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Worst language/translation mix-ups | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| slymie Tetraglot Groupie China Joined 5229 days ago 81 posts - 154 votes  Speaks: English, Macedonian Studies: French, Mandarin, Greek Studies: Shanghainese, Uyghur, Russian | Message 9 of 18 02 December 2010 at 9:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've done this a few times, usually when I mix up words I REALLY mix them up.
Once I was in class and a Vietnamese classmate of mine walked in, looking pretty sick. He told me he was going to run to the shop to get a face mask (in Mandarin - 口罩kouzhao) as to not spread his sickness. When the teacher came into the class, I explained to him why he had left (他去买口交了）"He went to buy..... 口交- oral sex." I realized the slip 0.05 seconds after the words left my mouth. Another time I was in a restaurant and needed napkins and I yelled to the waitress "镜子jingzi" I meant to say 棉纸jingzhi. Luckily the waitress didn't hear but my date did and the look on her face was priceless. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6895 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 18 02 December 2010 at 10:30am | IP Logged | |||||
餐厅【cāntīng】 dining room; restaurant. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gosiak Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5127 days ago 241 posts - 361 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Norwegian, Welsh | Message 11 of 18 02 December 2010 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7016 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 18 03 December 2010 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
Could you please explain for the benefit of those of us who don't speak Mandarin? Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5856 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 13 of 18 03 December 2010 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
镜子 is mirror while 棉纸 is napkin. Yeah, it takes some time to get use to those similar yet different sounds. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5472 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 14 of 18 03 March 2011 at 7:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I heard a new funny/embarrassing story that just occurred yesterday in Montreal. My French tutor has a new student,
an American businessman who is a complete beginner at French who came here to work on a new hospital project. He went into a café to order a coffee and asked for "un très grand café" and was puzzled when the server placed before him three large coffees. When he said he only wanted one, she said that she heard "trois grands cafés". Edited by microsnout on 03 March 2011 at 7:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5179 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 15 of 18 03 March 2011 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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On Green Tea in Poland you can see "基督耶稣" which means "Jesus Christ".
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| aabram Pentaglot Senior Member Estonia Joined 5534 days ago 138 posts - 263 votes Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Mandarin, French | Message 16 of 18 04 March 2011 at 10:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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From personal experience I can't recall anything extra horrible apart from mixing up
he/she, perhaps my brain has blocked out the embarrassing ones. I do remember wondering back in old days why is that particular song called "Tom's dinner" when there's nothing about food there in the lyrics. Only when one native corrected me, she herself dying of laughter, that the song really is "Tom's diner", it started to make sense to me. I do recall one curious mistake my friend made in Finnish. She was visiting the home for the elderly as a part of professional visit and at one point she asked "Montako vanhusta asuu yhdessä ruumissa?" (How many elderly live in the same corpse?) when she really wanted to ask "Montako vanhusta asuu yhdessä huoneessa?" (How many eldery live in the same room?). The culprit here is devious false friend between Estonian and Finnish, where Finnish "ruumis", meaning the corpse, is similar to Estonian inessive "ruumis", meaning "in the room" or "in this space". Hilarity ensued among the locals. This is so typical situation between these two languages, one could probably fill volumes with this kind of stuff. From recent years one of the top runner-ups has to be that Welsh city of Swansea with this road sign depicted here in BBC News. Edited by aabram on 04 March 2011 at 10:53am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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