What is the most embarrassing thing you were told you said in a foreign language?
Mar 19th, 2002, 02:33 PM
#1
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What is the most embarrassing thing you were told you said in a foreign language?
True story:<BR><BR>When I was in Japan, I had the opportunity to attend the wedding of one of my business associates daughters. My interpreter had instructed me on how to tell the bride that she looked very beautiful. Unfortunately, being that I was at a wedding in a five-star hotel, I had also been instructed on how to ask a beautiful woman if she had a room in the hotel and would she like to go there.<BR><BR>Guess which line I used when greeting the bride in line? You guessed it (and if you know Japanese, you know how similar these two sentences are).<BR><BR>How about you? (Especially those of you who travel a lot: BookChic? StCirc? Rex? Elavine? shrimp? Come on now, out with it!<BR><BR>Dr. Al
Mar 19th, 2002, 02:48 PM
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Well you know there's always the stories about how you said "Estoy tan embarazada" when you wanted to say you were embarassed, and you really said you were pregnant. But the best one was when I went to buy a box of Tampax in a little store in Mexico and I said "Los quiero", thinking I said "I want these". Of course I really said I love these!!!
Mar 19th, 2002, 02:59 PM
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On my first trip to Paris (last year) my frat buddies told me that before ordering in a restaurant, the formal greeting to the waiter should be (excuse my spelling in this next part): voulez vous vous che avec moi, se soi? Yes, I know I'm stupid. Not only was I not familiar with the song, but I should have NEVER believed ANYTHING those guys told me. Anyway, I stupidly said it at the first restaurant we went to and, fortunately, the waiter simply laughed and then replied: "from the university? Could have been much worse.<BR><BR>Pete
Mar 19th, 2002, 02:59 PM
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Author: Walter ([email protected])<BR>Date: 03/19/1999, 06:58 pm<BR>Message: <BR>In 1973 I was a 19yo in the US military and was stationed in a little town 32km from Athens. I had only been in Greece for a few weeks when my roommate's Greek girlfriend set me up on a blind date. The woman was a couple of years older than me and very prim and proper and worked in a bank. During the evening when the band went on break she asked me if I had learned any Greek. Proudly in the now quiet club I started speaking words and phrases that I had memorized but it takes a few seconds for the words to translate in my mind their true meaning. Well intermingled with the hello/goodbye, thank-you, you're welcome etc. were a few *words and phrases* I picked up from my navy buddies in the barracks. Lenny Bruce would have blushed. The expression on her face (and stares from the next table) told me I had just given her "the blind date from hell" story, that to this day I'm sure she still remembers. I never saw her again
. Regards, Walter<BR>
. Regards, Walter<BR>
). Look at the time stamp.
Mar 19th, 2002, 03:15 PM
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Not too embarrassing, but I remember a confused waiter in Spain that kept repeating to me that I was in a restaurant, not a hotel. Being used to Mexican Spanish, I was asking for 'el bano' instead of 'el servicio.' He wondered why I wanted a bath, I guess.
Mar 19th, 2002, 03:32 PM
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This is a secondhand story, but I heard (from my Russian teacher)of an American who was toasted warmly by his Russian hosts at a banquet. Afterwards, he rose to reply with one of the few Russian words he knew, a heartfelt "Spaseeba! (Thank you!)" Instead he said "Za peeva! (For the beer!) He learned later why it got such a big laugh.
Mar 20th, 2002, 06:45 AM
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My husband, who speaks German, thought he could manage in Flemish and used to order me a glass of "rot wijn" on our first trips to Brugge. After we started taking Dutch lessons, he learned he wasn't asking for red wine, but for BAD wine. <BR>BTilke (Brussels)
Mar 20th, 2002, 07:18 AM
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The scene: An incredibly elegant apartment off the Champs Elysée, home of the aristocratic parents of my only French friend. I and my parents arrive for dinner bearing a large bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums (our first mistake - it was only my second time in France and I didn't know all the social customs yet). After the initial look of horror at the flowers passes, we are greeted, kissed, welcomed and ushered into the drawing room, which is overflowing with 17th-century antiques, velvet drapes, lots of brocade.... The hostess, a very elegant and austere woman, turns to me and says "And how are you?" And in my best French I answer "Je souffre un peu de la décolletage, mais très bien, vraiment, et vous, Madame?" <BR><BR>I realized immediately that I had just told her I was suffering from a plunging neckline.......not jetlag, as I'd intended.<BR><BR>The first time we went on a tour of the cave in Domme, the owner brought his dog along with him. We asked what the dog's name was, and the man said "Pluto." My husband looked at him and said, in French, "what a very strange name! There must be a story behind that. Do tell us?" The man looked at us and said "You don't know about Pluto in America?" My husband thought for a moment, and said, "Well, in America we speak English, so we don't have the word "plutôt." The conversation the vortexed into total incomprehensibility until my husband looked at me and said "Let's drop it. I just don't understand why anyone would name a dog after an adverb." It's kind of a "you had to be there" story, but we still LOL when we recount it.
