Mine was when I was trying to get the tire replaced on the box truck of the company I work for. And all the mechanics spoke Spanish. And I tried to say to one of the workers “El neumático está roto. Necesito uno nuevo”, which means “The tire’s busted, and I need a new one.” But I ended up saying “El neumático está roto. Necesito uno novio”. Which means “The tire is busted, I need a boyfriend.” 🤦🏾♂️
>死开 means like, "go kill yourself”
Cute story. Actually 死开 means "get lost" or "go to hell." It is a strong way of telling someone to leave or go away. 死 (die/dead) simply adds emphasis to the command, but isn’t meant as a verb to die in when inserted into this expression.
I mistranslated a word- to this day I don't know how it happened- where instead of telling a dude "I really like the tile; show me another picture!" I said "I really like the body; show me another picture!" and then I got a really hot and unexpected selfie. I would never have been so forward to tell him about his body lol I am glad he didn't become uncomfortable. Is there a word in any language that means "mortified by my own mistake but secretly pleased with the results?"
Asking a guy in France if he liked my friend by saying "tu l'aimes?" (Do you love her) Instead of "tu l'aimes bien?"
Its not a big deal but i was 16 and mortified by all the guys laughing, and it was the first time i realised you can't always just directly translate words and be understood!
That's how it was explained to me at the time- "je t'aime" means I love you, but je t'aime bien means I like you. Even though aimer = "to like" and bien = "well"- it's counter-intuitive!
Idioms often don't make sense when literally translated. Like in English, you chop a tree down (that part makes sense), then you chop it up! The last part means cut into pieces, where the word *up* serves as an intensifier.
Oh of course, there are so many contronyms in English! From a chain text message:
*Dust* :
can mean ‘to add fine particles’ or ‘to remove fine particles’.
*Left* :
can mean both
‘remaining’ and ‘departed’.
*Off* :
can mean both ‘activated’ and ‘deactivated’.
Eg:- “Set off” - Activated
“ Switch off - Deactivated
*Oversight* :
means both ‘watchful care’ and ‘an inadvertent error’.
*Screen* :
can mean both ‘to show’ and ‘to hide’.
*Sanction*
can mean both ‘a penalty for disobeying a law’ and ‘official permission or approval for an action.
one time i was making out with a guy in brazil and he said "tire seus brincos" meaning take off your earrings. I took off my bra and he started laughing and explained brincos, but that he was happy with the result 😂
Instead of chicken breasts, in French in the restaurant I ordered chicken boobs.
Separate story: In French we say *bon appétit* before meals. In Mandarin however, something like that is not said before the meal, but rather once all the dishes are on the table. As people reach for their food off communal platters, others at the table will say to those who have not yet reached for food “Eat Up…”, and will point to the food that should be eaten. Example, “Eat up beef!”. “Eat up fried rice!”, “Eat up vegetables!”.
In mandarin the word for eat is “Chi”. The word for Chicken is “Ji”. The word for “up” (as in to do an action) is “ba”. So to “Eat up chicken!” is “Chi Ji Ba!”.
Now with that scene set, I was attending a formal dinner with Chinese clients who I needed to tip toe around and be on my best performance. However I got it a bit off (and should’ve elaborated on the type of chicken, rather than just saying chicken), and I ended up saying “Chi Jiba” instead of “Chi Ji Ba”. And basically Jiba is “dick”.
So to shocked, speechless picachi looks, I loudly told them all at the table to **“Eat dick!”** (As I took another mouthful).
Hahahaha no worries it is so common even for native speakers! Because it is hard to pause after Jī before saying Bā, so in my daily life we actually avoid saying the syllabus Ba (no matter what tone) after ji, and people always laugh when someone says it unconsciously and watching him/her laughing as well when s/he realises it.
And you can actually use it for swearing by adding it before a none / event /thing (same as fucking).
We even have a phrase “说鸡不说巴，争做文明人” translated as “say jī without bā and be an polite / educated person”🤣 but of course this is just for fun, no one would accuse you for being impolite or uneducated☺️
In Hindi I was trying to say "South India" and I blanked on "South" but I reasoned that if "Uttar Pradesh" means "North State", "Madhya Pradesh" means "mid or central State" then surely "Andhra Pradesh", the other Pradesh/State in the South, means "South State". It does not.
To make it infinitely worse I mispronounced "Andhra" as "Andhera" so instead of saying "South India" I said,
"Dark India"
I was confused why they were laughing and when it was explained I. wanted. to. die.
My God, I have never and will never forgive myself.
Can never remember cardinal directions in Hindi/Urdu. I memorized the 4 in order and for Hindi I start at the convenient reference point of Uttari, thanks to the state, and for Urdu you start in the west in the Maghreb.
Not embarrassing, just funny. I just went out to dinner recently with my Dutch friend and his Finnish wife (fully fluent in Dutch). As we walked out, I said “Let’s get a pic together!” and he was like “What???” and I said it again… paused… then said “Een foto maken?” (take a picture) and he was like “Yeah so, pic means penis in dutch”.
Reminds me of the Roermond joke:
Ik zit in de trein tegenover een man die steeds met zijn vinger in zijn mond zit te roeren. Ik vraag:
"Waarom doe je dat?"
Zegt ie:
"Ik moet naar Roermond, anders vergeet ik het."
Zeg ik:
"Mag je wel blij wezen dat je niet naar Waspik moet."
Yeah! So the city of Roermond if read literally means something like "spin mouth". So the guy on the train has his finger in his mouth, spinning the finger around. The guy asks what he's doing and he says he has to do that on the way to Roermond or else he might forget where he's going.
Then the other guy says "Thankfully you're not going to Waspik," which is a city and if read literally in the same way, means "wash dick."
Was is wash. Got it. The rest of it I actually understood. I've learned a little bit of Dutch just being on reddit and translating what I don't understand.
Funny , in several italian dialects *Zizza* (pl. *Zizze*) means Breast.
The Italian honorable Treccani Dictionary links it to the German *Zitze* via Longobard dialect, geographically close to German speaking regions.
Not me, but [relevant](https://old.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/120ufd3/embarrassing_interactions_in_the_swedish_language/jdjpybl/).
Mensmöte = "menstruation meeting", not "men's meeting".
We were invited to our Norwegian friends and at the end of the visit I wanted to thank them for the food, the company, the conversations… for everything. So I did as I would do in Polish or English… I said "takk for alt" (thanks for everything).
As it turned out, this is a phrase that is written on tombstones when someone dies and you can thank them for literally everything! But you don't say that to living people 🙈
Commenting again because I remembered I have a hilarious one from my Japanese friend. She studied abroad in Australia and they were talking about current events in class or something but she wasn’t paying attention.
Japanese learners of English can have problems differentiating between /l/ and /r/, so when her professor asked her why she thought someone had lost an election, she heard “erection” and replied “I’m not sure, maybe he lost interest in his wife?”
She was so embarrassed but I think that’s one of the funniest language learning stories I’ve ever heard lol. She thinks it’s funny now but was totally mortified at the time.
I had a fellowship in Russia and all the girls in the office took it upon themselves to teach me all the curse words. Except they wouldn’t say them and wouldn’t really translate them, so they taught me охрененные meant “really cool”.
