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Worst mistakes? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| nicozerpa Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 4327 days ago 182 posts - 315 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English Studies: Italian, German | Message 9 of 23 23 February 2013 at 2:17am | IP Logged | ||
Be careful, the word for bird in Spanish is "pájaro", with A, not with E ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nicozerpa Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 4327 days ago 182 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English Studies: Italian, German | Message 10 of 23 23 February 2013 at 2:46am | IP Logged | ||
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It happened to a Canadian friend of mine who learned Spanish in Mexico. The first time he came to my country (Argentina), he was fascinated with alfajores. An alfajor a confection made by two round biscuits joined by dulce de leche (milk caramel) and coated by chocolate.
One day, when he tried to buy an alfajor in a convenience store, he forgot the name, so he asked for those "panecillos llenos de cajeta" (literally: "biscuits filled with cajeta"). In Mexico, cajeta is a kind of milk jam, similar to South American dulce de leche. Unfortunately, my friend didn't know that in Argentina, cajeta is a slang term for vagina. Edited by nicozerpa on 23 February 2013 at 3:00am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Presidio Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4582 days ago 39 posts - 150 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, German Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Gulf) | Message 11 of 23 23 February 2013 at 4:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Three weeks into my Russian courses at the Defense Language Institute we were informed we would have our first oral exam in front of a group of three native Russian instructors in two days.
We were given typical questions – “What is your name?” “How old are you?” “What street do you live on?” etc. – and examples of possible answers. I lazily planned to use the instructor’s example and say “I live on Red Street.” While studying the night before orals, I watched the movie “2011,” where in it a Russian called an American a ‘chicken’ - ‘курицa.” The next day, in front of the panel, when asked what street I live on, I proudly proclaimed: “Я живу на краснои курицe.” The head of the panel stopped the tape recorder, looked me square in the eye, and said, “Let me get this straight: YOU live…on a red chicken.” It took me a long time to live that one down. -------------------- My other mistake was more unintentional linguistic insensitivity than anything else. When I lived in Berlin as a very young man, I learned much of my German from the girl I was living with. She told me that the German word for ‘sweetheart’ or ‘sweetie’ was “Schatzie.” I decided to use that word in a sentence with her and it was then, while being yelled at for 20 minutes straight, that I learned you never – EVER – refer to your German girlfriend as “My little Nazi Schatzi.” 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4370 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 12 of 23 23 February 2013 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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This happened not too long ago. I was attempting to talk about a department in a university (Abteilung), but instead mixed up a few letters and said (more than once) "Abtreibung," which means an abortion! The worst part was that nobody corrected me or pointed out the error!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4611 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 13 of 23 23 February 2013 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I was first learning Spanish I was living with a family in South America. At meal
time I was often asked "¿Te gustó?" I was confused by the use of the past tense as I was in the middle of eating. In addition,I was confusing the Spanish gustar with the French gouter. I thought they were asking me if I had tasted it before. Since so much of the tropical food was new to me I almost always replied "No." They thought I was the pickiest eater ever. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4601 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 14 of 23 24 February 2013 at 2:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Morgue things in japanese are often considered rude and vulgar, so it wasn't really a surprise to me when I messed
this up, but it was embarrassing none the less... at the time I was hardly aware of how one speaks respectfully of the deceased, but I used "shimatta" which either way translates to "closed" or "damned" but from that situation I learned the handy phrase "naku narimashita". embarrassed, but Im glad I got to learn from it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| milesaway Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4332 days ago 134 posts - 181 votes Speaks: French, English*, Russian Studies: Finnish, Sign Language | Message 15 of 23 24 February 2013 at 7:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had a brain cramp and told my student that I was going snowboarding at farthead mountain. He stifled a snort, and I clued in on the way home that I had gotten the letters of the ski hill mixed up. Ah, Russian.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 16 of 23 24 February 2013 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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When it was apparent that I said something silly (because my skype partner was laughing at me), I followed it up with "estoy muy embarazado." My skype partner then fell out of her chair laughing.
For those of you non-Spanish speakers, embarazado means pregnant, not embarrassed... so I said "I am very pregnant." For those of you Spanish speakers, am I the only idiot that has made that mistake? 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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