10 Ways to Say Funny in Spanish

When learning Spanish for the first time, you’ll be bound to make some funny mistakes from time to time. So having a good sense of humor about the process can the whole thing a little less intimidating and enjoyable. So how do you say funny in Spanish?

Well, there are several different meanings and synonyms for funny, and the word you want to use will depend on the situation. In this article, you will become a master of saying funny in Spanish, whether you want to talk about something that made you laugh, something that surprised you or using “funny” as part of a set expression.

All the Ways to Say Funny in Spanish

Funny – humorous, causing laughter

When we think of the word “funny”, the first thing that comes to mind is something amusing, humorous, or that makes us laugh. But how do we say that in Spanish? Well, we can use the words gracioso, divertido, chistoso, or cómico in similar ways. Let’s see how to use them.

Spanish	English	Spanish example	English translation
gracioso	funny (humorous)	Andrés es muy gracioso, no para de hacer chistes.	Andrés is really funny, he’s constantly telling jokes.
divertido	funny (fun)	Me encanta que me cuentes tus historias, siempre son divertidas.	I love it when you tell me your stories, they’re always funny.
chistoso	funny (causing laughter)	Me parece chistoso que te hayas caído dos veces seguidas.	I think it’s funny that you fell twice in a row.
cómico	funny (humorous)	¿Has visto el último capítulo de la serie? Es muy cómico, no paré de reírme.	Have you seen the last chapter of the series? It’s really funny, I couldn’t stop laughing.

Funny – strange, surprising, unexpected

We can also use “funny” to say that something is strange or surprising to us. In those cases, we won’t use any of the words we’ve seen before, but we could use extraño, sorprendente, inesperado, curioso, raro, and sospechoso to mean different things. Let’s see them in use in the table below.

Spanish	English	Spanish sentence	English translation
extraño	funny (strange)	Fue extraño que dijeras eso… ¿Piensas en esas cosas a menudo?	That was a funny thing to say… Do you think of things like that often?
raro	funny (strange)	Su forma de escapar de tu abrazo fue rara.	It’s funny how he escaped your hug.
sorprendente	funny (surprising)	¡Qué sorprendente! Nunca se me ocurrió que esa sería la respuesta a la adivinanza.	How funny! I never thought that would be the answer to the riddle.
inesperado	funny (unexpected)	Ah, eso fue inesperado. Creí que los protagonistas terminarían juntos.	Oh, that’s funny. I thought the protagonists would end up together.
curioso	funny (curious)	Es curioso que lo menciones porque, de hecho, mi papá es profesor de Arte.	It’s funny that you mentioned that because my dad is actually an art teacher.
sospechoso	funny (suspicious)	Tiene algo sospechoso, no creo que sea del todo honesta.	There’s something funny about her, I don’t think she’s being entirely honest.

Expressions with “Funny”

It’s interesting to see just how many expressions use “funny”. Generally speaking, these expressions can be translated to Spanish as one of the words we’ve learned before, but which one? Let’s find out!!

There’s Something Funny Going on Here

This expression in English is used to say that we suspect that something isn’t quite right. Therefore, in Spanish we can translate “funny” as extraño, raro, or sospechoso. So to translate it directly into Spanish, which would make perfect sense, you could say Aquí hay algo extraño/raro/sospechoso.

However, an idiomatic expression you could use to say there’s something funny or fishy going on would be aqui hay gato encerrado , which is literally translated to “there’s a locked up cat”.

I Feel Funny

In English, we also have the phrase “to feel funny”, which means that one doesn’t feel too good. In this case, we can’t use any of the previous words. Instead, we can use the adjectives mal or fatal depending on how “funny” we feel. If we’re feeling bad, we use Me siento mal , but if we’re feeling awful, we use Me siento fatal .

The Funny Thing Is…

In English, we use the phrase “the funny thing is…” for many different things. If we use it to say that something is curious or strange, we can use the Spanish adjectives curioso and extraño. The phrase we would use is lo curioso / extraño …

However, if we mean to say that something is humorous, we can say lo gracioso / divertido

Sometimes, we also use it with the previous meaning, only sarcastically:

Funny Business

In English, we usually use the phrase “funny business” to talk about something dishonest or a trick. With this meaning, we can use the adjectives raro or extraño we’ve seen before:

What’s So Funny?

This phrase is used to snap back at someone who is laughing at us or something we don’t think is funny. In this case, in Spanish we can use the adjectives gracioso or divertido. The expression is qué te parece tan gracioso / divertido

However, the most natural or common way to say this is with the phrase ¿de qué te ríes? which could be translated as “what are you laughing at?”