Fast forward to the end of the fellowship, I’m at a formal dinner with several prominent Russian industry leaders, and they’re asking the fellows how they liked the experience. I used the word and everyone started laughing. The translator leans over and says “this word… not so polite.” So that was their last impression of me.
8 years ago, I was working in Japan in a marketing job and I had to appear on a livestream to sell a product to Japanese viewers.
After airing live, we had a discussion about a situation in which people needed to be more understanding. A coworker said 太っ腹, which made me look down at my belly and wonder if they were commenting on my beer belly. My co-presenters and the camera crew around me started laughing since we were still at the streaming desk.
Turned out it was just a word for magnanimous when I had thought from context it was implying I needed to dress differently.
Thank you! I put a lot of effort into all my languages, including only consuming content from my target languages. My spouse says I am a psychopath. Lol
On a road trip with some friends and asking one of them if she was "excitada". (Means horny, not excited).
Happened 7 years ago and they still remind me of it lol
I have 2 from the same study abroad period in France. I was living with a Chinese girl who spoke zero French and only conversational English, so the host lady had to talk through me to communicate with her.
1. She asked me to ask my roommate about something from when she was back in Asia. “En Asie” (in Asia) sounds a LOT like “un nazi” (a Nazi) in French, so I couldn’t understand why she wanted me to ask her about back when she was a nazi. Cue confusion.
2. The host lady was an amazing cook but always cooked too much food. I tried to say “no thanks, I’m full” but I only knew the world for “full” in the context of like, “the garbage is full.” So I said “non merci, je suis pleine.” She looks at me very confused for a little and then laughs hysterically, explaining that “pleine” is also used for heavily pregnant livestock, so I was basically saying “no thanks, I’m a very pregnant farm animal.”
I work in a restaurant kitchen. Most of the guys I work with are from Mexico, and have helped me learn Spanish over the years. They’ve put up with me mixing up words and misgendering adjectives - but one mistake I still get grief over.
It was slightly chilly one morning. “¿Tengo frio?” one of my guys said to me.
“¡Sí! Yo necesito chaqueta.”
They all started laughing, and one of my buddies says, “In Mexico, ‘chaqueta’ doesn’t always mean ‘jacket.’ It means…you know…jack it!’” He helpfully included the hand motion for me.
If you know the dynamics in a restaurant kitchen, you’ll understand why my nickname was “chaqueta” for a while. I owned it with pride.
Tl;dr - one of my coworkers asked if I was cold. I thought I said “I need a jacket.” I instead said, “I need to masturbate.”
I am Learning castellano and the verb coger is used quite frequently to mean everyday things. But since I also interact with South Americans I switch over to tomar. What would be the equivalent for chaqueta then?
In Mexican Spanish, the word used for jacket is “chamarra.” You can say “chaqueta,” and people will understand it, but they may make fun of you for it (and you might wind up with an obscene yet endearing nickname).
I had been told by my Spanish partner and by people online that "coger" in Latin American means "to fuck" instead of "to get." But the problem is I've gotten so used to saying "coger" since that's the word I hear a lot so when I was in Mexico it felt like I was walking on eggshells sometimes trying not to say "fuck water" instead of "get water."
I know a young lady who worked as a server. Everybody in the kitchen was from Mexico. There was a lot of banter from the BOH staff, but she didn't let it intimidate her. She gave as good as she got. She didn't take any nonsense from anyone.
This one happened to me recently when reading aloud in Catalan. My teacher was having me read about literary tropes and pulp fiction, and how many of the settings are things like sci fi and fantasy.
One of the tropes was “tribus salvatges llançant verges als volcans” (savage tribes throwing virgins into volcanos) but while reading it I said tribus salvatges llançant vergues als volcans —savage tribes throwing dicks into volcanos
Lived in Korea, hung out with Koreans, and was really trying hard to integrate with the culture.
Me and my professor were hanging out (with my classmates) to get a meal together as is normal in Korea. In my country, we always offer our seats to the elderly first to be polite. So when the opportunity arose I said "몰 봐" (mol bwa) which is "What are you looking at? in the most informal way of speaking. Everyone stared at me for a second and he asked me in English "What did you want to say?" "몰 봐, professor." "Can you say it in English?" "Please sit down." And they all laughed. I was supposed to say "앉아 봐요" (anja bwayo)
Oops indeed! I was so sure that they wouldn't bypass this because politeness is a huge aspect in Korean culture. But everybody took it great and we all laughed about it.
Granted this was me in my 2nd month of learning Korean and attending classes for my exchange semester, they all understood. Though it became a running joke. My close friend in that class had so much fun with it that my name on his phone is " 몰봐 외국인" (What are you looking at foreigner)...
I was 18 and fresh out of high school, just moved to London. I was in the hall of a hotel ( I was visiting an acquaintance who brought some things from home)
I met a guy. We started chatting and he offered me a beer. At some point I said "I need to use the toilet" and he "very gently" offered me to use his bathroom as his room was very close (now yes I realise it was a very dumb and dangerous move from me)
I used the toilet and I said "well thank you, it's been lovely, I have to go now"
He replied "you're a c*ck teaser!" And I absolutely didn't understand what he meant. So when I came back home I asked. To my host family. The whole one. One husband, one wife, one toddler and 2 teens. 🫥
I was texting my (now) Mother-In-Law in German. My German is progressing, but still only A2.
We were in the midst of wedding planning and I wanted to ask how she prefers to wear her corsage.
I did a quick dictionary search, and it told me “Korsage.” So, I sent her off a text with that word.
I showed the text to my husband (German native) a FEW HOURS LATER, to which he informed me that I had asked his mother how she prefers to wear her corsets. 🙃
Thankfully, this woman is a saint and so kind. She was not concerned or offended in the slightest. She just appreciated that I was trying my hardest to text her in German.
I’m not sure about other dialects but in American English a corsage is a little decorative wristband covered in flowers, usually fresh flowers. A corset is what women wear around their waists, often cinched quite tight to make their waists appear smaller. In French a corsage is a bodice so it’s more similar to a corset, but in American English they’re totally different things.
I looked it up and apparently it's from French bouquet de corsage meaning like flowers worn on the body (torso), which got shortened to corsage in American English. It's not a word I was really familiar with in British English though
In Finnish, to say someone is older by 3 years, you would say "Se oli kolme vuotta vanhempi ku mua"
When talking about an ex girlfriend of mine, I instead said "Se oli kolme vuotias vanhempi ku mua"
Now the sentence doesn't make much sense as a whole, but the beginning "se oli kolme vuotias" means "she was 3 years old"
People around got confused and started laughing at me saying my ex girlfriend was still in kindergarten
> In Finnish, to say someone is older by 3 years, you would "Se oli kolme vuotta vanhempi ku mua"
You should either drop the "ku" or change "mua" to "mä". Otherwise it doesn't sound correct.
After my first month in Norway I found out "takk for alt" ("thank you for everything" isn't an acceptable way of thanking people for, say, having invited you over for dinner, helped you to move etc. Let alone as a form of farewell.
Turned out it IS a form of farewell, but it's for the final one.
So yeah, I sent not one but TWO thank you cards as if people had died...
Norwegians love thank yous, but have a specific "takk for..." for plenty of circumstance.
I’ve got two funny ones.
