  Carpeta in Spanish means file, or folder. The word you are looking for is alfombra, or tapete.
largo
There is an old joke about Spanish that to translate a word from English to Spanish all you have to do is add an "o" at the end. Or in this case you might think you just take drop the e at the end of "large" and add an o and you got your translation. No sir, while that joke is actually true with some words going from English to Spanish, it's not true here. If it were only that easy!  Largo means "long". To say that something is big, you simply use grande. Other words you can use include enorme and gigante, especially when you want to emphasize that something is really big. Use alto, not largo, to say that someone is tall.
exito
I'm sure you saw the photo above? That must have been really embarrassing for Starbucks when someone finally told them what exito actually means. It means "success". If you are somewhere in Latin America one day and looking for an exit, look for the word salida.
embarazada
And speaking of being embarrassed, you don't ever want to say that you are embarazada. If you are a man and you say that you will be laughed at. If you are a woman you will receive congratulations and maybe some hugs, because it means you are pregnant! Are you embarrassed? Then you want to use the word avergonzado.
asistir
This has nothing to do with assisting. Asistir means to attend, or be present at, a class or meeting. If you wish to help someone out use ayudar. Let me give you a good sentence for this one, since it might come in handy someday especially if you're the good Samaritan type: ¿Le puedo ayudar?  May I help you?
delito
I know this looks like "delight", but it's not. This is the word for a "crime". If you find that something is a delight, use the word delicia in the noun form. For the verb use deleite.
nudo
No, it does not mean THAT. For "nude" you want to use the Spanish word desnudo. The word nudo means "knot".
soportar
Going into an election year in the U.S. if you tell someone that you are going "to soportar" Trump, Carson, Hillary or whoever, you are basically saying that you "tolerate" them.  What you want to say is that you are going to apoyar a certain candidate. Much better.
advertencia
Now you business people when talking about ads for your product when you are out in Latin America somewhere don't want to use this word. You would be implying that there is something wrong or dangerous about your product. In other words, advertencia means "warning". You are much better off using anuncio, I have also heard people use aviso here, but I use that one for "advice." Growing up I always heard my Peruvian father, who worked in real estate, use the word propaganda for advertisements, but I don't recommend using that word since it tends to have negative connotations.
disgusto
This one falls right into that joke catergory, just add an O!  This is not disgust, so don't use it in reference to anything that disgusts you. Disgusto refers more to a negative experience or misfortune. To express disgust use asco.
futbol
I think most everyone around the world uses futbol, or futebol or football to refer to soccer. If you want to talk about our football here you refer to it in Spanish as futbol Americano. I think soccer is the REAL football, but hey not to argue here. That's for another article.
Just one more little note: Here in the U.S. we aren't always purists when it comes to Spanish. Some of these words are still used "incorrectly" shall we say, such as in slang. Or I really want to say in "Spanglish." I recently wrote another post on that subject, a very interesting topic.








1- To pay attention, we do not pagar atención, that sentences actually does not exit, if we pay attention, we use “prestar atención”



2-To succeed, opposite what you might think it is not suceder, which means to happen, when we talk about succeed in Spansih hablamos de “tener éxito”



3-Sometimes is common to translate To record as recordar, which actually means remember, instead of grabar, the real meaning



3-To ask a question, in Spanish we do not preguntamos una pregunta, that is too literal and repetitive, we hacemos una pregunta instead

4-Rendition it is not rendición as much as it might look alike…rendición is indeed something a bit more different, in Spanish means surrender, the real word for rendition is interpretación or ejecución.



5-Idiom, opposite to most of the people thinking, it does not mean idioma, that is language, idiom is modismo


6-To dice, it is a verb, yes, so it is an action, but not the action of “decir” as many people think, decir is to say, to tell, to dice mean something more specific, cortar en cubos/dados