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Humorous Blunders in Your Target Language

  Tags: Error | Joke | Multilingual
 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages Post Reply
185 messages over 24 pages: 1 2 3 46 7 ... 5 ... 23 24 Next >>
William Camden
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6257 days ago

1936 posts - 2333 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French

 
 Message 33 of 185
11 December 2007 at 12:45pm | IP Logged 
Kualidu wrote:
Latin America is becoming a major destination for cheap plastic surgery but I don't think this is reason enough for other people to make loud congratulations for their new looks. ;)

So, if you're planning to spend New Year at some resort south of the US border be careful to pronounce your "ñ" correctly. I've heard a couple of times friendly American tourists wishing others the best for the coming year (that is, ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!) but actually telling something totally different: Feliz Ano Nuevo which means Happy New Anus.


Well, perhaps plastic surgery really can equip you with a new cloaca.
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SpaceCakeGirl
Groupie
United States
Joined 6191 days ago

51 posts - 50 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 34 of 185
11 December 2007 at 10:39pm | IP Logged 
When my brother was studying Spanish in Mexico, all of his teachers were female and thus referred to themselves as "la maestra" - feminine. One day he was joking that he was going to be a teacher and put on a little pantomine about when HE is finally "la maestra". They had a good laugh :D

During a Japanese interview quiz my teacher asked me how the last test was. I had scored well, so I tried to tell her it was easy "yasashi", instead I said "yasai", which means vegetable!
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rggg
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Mexico
Joined 6310 days ago

373 posts - 426 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Indonesian, Malay
Studies: Romanian, Catalan, Greek, German, Swedish

 
 Message 35 of 185
18 December 2007 at 12:13pm | IP Logged 
Once I was talking to a French woman, she was visiting my French teacher and came to my class, we were having a nice conversation, so I asked her:
"je peux te tuer?" she looked at me and said noooo you can't.

Suddenly I realized what I'd just said: "Can I kill you?"..................instead of "je peux te tutoyer" (tutearte in Spanish/using "tu" instead of "vous").

I felt pretty embarrassed :)




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labouillie
Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 6301 days ago

91 posts - 97 votes 
Speaks: Haitian Creole, English*
Studies: French, Spanish

 
 Message 36 of 185
20 December 2007 at 8:14pm | IP Logged 
This guy makes a hilarious mistake in Spanish when he confuses sentar with sentir.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GOokazrlTrs
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Hencke
Tetraglot
Moderator
Spain
Joined 6879 days ago

2340 posts - 2444 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish
Studies: Mandarin
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 37 of 185
12 January 2008 at 8:13am | IP Logged 
labouillie wrote:
This guy makes a hilarious mistake in Spanish when he confuses sentar with sentir.

The subjunctive forms of these two are easy to confuse even at a fairly advanced level.

This happened to me once, when I told someone "espero que no te sientes mal", wanting to say "I hope you don't feel bad" but instead ending up saying "I hope you don't sit bad". The person understood my meaning perfectly well, but he jokingly started to shift his position, scrutinising the chair he was sitting on and saying, "No, I'm sitting pretty well here." I knew I should have used "sientas" instead of "sientes" in the subjunctive, but apparently I had not drilled them enough at that time and the wrong one just slipped out.

Sometimes it's a pity you can't pull the words back when you discover your mistake a thousandth of a second after they left your lips while the soundwaves are still in transit.

Edited by Hencke on 12 January 2008 at 8:17am

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epingchris
Triglot
Senior Member
Taiwan
shih-chuan.blog.ntu.
Joined 7013 days ago

273 posts - 284 votes 
5 sounds
Studies: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English, FrenchB2
Studies: Japanese, German, Turkish

 
 Message 38 of 185
13 January 2008 at 7:49am | IP Logged 
I did one myself today. While I was reading on my own, I muttered. "Il y a trop de plages ici." (There are too many beaches here)

I intended to say "Il y a trop de pages ici." (There are too many pages here)
2 persons have voted this message useful



Rmss
Triglot
Senior Member
Spain
spanish-only.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6549 days ago

234 posts - 248 votes 
3 sounds
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 39 of 185
21 January 2008 at 4:30pm | IP Logged 
A classmate of mine told this one a while ago.

Before she went to college to major Spanish, she traveled through Latin America for four months. At that time, he Spanish was pretty non-existent. So she went to a lunchroom one day to practice her Spanish a little bit. She soon had a nice conversation with the owner of the restaurant, and he asked how old she was. She said: 'tengo diecinueve anos' instead of 'tengo diecineuve años'. Everyone who could hear her were laughing like the funniest thing ever happened. She, not knowing what went wrong, asked what she said. The owner explained she said she has nineteen anuses instead of year. After the explanation she had a good laugh aswell.
1 person has voted this message useful



unmaad
Tetraglot
Newbie
India
Joined 6161 days ago

38 posts - 52 votes 
Speaks: Bengali*, English, GermanC2, Hindi
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 40 of 185
03 February 2008 at 1:07pm | IP Logged 
I had spent a few years in Bangalore. One day I had tried to argue with a cab driver in the local language (Kannada) as he was asking for double fare. I tried to start my sentences with 'naan heltaidini..' which I had thought meant 'i'm telling (you)...'. But everytime as i just uttered the first two words he would burst out laughing like a maniac! It was much later that I came to know that i should have said 'naan herltaidini' and what I said actually means 'I'm sh*tting'...;)


6 persons have voted this message useful



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