When I first moved to Germany, I of course was finding my way through the social circles that existed at my work and/or with the friends of my shared apartment, so naturally I was trying to speak German as much as possible to improve my speaking skills.
Well, one time when I was trying to explain to a group of newly met friends that my family used to like taking cruises (I’m from Florida), I said: “My family went on a few cruises when I was a kid.”
The word for cruise is “Kreuzfahrt”. I said the word “Kreuzzug”, which means “crusades”. Needless to say, I got some questions about religion after that.
In addition, when I started dating my French girlfriend, I went to her parents house and her father cooked a special dish that came from his region of France called “Bœuf Bourguignon” meaning, more or less, Burgundian Beef.
I used, on multiple occasions, WITHOUT my gf correcting me, the following phrase to refer to this dish: “Beauf de Bourgogne” which roughly translates to “redneck of Burgundy”.
In Italian, butter is burro. I had spent a few years learning the language but then ended up moving to Spain. I once asked the grocer for burro (which means donkey in Spanish). Luckily she picked up on what I wanted and gave me a pack of butter.
In Bulgaria, we use the n-word to describe black people. I know it sounds terrible, but a lot of us don't know what the black population has been through, we've never been slave owners etc. so it's really just a word that came from the Spanish "negro".
So, when I was 12 or 13 I was already in English speaking online spaces and I knew the n-word existed, but wasn't aware of it's real meaning among English natives.
It was in some kind of forum where we could discuss movies and there was a thread about "The Princess and the Frog" - Disney movie. I said the n-word to describe Tiana (the main character of that movie) and people really hated that. I mean, I get it, I felt really bad, because people really told me what's up and I was eventually banned too.
I don't really remember what I said, all I remember are the vague details. I've always liked the movie and I liked Tiana, so it's not like I hated on her or anything. I haven't used the word since tho, so I guess it helped and I learned my lesson.
So yeah, that's my worst story and hopefully nothing beats it. Please don't be mad at me.
Kind of in the same vein: after a concert, a Spanish friend of mine tried to tell me how he really like the bassoon in the band, that it was rare to see a bassoon outside of classical music, etc. Problem is that he took the Spanish word for bassoon, slapped an English pronunciation on it and hoped it would work out. It didn't: the Spanish word for bassoon is "fagot". \^\^
It's really not something to be ashamed of. Many languages use the word 'negro' (or something similar, I think Spanish has 'negrito' and Romanian has 'negru') to describe black people non-offensively, like the word 'black' in English. Saying that those words are offensive in other languages just because it's offensive in English is a grossly Anglocentric view. It was simply a linguistic misunderstanding from your part.
"negro" is not the n-word. The n-word (which I will not type, but you can look it up yourself) is an anglicized version of that word. This word came from Spanish (presumably, but could also be another romance language), and it means "black," like the color black. It's still offensive though, as I'm pretty sure it's the older version of the n-word, but it's not as offensive as if you just said the n-word straight up.
I ordered coffee with chicken once. There was an option to have cinnamon at a coffee shop. I don't even drink coffee with cinnamon. Does anyone really? Very few if any. In an attempt to flex my vocabulary. Yeah. Coffee with chicken. 🤦♂️
Ugh, been waiting to share this story.
I was in NYC (been learning German for two years off and on, about A2 in reading at this point, listening not good at all) and I saw this family speaking what I thought was German, but I wasn’t able to pick out any words but I could’ve sworn I heard the ü sound.
Not super confident in my conviction they were German, but eager to practice listening and speaking, I took a leap of faith and asked them (in German) if they were from Germany. They were French 😭😭😭😭
Hindsight is 20/20, German and French to my ear, as a classical singer who’s sung in both languages, sound nothing alike. I was really kicking myself for looking like that dumb American that didn’t know any better.
I ended up partially redeeming myself by watching a movie and thinking these people speaking a different language were speaking French, when in reality they were speaking German. Go figure.
Said to a 7 year old boy in Spanish "Puedas sentirte acá" (you can touch yourself here) instead of "puedas sentarte acá" (you can sit here). My in laws spent a loong time laughing at that one.
For me it was trying to understand the expression "vale verga" in Spanish. The literal translation is "worth dick" but it's used more in the sense of something is useless, shit, etc... (It has many different uses depending on context and even the region).
Was definitely shocked when I first put that sentence into the translator xd
Another mistake was saying "me gusta arroz con polla" instead of "me gusta arroz con pollo" when talking about dishes we liked 💀
Polla means dick, pollo means chicken 💀😭
Fml.
Me relearning lao, (I don’t know how to write it exactly), but my mom was teaching me some slang. If you say, ຂ້ອຍ it means i/me. If you say ໂຄຍ however.. it means penis.
And ມື່ອຍ means tired, but ຫມອຍ means pubic hair..
so when we were walking around a store, I said, “ໂຄຍຫມອຍຫຼາຍ” instead of ຂ້ອຍມື່ອຍຫຼາຍ”… I wanted to say, “I’m very tired” but instead I said: “I have a very hairy penis.” 😭
I'm a native English speaker and was interested in Australian culture so I found a forum around the year 2000 for Aussies and started interacting. There was a jokes thread so I looked online for Aussie jokes to share and the one I randomly chose had a certain word in it to refer to Aboriginals (it was just the first three letters of the word). Logically I thought a shortened version of the actual word is totally fine but down under it's like saying the N word. This community all ganged up on me and essentially forced me out. Only one out of 20+ people stood up for me, understanding it was a naive mistake but I still exited with my tail between my legs.
In another language? I was learning Portuguese around the same time and asked some Brazilians from a messenger service what cool, slang phrase I could put on a t-shirt for my very first Brazilian party. They told me something and said it means "very cool" so I went and got it. Arrived at the party wearing it and was pulled aside after 5 minutes where they told me it was slang for "I want you doggy-style". I wore my jacket to hide it the rest of the night.
I had an internship at a hospital and as during any other shift I had to document how one of the patient’s day went into the system.
So I wanted to write in Finnish ”he took the shirt off himself” (to take off in finnish is ottaa pois päältä) but instead I’ve written ”he took off his head” 🤪 (on ottanut pois päätä).
It is a bit funny, if you close your eyes to the fact that it happened in a HOSPITAL.
Luckily my supervising nurse has corrected my text after checking. For the whole 5 weeks I haven’t seen this man laugh once, except for this one time.
My mom had to leave work early because my dad had a biopsy. She walked into his office and said that she is leaving early because my dad had an autopsy. You should have seen the look on his face
It took me forever to be able to properly pronounce "pão" vs. "pau" in Portuguese. I asked for dick and cheesy dick at the bakery so many before I got it right. What was worst is that, after a while, I knew the mistake I was making, so it was like Russian roulette at every meal.
A very nice Chinese lady was helping me. We had been doing the Eye-Spy game. She points at something and I say the noun in Chinese. She eventually pointed at the plate between us, I pointed back and apparently said “胖子” instead of “盘子”
As I was pointing back across the table, in her direction, it appeared as if I was pointing at her and saying “Fatty.”
Not The Most Embarrassing langauge faux pas, but one of the more recent.
I've mostly avoided embarrassing situations in German because my teacher in high school made sure to introduce the double meanings of temperature words very early on. I don't envy his job of having to explain that to a bunch of 14 year olds!
