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Humorous Blunders in Your Target Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Alfonso Octoglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6647 days ago 511 posts - 536 votes  Speaks: Biblical Hebrew, Spanish*, French, English, Tzotzil, Italian, Portuguese, Ancient Greek Studies: Nahuatl, Tzeltal, German | Message 41 of 185 03 February 2008 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I was learning Tseltal, I had trouble learning how to use transitive and intransitive verbs and how to differetiate when a substantive is a direct object or a noun.
So, when somebody asked me: "What did you eat?", Intead of answering: "I ate chili" (laj we' ich'), I got confused, made a mistake and said: "The chili ate me"!!! (laj swe'on ich') :) In another occasion, a friend of mine wanted to say: "I ride on a horse" (kahalon ta cawo'), but she said wrongly instead: "I'm naked on a horse" (kachalon ta cawo'). As you can notice, she missed one single letter: "c", and that makes a big difference in the meaning. Edited by Alfonso on 04 February 2008 at 9:52pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6225 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 42 of 185 03 February 2008 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
Do you mean 'raid' or 'ride'? If it's the former, you should phrase it a little differently, and if it's the latter, it's a fairly humorous blunder (no offense intended!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cothromóid Triglot Groupie Ireland Joined 5932 days ago 77 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English*, French, Irish Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 43 of 185 04 February 2008 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I got work experience in a French hardware shop last year. Beforehand, I spent a while learning hardware-
related vocabulary in preparation for it. Initially I kept forgetting the word for 'hammer' ('marteau'), so I spent ages after that making sure that it stuck. Because I had learnt it so well, I went around for a week confusing it with the word for coat ('manteau'). One day, as the shop was closing up, I realised that I had left my coat in the office upstairs. I ran back into the shop, and shouted up the stairs to my employer: "Monsieur, pouvez-vous me donner mon marteau s'il vous plait, je l'ai oublié". He came down the stairs with this puzzled look, as if he thought I was swiping the merchandise or something. I went past up the stairs, got my coat, and the penny dropped. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Alfonso Octoglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6647 days ago 511 posts - 536 votes Speaks: Biblical Hebrew, Spanish*, French, English, Tzotzil, Italian, Portuguese, Ancient Greek Studies: Nahuatl, Tzeltal, German | Message 44 of 185 04 February 2008 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | ||
Thank you, I made a mistake. I corrected it already. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rggg Heptaglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6111 days ago 373 posts - 426 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Indonesian, Malay Studies: Romanian, Catalan, Greek, German, Swedish | Message 45 of 185 05 February 2008 at 9:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Ha!!!
A regular lady Godiva :) Off-topic (Humorous Blunders): I'd never paid attention to the Tseltal language, so when I read your post I check it (trabajo en el INEGI) and I was really surprised with the results: 261,084 persons above 4 years old spoke Tseltal in 1990. Even though it's a small figure I expected it to be lower. Take care!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| diamondbacker Newbie United States Joined 5967 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes | Message 46 of 185 18 February 2008 at 9:34am | IP Logged | ||
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- Edited by diamondbacker on 27 October 2009 at 6:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| allesgeht08 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6530 days ago 42 posts - 44 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian | Message 47 of 185 18 February 2008 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my German I class, a boy was trying to say "I want to meet your sister" ("ich moechte deine Schwester treffen"). But he forgot the word for "meet" and decided to Germanize the English one, so it came out 'ich will deine Schwester mieten'. After giving him a strange look, the teacher informed him that he had just said "I want to rent your sister".
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Biene Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 6008 days ago 71 posts - 73 votes 2 sounds Speaks: German*, English Studies: Dutch, Japanese | Message 48 of 185 19 February 2008 at 10:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Another German-English blunter.
One time when I was in England I stayed at a friends place. His mom cooked wonderful meals and I intended to compliment her on her cooking skills. So I said "You are a very good cooker" and not "You are a very good cook". We had a good laugh after she explained to me what I had just said. Apparently you can't always trust your own logic: to swim = a swimmer, to run = a runner, to cook = a cooker... ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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