Mar 20th, 2002, 09:01 AM
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Not me, but a friend.<BR><BR>When I was a student at BUY in Utah, I had a good friend from South Africa. They learn "British" English in school as a second language.<BR><BR>My friend was in Religion class taking one of those horrid tests where you have to fill little circles with a No. 2 pencil. She changed her mind, wanted to earase a circle, but didn't have an eraser. She tapped the shoulder of the guy sitting in front of her and asked,"Do you have a rubber for me?"<BR><BR>His eyes about popped out of his head, he turned ten shades of red and turned around without answering. It took her several minutes to figure out what she had said!
Mar 20th, 2002, 09:08 AM
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Well,<BR><BR>I still have trouble with my Italian double consonants, which can lead to some unfortunate understandings. Thankfully, these have only happened with my Italian teacher, not a stranger while I was in Italy.<BR><BR>The problem is essentially this, in English we tend to ellide the sound of double consonants -- in other words, there is no noticeable difference in spoken English between "nn" and "n."<BR><BR>In Italian, unfortunately for me, there is a world of difference. For example, the sentence "Ho ventotto anni," means, "I am twenty-eight years old." If, however, the double-n's in "anni" are not pronounced properly the sentence could be heard as: "Ho ventotto ani." Of course, this means you've just told someone that you have 28 anuses.<BR><BR>This, to say the least, can be slightly awkward.<BR><BR>There is one other nasty mistake that is made frequently by tourists: don't mispronounce "penne" (if your ordering pasta, for example), as "pene" is actually Italian for "penis."<BR><BR>Oh dear, the beat goes on.<BR><BR>Rob
Mar 20th, 2002, 09:30 AM
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Several years ago after travelling for a week around England my husband landed in the hospital for several days. By then his laundry was pretty well used and he asked me to take his Tshirts and underwear to the laundry saying he'd ask the nurse for a "johnny" to wear to bed. That evening I phoned him from my hotel to say goodnight and he told me of the strange reaction he got when he asked the nurse for a "johnny". Seems the Brits call it a dressing gown... and a johnny is a condom.
Mar 20th, 2002, 11:00 AM
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In response to the 'penne' question, the pronunciation is pen-neh (accent on the 'n'). And yes, I too did that 'ani' thing until friends in Milano set me straight (as it were).<BR><BR>In regard to the condom story, I have the Italian variation on the theme. I had just moved to the Italian countryside and knew VERY little Italian (not something I recommend). One day, I went into the 'panificio' (bakery) and having a hankering for whole wheat bread, I tried to convert an English word into an Italian one, which frequently works. I said, "C'è pane senza preservativi?" Unfortunately, as I discovered later, I had asked for bread without condoms. One might ask: Is there any other kind?!<BR><BR>The moral of the story is, Beware of false friends!<BR><BR>Ciao e buon viaggio a tutti!
Mar 20th, 2002, 11:45 AM
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setting: The cafe area of an inn in Bordeaux. <BR><BR>After biking, I wanted to wash some clothes. I go to the innkeeper and ask in French"<BR><BR>"Where is the laundry" which roughly translates to "la blancherie" or "the room of the white wash".<BR><BR>Immediate laughter from him and several patrons of local origin. I try again, even more laughter.<BR><BR>I was later told that I asked "Where are the White Women?"
Mar 20th, 2002, 03:01 PM
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My wife and I worked in France for a number of years. She started off there as a shift supervisor in a factory. One evening she was on break with her fellow supervisors, all hard-hat sorts of guys. They were getting to know her particularly because as a female supervisor in a French industrial facility she was a rarity, and an American, all the more so. <BR>One of them asked her if she had any hobbies.<BR>She replied, "Non, je n'ai pas des hobbies," which is correct French (if you allow for the fact that the French borrowed the English word "hobby" some years ago).<BR>However, in French you need to know when to make what's called "liason", which is the slurring of two words [des hobbies] together when the second of the two starts with a vowel sound. This was the case with "hobby" since it is pronounced "oh-be" in French. <BR>So, she made the liason which sounded like, "Je n'ai pas days-zobi."<BR>Well, unfortunately, zobi is crude French slang for "dick" or "cock", so there she was telling all these guys that she had no cock.<BR>They laughed like hyenas, one fell out of his chair, and through their tears said, "Yeah! We know!!!" in good French.