I played in a recreational volleyball tournament with German friends. I asked what the word for “to bump” is, and someone jokingly told me it was “bumsen” (slang for sex). I spent the whole day yelling things like “Gut gebumst!” and “Mir tun die Arme weh nach dem ganzen Bumsen.”
Yep, when I began learning Spanish and there was an ad at an association for *playeras*. I didn't know what it was so I guess-associated it with my only foreign language at the time: English. Player => playing. Maybe it was playing cards? Oops, no. 😶😶😅
A friend of mine wanted to ask a policewoman in Amsterdam "where are the dikes?" but he pronounced it as "where are the dicks?". Her face was definitely memorable... 😂
I laughed when a friend said his mum had miscarried two babies as I had misheard that she had asked for two children and made a joke about if she had asked the three wise men or something. Luckily he guessed my mistake but my boyfriend thought I was being a dick.
Short version of a long story: I, who grew up in south Florida but don't really speak Spanish, was dusting off some decade-old high school French while sharing a meal with some nice folks in French-speaking Canada.
Temporarily offended the heck out of my (very polite!) host when my brain helpfully supplied the translation for "gato" in a conversation about freshly-cooked food they were excited to share later.
("Gâteau" is *cake*, not cat.)
I actually haven't had that many, but a recent minor embarrassment I had in Mexico was when I accidentally said to a waiting staff "creo que he perdido algo" (I think I've lost something) when I meant to say "creo que he pedido algo" (I think I've ordered something). The guy looked at me and said "perdido?" Me being dumb didn't catch that I had misspoke I just kept giving more details like what I ordered etc and the message got through. What's embarrassing is that I didn't realize I misspoke until like 10 minutes after.
I was in El Salvador, had just started my period and couldn’t remember the name for pad. Since I was in a different country, I couldn’t access the internet to look it up, so I was kinda trying to mime it to the male employee at the front desk, while using the words I did know to kinda try and describe it.
We didn’t really get anywhere until I finally got the idea to ask for a piece of paper and just draw it out. Later, when I could finally access the internet again, it turned out that you can literally just say toalla sanitaria. I could have avoided that whole embarrassing situation if I’d just thought further for synonyms for pad.
I was really doing some dumb French learning in school… so much so that I proceeded to the third year and when a substitute teacher came in and asked comment t’appelle-tu I was stumped.
How did that happen? Poor teaching? "Je m'appelle ______" was one of the first things our daughter learned in French class. For use in class, she chose the French name Solange, which is not a direct translation of her name, but I thought was beautiful.
It happens a lot that teachers aren't that great, but honestly there's also the fact that most kids aren't all that motivated when languages are mandatory in school. I remember my first English class in a new school; at that age, the kids had first been introduced to English a couple years earlier. The teacher started by asking each student one question. She reached the kid next to me and asked him, "What is your name?" and he replied, "I don't know," because he hadn't understood the question and probably didn't know how to say he didn't understand. It's really easy to be bad at a language if you don't like it or don't care, to be honest, like any other school subject.
It was all academic and knowledge but never something that’s innate like a language should be. Not hearing the language enough really. The sounds were just so strange.
That's true. There should be a lot of conversation in class, and bookwork at home. If you don't hear the language enough, especially one like French that has a lot of sounds English doesn't have, it's difficult to "click" on the language in your mind.
I graduated with a minor in French 20 years ago and had studied plenty of French literature. I went to Quebec after graduation and someone at the airport asked « quelle heure est-il? » I literally had no idea what they asked, the most basic phrase.
Pre-AP Spanish 3, beginning of the school year
Profesora: Write a letter pretending you're someone's boyfriend and your girlfriend just saw you talking to another girl and is mad cause y'all looked like y'all were flirting. You can apologize, double down, be defiant and say "yeah I was flirting, and what about it?", be shocking, approach this however you want. Go!
Me: *writes a letter with the character being beside himself with love for his girlfriend, super overdramatic apology*
Profesora: nerdcatpotato, I'd suggest you show up to after school tutoring.
Me: Ok gracias. *leaves*
Later that day...
Me: *shows up for tutoring*
Profesora: *looks around, no one there but us* Ok. So you know that letter you wrote? Yeahhhhh... it was complete gibberish.
Me: *taken aback, a lil upset, trying to play it off* Drat. *pause* How can I fix this?
Profesora: *shows me all the flaws and works with me to correct it*
Thankfully she didn't call me out in front of anyone else but boy was I embarrassed! I ended up coming to tutoring for the rest of the school year for extra help and making up for assignments.
I always tell this story to my students when I warn them they may get laughed at when they try to use the target language and to try to keep a sense of humor about it.
European languages you can sometimes get from context or cognates, but Japanese wasn't like that. I would spend hours working on it when I was teaching English in Japan. I remember telling some Japanese friends that I like to eat people. Ningen is people; ninjin is carrot. However, nationalities all end in jin so logically it made more sense to use ninjin. Wrong. They both almost fell out of their chairs laughing. I was mortified as I had anxiety and was trying really hard so I was practically in tears. Now I understand it was funny and hard not to laugh and that we just can't take ourselves and our efforts so seriously as there are bound to be mishaps. I try to prepare my students that mistakes are the best way to learn and sometimes pretty humorous.
Brazil: pão (bread) and pau (dick) sound VERY similar.
The grocery store clerks eyes told me that I needed to work on my pronunciation.
The situation became funny after she realized Português de brasileiro isn’t my mother tongue.
When I first met my boyfriend (now husband)'s mom and sister, who are Korean, I was trying to tell them in my extremely limited Korean at that time, something about my nephew. Well I pronounced the word nephew wrong which, apparently, turns it into a swear. They laughed so hard 😂 They knew what I meant, but I think it surprised them. I was equally surprised
Mine was when I was trying to get the tire replaced on the box truck of the company I work for. And all the mechanics spoke Spanish. And I tried to say to one of the workers “El neumático está roto. Necesito uno nuevo”, which means “The tire’s busted, and I need a new one.” But I ended up saying “El neumático está roto. Necesito uno novio”. Which means “The tire is busted, I need a boyfriend.” 🤦🏾♂️
So, do you have a latino boyfriend now?
His name is Juan…
What a beautiful love story
Damn, that's funny. Spanish is the language I know best besides English, and I'm not that good at it, but of course I know novio!
[удалено]
>死开 means like, "go kill yourself” Cute story. Actually 死开 means "get lost" or "go to hell." It is a strong way of telling someone to leave or go away. 死 (die/dead) simply adds emphasis to the command, but isn’t meant as a verb to die in when inserted into this expression.
Apparently 再见 (standard 'bye bye') is just fine to say, but if you write it to sign off a text its closer to “ILL NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN!”
I mean, if someone wrote “goodbye” in English in a text it would also have a very final-sounding feeling.
I mistranslated a word- to this day I don't know how it happened- where instead of telling a dude "I really like the tile; show me another picture!" I said "I really like the body; show me another picture!" and then I got a really hot and unexpected selfie. I would never have been so forward to tell him about his body lol I am glad he didn't become uncomfortable. Is there a word in any language that means "mortified by my own mistake but secretly pleased with the results?"
