AuPhinger: The phrase "y pico" was commonly used to mean "and a little," or a little bit, as in "ochenta pesos y pico" for "a little over eighty pesos." One of the fellows in my father's office transferred to, if I remember correctly, Chile.
He used the phrase — for a short while! Until one of the guys in the office pulled him aside and informed him that there, "y pico" meant "a little bit" of only one thing!
Liza Joy: Once in a university night class I was teaching, a recently divorced middle-aged student decided to use the Spanish she learned in my class on a trip to Mexico. She wanted to get away from the tourist route and so went to a restaurant where no one appeared to speak English. She managed to order a delicious meal, but when it came time to ask for the bill, all she could think of to say was "how much," which she translated literally as "como mucho" which means "I eat a lot," instead of the correct "cuánto."
This rather plump lady told me that she kept pointing at her dish and saying "como mucho" to the waiter, who looked embarrassed and kept saying, "No, señora, usted no come mucho."
Finally, she took out her credit card, and he suddenly understood.
She didn't understand what the problem was until she got back to class after Easter break.
Moral: Learn your question words!
Russell: This didn't actually happen to me, but a colleague of mine told me this story that happened to her. She was working in South America with the Peace Corp. She was cleaning up some area among a group of a mixture of Peace Corps folks and natives. At some point, she looked around and found that everyone had left except one local man. Being friendly, she thought she'd ask his name. She intended to say, "¿Cómo te llamas?" but it came at "comoteyamo," which meant he heard, "Cómo te amo" (How I love you!).
Not surprisingly, the man got a surprised look on his face and did the only logical thing. He ran away.
Sierra Jenkins: I worked at an international center for Girl Scouts in Cuernavaca, Mexico, that hosted girls from around the world for two-week sessions. One of my co-workers was from England and didn't speak a lick of Spanish and was terribly worried about offending someone, but I finally talked her into trying out a bit. We went over to chat with a few girls from Argentina and my friend said, "I'd like to ask her how old she is." I told her to say, "¿Cuántos años tienes?" and she turned to the girl and said, "Cuantos anos tienes?" The girl busted a gut and replied, "Solo uno, pero funciona muy bien!"
Needless to say, I never got my friend to speak Spanish again.
Bamulum: When my wife (Nicaraguense) and I (Tennesseean) married, we kept an English-Spanish dictionary between us at all times. It was only a short amount of time that I had learned just enough Spanish to get myself into trouble. I had been sick for a few days but had gotten a lot better. When asked by my mother-in-law how I was feeling, I responded by saying "mucho mujeres" instead of "mucho mejor," and of course received quite a stern look from my suegra!
Note: Most of the comments above have been edited for brevity, context and, in some cases, content, spelling or grammar. You can find the original discussion here.
