asuntar

A regionalism meaning to pay attention or listen carefully — heard in Andalusia and Toledo in Spain, and in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean, where ¡asunta! functions like "¡pon atención!". In Honduras it colloquially shifts to mean "to find out, look into," and in Uruguay it can mean "to think over, reflect." It's absent from most of the Spanish-speaking world, where atender or prestar atención is what learners should default to.

• ¡Asunta bien lo que te voy a explicar! — Pay close attention to what I'm about to explain to you!
• No asuntó nada de la clase, estaba distraído. — He didn't take in anything from the class, he was distracted.
• Voy a asuntar qué pasó con el pedido. — I'm going to find out what happened with the order.

Expecting asuntar to be understood outside these specific regions — a speaker from most of Latin America or Spain would likely not recognize it at all, so it's a word to recognize regionally rather than use by default.

Often confused with atender.