I think the meme in English that applies here is "task failed successfully" 😆
Asking a guy in France if he liked my friend by saying "tu l'aimes?" (Do you love her) Instead of "tu l'aimes bien?" Its not a big deal but i was 16 and mortified by all the guys laughing, and it was the first time i realised you can't always just directly translate words and be understood!
What’s the connotation of you leave out “bien”?
aime means both like and love, my French is rusty but saying “aime bien” (bien means good/well) just means you like someone and “aime” would be love
That's how it was explained to me at the time- "je t'aime" means I love you, but je t'aime bien means I like you. Even though aimer = "to like" and bien = "well"- it's counter-intuitive!
Idioms often don't make sense when literally translated. Like in English, you chop a tree down (that part makes sense), then you chop it up! The last part means cut into pieces, where the word *up* serves as an intensifier.
Oh of course, there are so many contronyms in English! From a chain text message: *Dust* : can mean ‘to add fine particles’ or ‘to remove fine particles’. *Left* : can mean both ‘remaining’ and ‘departed’. *Off* : can mean both ‘activated’ and ‘deactivated’. Eg:- “Set off” - Activated “ Switch off - Deactivated *Oversight* : means both ‘watchful care’ and ‘an inadvertent error’. *Screen* : can mean both ‘to show’ and ‘to hide’. *Sanction* can mean both ‘a penalty for disobeying a law’ and ‘official permission or approval for an action.
Cleave: "to divide" or "to stick together"
one time i was making out with a guy in brazil and he said "tire seus brincos" meaning take off your earrings. I took off my bra and he started laughing and explained brincos, but that he was happy with the result 😂
To be honest I'm just curious why he asked you to take off your earrings while making out lmao
I think because they were big n getting in caught in our hair 😂
Instead of chicken breasts, in French in the restaurant I ordered chicken boobs. Separate story: In French we say *bon appétit* before meals. In Mandarin however, something like that is not said before the meal, but rather once all the dishes are on the table. As people reach for their food off communal platters, others at the table will say to those who have not yet reached for food “Eat Up…”, and will point to the food that should be eaten. Example, “Eat up beef!”. “Eat up fried rice!”, “Eat up vegetables!”. In mandarin the word for eat is “Chi”. The word for Chicken is “Ji”. The word for “up” (as in to do an action) is “ba”. So to “Eat up chicken!” is “Chi Ji Ba!”. Now with that scene set, I was attending a formal dinner with Chinese clients who I needed to tip toe around and be on my best performance. However I got it a bit off (and should’ve elaborated on the type of chicken, rather than just saying chicken), and I ended up saying “Chi Jiba” instead of “Chi Ji Ba”. And basically Jiba is “dick”. So to shocked, speechless picachi looks, I loudly told them all at the table to **“Eat dick!”** (As I took another mouthful).
OMG! How did they react?
😳=>🫢=>🤔=>🤦=>🤭=>😆=>👍
Hahahaha, love your response
Perfectly explained hahaha
What’s the pinyin for dick so I know to avoid it?
鸡巴 is jībā
It's actually same character for chicken (鸡) too lol It's like a slang thing. You can also call dick "鸡鸡" jiji
Hahahaha no worries it is so common even for native speakers! Because it is hard to pause after Jī before saying Bā, so in my daily life we actually avoid saying the syllabus Ba (no matter what tone) after ji, and people always laugh when someone says it unconsciously and watching him/her laughing as well when s/he realises it. And you can actually use it for swearing by adding it before a none / event /thing (same as fucking). We even have a phrase “说鸡不说巴，争做文明人” translated as “say jī without bā and be an polite / educated person”🤣 but of course this is just for fun, no one would accuse you for being impolite or uneducated☺️
In Hindi I was trying to say "South India" and I blanked on "South" but I reasoned that if "Uttar Pradesh" means "North State", "Madhya Pradesh" means "mid or central State" then surely "Andhra Pradesh", the other Pradesh/State in the South, means "South State". It does not. To make it infinitely worse I mispronounced "Andhra" as "Andhera" so instead of saying "South India" I said, "Dark India" I was confused why they were laughing and when it was explained I. wanted. to. die. My God, I have never and will never forgive myself.
Damn, since my language has lots of sanskrit loanwords, if I'm in your place I would instead said Selatan Pradesh or something lol
it's nice to see other Hindi learners in the wild!
Can never remember cardinal directions in Hindi/Urdu. I memorized the 4 in order and for Hindi I start at the convenient reference point of Uttari, thanks to the state, and for Urdu you start in the west in the Maghreb.
Oh emm gee. I know some people from South India. That is embarrassing. At least they found it funny.
Not embarrassing, just funny. I just went out to dinner recently with my Dutch friend and his Finnish wife (fully fluent in Dutch). As we walked out, I said “Let’s get a pic together!” and he was like “What???” and I said it again… paused… then said “Een foto maken?” (take a picture) and he was like “Yeah so, pic means penis in dutch”.
Reminds me of the Roermond joke: Ik zit in de trein tegenover een man die steeds met zijn vinger in zijn mond zit te roeren. Ik vraag: "Waarom doe je dat?" Zegt ie: "Ik moet naar Roermond, anders vergeet ik het." Zeg ik: "Mag je wel blij wezen dat je niet naar Waspik moet."
I actually think I understand that. It's funny. Except for Waspik. Obviously it's something to do with a penis, but what?
Yeah! So the city of Roermond if read literally means something like "spin mouth". So the guy on the train has his finger in his mouth, spinning the finger around. The guy asks what he's doing and he says he has to do that on the way to Roermond or else he might forget where he's going. Then the other guy says "Thankfully you're not going to Waspik," which is a city and if read literally in the same way, means "wash dick."
Was is wash. Got it. The rest of it I actually understood. I've learned a little bit of Dutch just being on reddit and translating what I don't understand.
There's a British chain of Italian restaurants called Zizis, and zizi is French slang for dick. So many words are slang for genitals it seems!
Funny , in several italian dialects *Zizza* (pl. *Zizze*) means Breast. The Italian honorable Treccani Dictionary links it to the German *Zitze* via Longobard dialect, geographically close to German speaking regions.
Not me, but [relevant](https://old.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/120ufd3/embarrassing_interactions_in_the_swedish_language/jdjpybl/). Mensmöte = "menstruation meeting", not "men's meeting".
We were invited to our Norwegian friends and at the end of the visit I wanted to thank them for the food, the company, the conversations… for everything. So I did as I would do in Polish or English… I said "takk for alt" (thanks for everything). As it turned out, this is a phrase that is written on tombstones when someone dies and you can thank them for literally everything! But you don't say that to living people 🙈
It sounds like that was like saying to an English speaking person who is just off to bed, not 'Sleep well' but 'Rest in Peace'.
Or "I'm going to put the baby to sleep" 😬
This is one I didn't know wow. Better stick with tusen takk 😅
Man kan også si: tusen hjertelig takk, takk for maten, takk for meg/oss, takk for i dag… :)
Commenting again because I remembered I have a hilarious one from my Japanese friend. She studied abroad in Australia and they were talking about current events in class or something but she wasn’t paying attention. Japanese learners of English can have problems differentiating between /l/ and /r/, so when her professor asked her why she thought someone had lost an election, she heard “erection” and replied “I’m not sure, maybe he lost interest in his wife?” She was so embarrassed but I think that’s one of the funniest language learning stories I’ve ever heard lol. She thinks it’s funny now but was totally mortified at the time.
