Spanish And Portuguese Have A Few Very Important Differences

I am learning Portuguese as a second language. To help me improve, I do some crosswords with my boyfriend, but as we are apart for now, I have to read out the clues for him. As I am mostly self-taught at this point, I never did learn the names of the letters. I come to the clue “antes de Q” — “before Q.” I am fairly sure I have understood the clue, but I have no idea how to say the letter Q and I make a guess, saying, “Coo.”

My boyfriend gets very confused, asking what am I saying, and so I repeat”

Me: “‘Coo.’ P, ‘Coo,’ R, S…”

At this, he laughs loudly.

Boyfriend: “Ah, ‘Que.’ ‘Coo’ means ‘a***hole.’”

I still haven’t heard the end of this.