Cha Cha Cha

One of the frustrating things about learning a new language is when several words sound the same but mean different things.  My uncle gave the example of “la puerta” (door) versus “el puerto” (port, like airport).

My new favourite example is the collection of silly numbers of Spanish words that have a “cha” sound somewhere in them.

• chancho – pig/pork
• cancha – Peruvian word for popcorn
• cochino – dirty
• chacha – maid
• chachá – a little girl’s dress
• cocha or cocho – senile
• chucha – a bad word (look it up!  or not)
• cacha – another bad word (don’t look this one up)
• cacho – horn
• cachea – to frisk someone
• chicha – a beverage of fermented corn, like beer
• chica – a girl

Is it just my imagination, or do they deliberately make all these words sound the same???  You could accidentally say a really bad word by trying to ask for popcorn!