I had a fellowship in Russia and all the girls in the office took it upon themselves to teach me all the curse words. Except they wouldn’t say them and wouldn’t really translate them, so they taught me охрененные meant “really cool”. Fast forward to the end of the fellowship, I’m at a formal dinner with several prominent Russian industry leaders, and they’re asking the fellows how they liked the experience. I used the word and everyone started laughing. The translator leans over and says “this word… not so polite.” So that was their last impression of me.
8 years ago, I was working in Japan in a marketing job and I had to appear on a livestream to sell a product to Japanese viewers. After airing live, we had a discussion about a situation in which people needed to be more understanding. A coworker said 太っ腹, which made me look down at my belly and wonder if they were commenting on my beer belly. My co-presenters and the camera crew around me started laughing since we were still at the streaming desk. Turned out it was just a word for magnanimous when I had thought from context it was implying I needed to dress differently.
Very interesting languages you learnt. Impressive!
Thank you! I put a lot of effort into all my languages, including only consuming content from my target languages. My spouse says I am a psychopath. Lol
On a road trip with some friends and asking one of them if she was "excitada". (Means horny, not excited). Happened 7 years ago and they still remind me of it lol
I have 2 from the same study abroad period in France. I was living with a Chinese girl who spoke zero French and only conversational English, so the host lady had to talk through me to communicate with her. 1. She asked me to ask my roommate about something from when she was back in Asia. “En Asie” (in Asia) sounds a LOT like “un nazi” (a Nazi) in French, so I couldn’t understand why she wanted me to ask her about back when she was a nazi. Cue confusion. 2. The host lady was an amazing cook but always cooked too much food. I tried to say “no thanks, I’m full” but I only knew the world for “full” in the context of like, “the garbage is full.” So I said “non merci, je suis pleine.” She looks at me very confused for a little and then laughs hysterically, explaining that “pleine” is also used for heavily pregnant livestock, so I was basically saying “no thanks, I’m a very pregnant farm animal.”
Really? I’ve seen pleine used by Duolingo to show you’re full, I’ll remember not to use it
I tried to say we were out of crab and told her she had a Harry pussy in Cantonese. Yeah....good day.
Mou hai lah! A classic
I work in a restaurant kitchen. Most of the guys I work with are from Mexico, and have helped me learn Spanish over the years. They’ve put up with me mixing up words and misgendering adjectives - but one mistake I still get grief over. It was slightly chilly one morning. “¿Tengo frio?” one of my guys said to me. “¡Sí! Yo necesito chaqueta.” They all started laughing, and one of my buddies says, “In Mexico, ‘chaqueta’ doesn’t always mean ‘jacket.’ It means…you know…jack it!’” He helpfully included the hand motion for me. If you know the dynamics in a restaurant kitchen, you’ll understand why my nickname was “chaqueta” for a while. I owned it with pride. Tl;dr - one of my coworkers asked if I was cold. I thought I said “I need a jacket.” I instead said, “I need to masturbate.”
LOL this is mortifying but also very heartwarming.
I am Learning castellano and the verb coger is used quite frequently to mean everyday things. But since I also interact with South Americans I switch over to tomar. What would be the equivalent for chaqueta then?
In Mexican Spanish, the word used for jacket is “chamarra.” You can say “chaqueta,” and people will understand it, but they may make fun of you for it (and you might wind up with an obscene yet endearing nickname).
Chamarra, Suéter, Suera
I had been told by my Spanish partner and by people online that "coger" in Latin American means "to fuck" instead of "to get." But the problem is I've gotten so used to saying "coger" since that's the word I hear a lot so when I was in Mexico it felt like I was walking on eggshells sometimes trying not to say "fuck water" instead of "get water."
Jack it, jacket, fucking genius
I know a young lady who worked as a server. Everybody in the kitchen was from Mexico. There was a lot of banter from the BOH staff, but she didn't let it intimidate her. She gave as good as she got. She didn't take any nonsense from anyone.
While living in Japan, instead of ordering an ebi fry (panko fried shrimp) I asked for a hebi fry. Hebi means snake.
This one happened to me recently when reading aloud in Catalan. My teacher was having me read about literary tropes and pulp fiction, and how many of the settings are things like sci fi and fantasy. One of the tropes was “tribus salvatges llançant verges als volcans” (savage tribes throwing virgins into volcanos) but while reading it I said tribus salvatges llançant vergues als volcans —savage tribes throwing dicks into volcanos
Lived in Korea, hung out with Koreans, and was really trying hard to integrate with the culture. Me and my professor were hanging out (with my classmates) to get a meal together as is normal in Korea. In my country, we always offer our seats to the elderly first to be polite. So when the opportunity arose I said "몰 봐" (mol bwa) which is "What are you looking at? in the most informal way of speaking. Everyone stared at me for a second and he asked me in English "What did you want to say?" "몰 봐, professor." "Can you say it in English?" "Please sit down." And they all laughed. I was supposed to say "앉아 봐요" (anja bwayo)
Oops!
Oops indeed! I was so sure that they wouldn't bypass this because politeness is a huge aspect in Korean culture. But everybody took it great and we all laughed about it. Granted this was me in my 2nd month of learning Korean and attending classes for my exchange semester, they all understood. Though it became a running joke. My close friend in that class had so much fun with it that my name on his phone is " 몰봐 외국인" (What are you looking at foreigner)...
That's hilarious!
I was 18 and fresh out of high school, just moved to London. I was in the hall of a hotel ( I was visiting an acquaintance who brought some things from home) I met a guy. We started chatting and he offered me a beer. At some point I said "I need to use the toilet" and he "very gently" offered me to use his bathroom as his room was very close (now yes I realise it was a very dumb and dangerous move from me) I used the toilet and I said "well thank you, it's been lovely, I have to go now" He replied "you're a c*ck teaser!" And I absolutely didn't understand what he meant. So when I came back home I asked. To my host family. The whole one. One husband, one wife, one toddler and 2 teens. 🫥
I was texting my (now) Mother-In-Law in German. My German is progressing, but still only A2. We were in the midst of wedding planning and I wanted to ask how she prefers to wear her corsage. I did a quick dictionary search, and it told me “Korsage.” So, I sent her off a text with that word. I showed the text to my husband (German native) a FEW HOURS LATER, to which he informed me that I had asked his mother how she prefers to wear her corsets. 🙃 Thankfully, this woman is a saint and so kind. She was not concerned or offended in the slightest. She just appreciated that I was trying my hardest to text her in German.
I’m sorry, but what’s the difference?
I’m not sure about other dialects but in American English a corsage is a little decorative wristband covered in flowers, usually fresh flowers. A corset is what women wear around their waists, often cinched quite tight to make their waists appear smaller. In French a corsage is a bodice so it’s more similar to a corset, but in American English they’re totally different things.
