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Humorous Blunders in Your Target Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7188 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 185 18 May 2006 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Everyone has an embarassing moment where they said something silly in their target language. One of my favorite is when a guy in my Spanish school in Honduras said something dumb and followed it up by saying, "Estoy muy embarazado," trying to say, "I am very embarassed," but really saying, "I am very pregnant."
Here are a couple of mine. What are yours? 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| morprussell Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7160 days ago 272 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 2 of 185 21 May 2006 at 2:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Last week while I was talking to a friend in Peru, I tried to say semicolon in Spanish, "punto y coma". Unfortunately I didn't quite say it right, instead of "punto y coma" I said "puta cama" (whore bed). We both had a good laugh, and I will probably always laugh whenever I hear "punto y coma" in the future.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| winters Trilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 7041 days ago 199 posts - 218 votes Speaks: Croatian*, Serbian*, Russian*, English, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Greek, French, Hungarian | Message 3 of 185 21 May 2006 at 8:02am | IP Logged | ||
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When I was younger, I said something in Russian which made everyone around me laugh. I wanted to say "He asked me...", which would be correct: "On menja sprosil..." However, my mind went just blank and I could not think of such an easy verb, so I used the Croatian verb for ask, which is "pitati", and russified it by saying: "On menja pytal...".
Unfortunately, that sentence in Russian means: "He tortured me." When everyone burst into laughter, I figured out what I said ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6765 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 4 of 185 21 May 2006 at 10:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Not too long ago, I accidentally told a new acquaintance in Japanese that I
disliked eating both taco (octopus) and eki (train stations). I meant to say squid (ika) instead of eki. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sierra Diglot Senior Member Turkey livinginlights.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7121 days ago 296 posts - 411 votes Speaks: English*, SwedishB1 Studies: Turkish | Message 5 of 185 24 May 2006 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was explaining to my Swedish "sister" during her visit to the States why the dog had to stay inside.
I searched for "The dog barks too much" in the depths of my brain's rusting Swedish vocabulary pool. "Hunden skvallrar för mycket," I said finally, convinced that I had come up with the right word, but Emma looked at me like I was an utter lunatic. It was a good ten minutes before we both realized my mistake- I was looking for "Hunden skäller", and had instead told her that "the dog gossips too much". No wonder she thought I was crazy. Edited by Sierra on 24 May 2006 at 4:30pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JFA Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6759 days ago 44 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 185 26 May 2006 at 8:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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These are not so much blunders as they are cute stories:
I was in Florence, Italy and after having gotten settled at a small hotel I stayed at, I asked an employee, who must have not known English that well, if they had any orange juice. After thinking about it and struggling to come up with the right word she said, "Orange juice is forever." She must have meant something like "we always have orange juice." Anyway, if I ever write a book about my travels through Italy (and possibly the other European countries I have visited) I would entitle it "Orange Juice is Forever" with a possible subtitle of "And other Misadventures in Europe." The other story was when I was sitting in a cafe in Cairo, Egypt playing chess with one of the natives. This was before I knew much Arabic. I asked him which piece he moved and he told me, in English, his elephant. At first I was confused, but realized that he meant the bishop. In Arabic (or at least Egyptian Arabic) chess terminology the bishop is called the "fiil" (elephant). Edited by zindiiq on 26 May 2006 at 8:45pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7012 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 185 27 May 2006 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | ||
Sounds as if it would be something Bill Bryson himself would be proud of! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| siromar Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6742 days ago 104 posts - 103 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Swedish | Message 8 of 185 20 June 2006 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
Hahaha, when I was a kid, we had a chess tournament at my school, in which I was a participant. My English was quite good, but as a kid, your second language vocab always suffers due to lack of experience. So I was playing against this British boy, and I wanted to ask him about his previous move involving the bishop. "Did you just move the.......elephant?" "What elephant?" "you know, the one next to the horse" A literal translation of the Arabic names of chess pieces would be: Castle-Horse-Elephant-King-Minister. :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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