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Humorous Blunders in Your Target Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6060 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 | ||
Well, perhaps plastic surgery really can equip you with a new cloaca. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SpaceCakeGirl Groupie United States Joined 5994 days ago 51 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 34 of 185 11 December 2007 at 10:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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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! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rggg Heptaglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6113 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 | ||
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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 :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| labouillie Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6104 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 | ||
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This guy makes a hilarious mistake in Spanish when he confuses sentar with sentir.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=GOokazrlTrs 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6682 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 | ||
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 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| epingchris Triglot Senior Member Taiwan shih-chuan.blog.ntu. Joined 6816 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 | ||
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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 6352 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 | ||
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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 5964 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 | ||
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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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