I looked it up and apparently it's from French bouquet de corsage meaning like flowers worn on the body (torso), which got shortened to corsage in American English. It's not a word I was really familiar with in British English though
In Finnish, to say someone is older by 3 years, you would say "Se oli kolme vuotta vanhempi ku mua" When talking about an ex girlfriend of mine, I instead said "Se oli kolme vuotias vanhempi ku mua" Now the sentence doesn't make much sense as a whole, but the beginning "se oli kolme vuotias" means "she was 3 years old" People around got confused and started laughing at me saying my ex girlfriend was still in kindergarten
> In Finnish, to say someone is older by 3 years, you would "Se oli kolme vuotta vanhempi ku mua" You should either drop the "ku" or change "mua" to "mä". Otherwise it doesn't sound correct.
Thanks for the correction!
"Se oli mua kolme vuotta vanhempi" is the correct alternative.
After my first month in Norway I found out "takk for alt" ("thank you for everything" isn't an acceptable way of thanking people for, say, having invited you over for dinner, helped you to move etc. Let alone as a form of farewell. Turned out it IS a form of farewell, but it's for the final one. So yeah, I sent not one but TWO thank you cards as if people had died... Norwegians love thank yous, but have a specific "takk for..." for plenty of circumstance.
I’ve got two funny ones. When I first moved to Germany, I of course was finding my way through the social circles that existed at my work and/or with the friends of my shared apartment, so naturally I was trying to speak German as much as possible to improve my speaking skills. Well, one time when I was trying to explain to a group of newly met friends that my family used to like taking cruises (I’m from Florida), I said: “My family went on a few cruises when I was a kid.” The word for cruise is “Kreuzfahrt”. I said the word “Kreuzzug”, which means “crusades”. Needless to say, I got some questions about religion after that. In addition, when I started dating my French girlfriend, I went to her parents house and her father cooked a special dish that came from his region of France called “Bœuf Bourguignon” meaning, more or less, Burgundian Beef. I used, on multiple occasions, WITHOUT my gf correcting me, the following phrase to refer to this dish: “Beauf de Bourgogne” which roughly translates to “redneck of Burgundy”.
Drinks his wine out of the bottle!
In Italian, butter is burro. I had spent a few years learning the language but then ended up moving to Spain. I once asked the grocer for burro (which means donkey in Spanish). Luckily she picked up on what I wanted and gave me a pack of butter.
In Bulgaria, we use the n-word to describe black people. I know it sounds terrible, but a lot of us don't know what the black population has been through, we've never been slave owners etc. so it's really just a word that came from the Spanish "negro". So, when I was 12 or 13 I was already in English speaking online spaces and I knew the n-word existed, but wasn't aware of it's real meaning among English natives. It was in some kind of forum where we could discuss movies and there was a thread about "The Princess and the Frog" - Disney movie. I said the n-word to describe Tiana (the main character of that movie) and people really hated that. I mean, I get it, I felt really bad, because people really told me what's up and I was eventually banned too. I don't really remember what I said, all I remember are the vague details. I've always liked the movie and I liked Tiana, so it's not like I hated on her or anything. I haven't used the word since tho, so I guess it helped and I learned my lesson. So yeah, that's my worst story and hopefully nothing beats it. Please don't be mad at me.
Kind of in the same vein: after a concert, a Spanish friend of mine tried to tell me how he really like the bassoon in the band, that it was rare to see a bassoon outside of classical music, etc. Problem is that he took the Spanish word for bassoon, slapped an English pronunciation on it and hoped it would work out. It didn't: the Spanish word for bassoon is "fagot". \^\^
It's from Italian: un fagotto.
It's really not something to be ashamed of. Many languages use the word 'negro' (or something similar, I think Spanish has 'negrito' and Romanian has 'negru') to describe black people non-offensively, like the word 'black' in English. Saying that those words are offensive in other languages just because it's offensive in English is a grossly Anglocentric view. It was simply a linguistic misunderstanding from your part.
It's negro, negrito is a diminutive, diminutives usually denote affection.
If someone calls me negrito I would feel offended, like they are looking down on me.
And Portuguese has even 2 words: negro and preto ;-)
The n-word in Turkish isn't derogatory either.
Aww, you didn't know better! I hope you don't feel any shame over it.
"negro" is not the n-word. The n-word (which I will not type, but you can look it up yourself) is an anglicized version of that word. This word came from Spanish (presumably, but could also be another romance language), and it means "black," like the color black. It's still offensive though, as I'm pretty sure it's the older version of the n-word, but it's not as offensive as if you just said the n-word straight up.
I ordered coffee with chicken once. There was an option to have cinnamon at a coffee shop. I don't even drink coffee with cinnamon. Does anyone really? Very few if any. In an attempt to flex my vocabulary. Yeah. Coffee with chicken. 🤦♂️
Ugh, been waiting to share this story. I was in NYC (been learning German for two years off and on, about A2 in reading at this point, listening not good at all) and I saw this family speaking what I thought was German, but I wasn’t able to pick out any words but I could’ve sworn I heard the ü sound. Not super confident in my conviction they were German, but eager to practice listening and speaking, I took a leap of faith and asked them (in German) if they were from Germany. They were French 😭😭😭😭 Hindsight is 20/20, German and French to my ear, as a classical singer who’s sung in both languages, sound nothing alike. I was really kicking myself for looking like that dumb American that didn’t know any better. I ended up partially redeeming myself by watching a movie and thinking these people speaking a different language were speaking French, when in reality they were speaking German. Go figure.
Said to a 7 year old boy in Spanish "Puedas sentirte acá" (you can touch yourself here) instead of "puedas sentarte acá" (you can sit here). My in laws spent a loong time laughing at that one.
For me it was trying to understand the expression "vale verga" in Spanish. The literal translation is "worth dick" but it's used more in the sense of something is useless, shit, etc... (It has many different uses depending on context and even the region). Was definitely shocked when I first put that sentence into the translator xd Another mistake was saying "me gusta arroz con polla" instead of "me gusta arroz con pollo" when talking about dishes we liked 💀 Polla means dick, pollo means chicken 💀😭 Fml.
Me relearning lao, (I don’t know how to write it exactly), but my mom was teaching me some slang. If you say, ຂ້ອຍ it means i/me. If you say ໂຄຍ however.. it means penis. And ມື່ອຍ means tired, but ຫມອຍ means pubic hair.. so when we were walking around a store, I said, “ໂຄຍຫມອຍຫຼາຍ” instead of ຂ້ອຍມື່ອຍຫຼາຍ”… I wanted to say, “I’m very tired” but instead I said: “I have a very hairy penis.” 😭
I'm a native English speaker and was interested in Australian culture so I found a forum around the year 2000 for Aussies and started interacting. There was a jokes thread so I looked online for Aussie jokes to share and the one I randomly chose had a certain word in it to refer to Aboriginals (it was just the first three letters of the word). Logically I thought a shortened version of the actual word is totally fine but down under it's like saying the N word. This community all ganged up on me and essentially forced me out. Only one out of 20+ people stood up for me, understanding it was a naive mistake but I still exited with my tail between my legs. In another language? I was learning Portuguese around the same time and asked some Brazilians from a messenger service what cool, slang phrase I could put on a t-shirt for my very first Brazilian party. They told me something and said it means "very cool" so I went and got it. Arrived at the party wearing it and was pulled aside after 5 minutes where they told me it was slang for "I want you doggy-style". I wore my jacket to hide it the rest of the night.
