"suburbios" are not "suburbs" (Spanish false cognates)
A short post today about an commonly mistaken false cognate (word that looks similar to one in another language but means something different: Today's word is "suburbio(s)".
In English, "the suburbs" brings up the idea of single family homes on the outskirts of a city or large town. It generally has a positive connotation: most people wouldn't mind living in the suburbs.
In Spanish, "un suburbio" is a place where you might roll up the windows of your car and lock the doors when you're driving through, and where you definitely would not like to take a stroll at night. It's a low-income area of a city and usually within the city and is usually associated with a high crime rate.
So, if you do live in the suburbs, what do you say? The best solution is "las afueras" as in "vivo en las afueras de Madrid". Dictionaries usually translate the word as "outskirts", but to my knowledge it's the best one there is to convey the idea of "suburbs".
Brad