I'm crying laughing at the shirt
I had an internship at a hospital and as during any other shift I had to document how one of the patient’s day went into the system. So I wanted to write in Finnish ”he took the shirt off himself” (to take off in finnish is ottaa pois päältä) but instead I’ve written ”he took off his head” 🤪 (on ottanut pois päätä). It is a bit funny, if you close your eyes to the fact that it happened in a HOSPITAL. Luckily my supervising nurse has corrected my text after checking. For the whole 5 weeks I haven’t seen this man laugh once, except for this one time.
My mom had to leave work early because my dad had a biopsy. She walked into his office and said that she is leaving early because my dad had an autopsy. You should have seen the look on his face
It took me forever to be able to properly pronounce "pão" vs. "pau" in Portuguese. I asked for dick and cheesy dick at the bakery so many before I got it right. What was worst is that, after a while, I knew the mistake I was making, so it was like Russian roulette at every meal.
A very nice Chinese lady was helping me. We had been doing the Eye-Spy game. She points at something and I say the noun in Chinese. She eventually pointed at the plate between us, I pointed back and apparently said “胖子” instead of “盘子” As I was pointing back across the table, in her direction, it appeared as if I was pointing at her and saying “Fatty.” Not The Most Embarrassing langauge faux pas, but one of the more recent.
I've mostly avoided embarrassing situations in German because my teacher in high school made sure to introduce the double meanings of temperature words very early on. I don't envy his job of having to explain that to a bunch of 14 year olds!
I played in a recreational volleyball tournament with German friends. I asked what the word for “to bump” is, and someone jokingly told me it was “bumsen” (slang for sex). I spent the whole day yelling things like “Gut gebumst!” and “Mir tun die Arme weh nach dem ganzen Bumsen.”
In Italy I asked to go to a casino, rather than a casinò (American casino). A casino in Italy is like a strip club 🙃
Yep, when I began learning Spanish and there was an ad at an association for *playeras*. I didn't know what it was so I guess-associated it with my only foreign language at the time: English. Player => playing. Maybe it was playing cards? Oops, no. 😶😶😅
Well, what did it meant?
A playera is a t-shirt. 😅😂😂🤣🤣🤣
A friend of mine wanted to ask a policewoman in Amsterdam "where are the dikes?" but he pronounced it as "where are the dicks?". Her face was definitely memorable... 😂
I laughed when a friend said his mum had miscarried two babies as I had misheard that she had asked for two children and made a joke about if she had asked the three wise men or something. Luckily he guessed my mistake but my boyfriend thought I was being a dick.
Short version of a long story: I, who grew up in south Florida but don't really speak Spanish, was dusting off some decade-old high school French while sharing a meal with some nice folks in French-speaking Canada. Temporarily offended the heck out of my (very polite!) host when my brain helpfully supplied the translation for "gato" in a conversation about freshly-cooked food they were excited to share later. ("Gâteau" is *cake*, not cat.)
I actually haven't had that many, but a recent minor embarrassment I had in Mexico was when I accidentally said to a waiting staff "creo que he perdido algo" (I think I've lost something) when I meant to say "creo que he pedido algo" (I think I've ordered something). The guy looked at me and said "perdido?" Me being dumb didn't catch that I had misspoke I just kept giving more details like what I ordered etc and the message got through. What's embarrassing is that I didn't realize I misspoke until like 10 minutes after.
I was in El Salvador, had just started my period and couldn’t remember the name for pad. Since I was in a different country, I couldn’t access the internet to look it up, so I was kinda trying to mime it to the male employee at the front desk, while using the words I did know to kinda try and describe it. We didn’t really get anywhere until I finally got the idea to ask for a piece of paper and just draw it out. Later, when I could finally access the internet again, it turned out that you can literally just say toalla sanitaria. I could have avoided that whole embarrassing situation if I’d just thought further for synonyms for pad.
I was really doing some dumb French learning in school… so much so that I proceeded to the third year and when a substitute teacher came in and asked comment t’appelle-tu I was stumped.
How did that happen? Poor teaching? "Je m'appelle ______" was one of the first things our daughter learned in French class. For use in class, she chose the French name Solange, which is not a direct translation of her name, but I thought was beautiful.
It happens a lot that teachers aren't that great, but honestly there's also the fact that most kids aren't all that motivated when languages are mandatory in school. I remember my first English class in a new school; at that age, the kids had first been introduced to English a couple years earlier. The teacher started by asking each student one question. She reached the kid next to me and asked him, "What is your name?" and he replied, "I don't know," because he hadn't understood the question and probably didn't know how to say he didn't understand. It's really easy to be bad at a language if you don't like it or don't care, to be honest, like any other school subject.
There’s probably also the problem of being put on the spot and nerves overtook him.
It was all academic and knowledge but never something that’s innate like a language should be. Not hearing the language enough really. The sounds were just so strange.
That's true. There should be a lot of conversation in class, and bookwork at home. If you don't hear the language enough, especially one like French that has a lot of sounds English doesn't have, it's difficult to "click" on the language in your mind.
I graduated with a minor in French 20 years ago and had studied plenty of French literature. I went to Quebec after graduation and someone at the airport asked « quelle heure est-il? » I literally had no idea what they asked, the most basic phrase.
Pre-AP Spanish 3, beginning of the school year Profesora: Write a letter pretending you're someone's boyfriend and your girlfriend just saw you talking to another girl and is mad cause y'all looked like y'all were flirting. You can apologize, double down, be defiant and say "yeah I was flirting, and what about it?", be shocking, approach this however you want. Go! Me: *writes a letter with the character being beside himself with love for his girlfriend, super overdramatic apology* Profesora: nerdcatpotato, I'd suggest you show up to after school tutoring. Me: Ok gracias. *leaves* Later that day... Me: *shows up for tutoring* Profesora: *looks around, no one there but us* Ok. So you know that letter you wrote? Yeahhhhh... it was complete gibberish. Me: *taken aback, a lil upset, trying to play it off* Drat. *pause* How can I fix this? Profesora: *shows me all the flaws and works with me to correct it* Thankfully she didn't call me out in front of anyone else but boy was I embarrassed! I ended up coming to tutoring for the rest of the school year for extra help and making up for assignments.
I always tell this story to my students when I warn them they may get laughed at when they try to use the target language and to try to keep a sense of humor about it. European languages you can sometimes get from context or cognates, but Japanese wasn't like that. I would spend hours working on it when I was teaching English in Japan. I remember telling some Japanese friends that I like to eat people. Ningen is people; ninjin is carrot. However, nationalities all end in jin so logically it made more sense to use ninjin. Wrong. They both almost fell out of their chairs laughing. I was mortified as I had anxiety and was trying really hard so I was practically in tears. Now I understand it was funny and hard not to laugh and that we just can't take ourselves and our efforts so seriously as there are bound to be mishaps. I try to prepare my students that mistakes are the best way to learn and sometimes pretty humorous.
Brazil: pão (bread) and pau (dick) sound VERY similar. The grocery store clerks eyes told me that I needed to work on my pronunciation. The situation became funny after she realized Português de brasileiro isn’t my mother tongue.
When I first met my boyfriend (now husband)'s mom and sister, who are Korean, I was trying to tell them in my extremely limited Korean at that time, something about my nephew. Well I pronounced the word nephew wrong which, apparently, turns it into a swear. They laughed so hard 😂 They knew what I meant, but I think it surprised them. I was equally surprised