One of my classics: I needed to see a doctor – I think it was just to get a check up for the upcoming school year – and walking through my neighborhood in Berlin, I saw several doctors’ offices and picked one at random. A woman.
I went in and asked to see the doctor. The receptionist told me to wait. The doctor, an attractive young woman, came out and asked me what I wanted. I told her I was there to get a check up. She said, “ich bin ein Frauenartzt.” I knew that. Frau = woman and Artzt = doctor. Female doctor. I told her it didn’t make any difference to me if my doctor was male or female. At that point, she broke into laughter, and spoke in English, “A Frauenartzt is a gynecologist.” I learned a new word that day, and can still hear her office staff howling in laughter as I scurried out.
Another example: An American woman friend of mine was meeting her German boyfriend’s parents for the first time over a nice dinner at his house. The mother casually mentioned that certain foods don’t taste as good unless they are straight from the farm. My friend, eager to agree, and speaking fairly decent German, said that the same was true in American food and mentioned how in the USA they put “preservativen” in jam, preservativen in bread, preservativen in mayonnaise and even preservativen in ice cream. She noticed the dead silence at the table until her boyfriend cracked up laughing and explained that “preservativen” is not the German word for preservatives, it is the German word for condoms.
I am told that when I was in Germany, I was blithely asking shop clerks if I could purchase their services, rather than enquiring about the cost of an item.
This isn’t a classic error but it became one in my family.
When I was a pre-teen kid just learning english I knew what a prostitute was and I had just recently learned what a substitute (teacher) was. See where this is going?
So, proud of myself for learning what a substitute is, I came home from school and announced to my parents that I had a “Pro” today in school. Yes, “a Prostitute”, I said with a big proud smile. My uncle and aunt who had been living in Canada for many years were over for dinner at the time asked if I meant “Sub”, as in “substitute”. It then suddenly dawned on me and I was mortified for days. :o
In the summer of 1998 I read in the paper that the new culinary craze in Taiwan was Egg Tarts. So I asked my students where I could get some, and asked how I said “egg tart” in Chinese. It was “dan tar” … but of course in Chinese, the tones are everything so I worked very hard to get my pronunciation right.
Finally satisfied, I walked into the bakery, and (I thought) very clearly stated what I wanted: “Wo shi dan tar.”
No response from the teenage girl behind the counter.
Slowly, again “Wo shi dan tar”
She smiles embarrasedly, but says nothing.
I ask a third time, and now she’s giggling.
“Ni jidao dan tar ma?” <do you understand “egg tart”?>
She nods, and giggles. I’m getting annoyed.
“Okay… wo shi yige dan tar.”
Finally mom walks out, and I turn to her and repeat my request.
She laughs out loud, and corrects my Chinese.
See, I was so worried about pronouncing “dan tar” correctly, I wasn’t thinking about the rest of the sentence. Instead of saying “I want an egg tart,” I had been repeatedly saying, with increasing fervency, “I am an egg tart.”
In France, I was in a pastry shop and wanted an apple tart to go with our picnic lunch. I was proud of my ability to speak French (at least culinary French), but this pride vanished when I asked for a tarte des pomme de terre (potato tart) instead of a tarte des pommes (apple tart). The pastry lady was gracious and didn’t ridicule the dumb American who thought she could speak the language. And the apple tart was spectacularly good.
this is actually my brother’s mistake which i found amusing
Shortly after i arrived, i needed to show him something, so i said in my best (but practically nonexistant and not very good) German “comst du bitte” and he replied why are you calling me stupid ? because what he heard was “come stupid” – and he speaks German fluently ! :smack:
I lived in San Antonio for a while, and my Spanish wasn’t too great at first. Once when I was in a little Tex-Mex restaurant, I got a big laugh when I said “soy muy caliente” instead of “tengo mucho calor.” What I meant to say was “I’m very hot” in the sense of “Today is a hot day, and I’m sweltering.” “Soy muy caliente” is more like “I’m hot to trot” or “I’m a real hottie.” :o
I lived in rural France when I didn’t speak much French, and I met a girl, who told me a little bit about her family. I expressed some consternation when she told me that her father was an avocado.
“Your father’s an avocado, you say?” I asked her (in my bad French.)
“Yes.”
“Your father is an avocado,” I repeated. “How can your father be an avocado? How is it possible?”
I went on for quite a while in this vein. The French word for lawyer is “avocat.”
I was in a snooty French restaurant and thought I would ask the waiter where the ladies’ room is, in snooty French. I asked in loud, ringing tones, “Où est l’abattoir?”
Which means, of course, “Where is the slaughterhouse?”
I was working at a barn which also employed several nice Mexican men. One night they had us (staff) over for dinner. Attempting to compliment their cooking, I said “Mmm, muy peligrosa!” (very dangerous!). I meant to say “mmm, muy sabrosa” (mm, very delicious). They tried to hold back their snorts of laughter, I was mortified.
When I was in the Peace Corps, I made so many language flubs that I think the locals were thinking about building a comedy club around me.
I was constanctly getting the word for church and toilet confused. I would ask someone to meet me at the village church and they would be standing by an outhouse here or there.
The language was a tonal language and for some reason the tone and word for penis was surprising close to turtle (a wonderful food that only occassionaly becomes available) but when it did, it was a safe bet I was calling it by the other name. It got to the point that even when I got it right, people would giggle remembering a time when I didn’t, and because I thought they were giggling because I said it wrong, I would say penis again and as the song goes, “start the whole world laughing,” again.
A high school spanish teacher of mine (not a native Spanish speaker) once walked into a McDonald’s and mistakenly asked for a McPolla instead of a McPollo. See, a McPollo is a McChicken. And a McPolla is a McPenis.
I once, at a special holiday family dinner with grandparents present, announced that I was constipated in the most vulgar terms possible. I meant to say I couldn’t ski.
A common error in Danish was to say “I’m drunk” when you meant “I’m full.”
In an office hour session with my Russian TA (who was adorable), I said something so awful that he wouldn’t tell me what it was. When I said it, he got this weird look on his face and said “I beg your pardon?” I wish I knew what I said, but I’d probably want to die, so maybe it’s for the best.
I am forever messing up my Japanese by concentrating on trying to put my limited vocabulary to use, and forgetting basic grammar.
The number of times I have declared to an order taker that I am a salsa burger or a bottle of red wine is past funny and into embarrassing.
I also have a disturbing habit of replying in coffee shops to the question “what would you like?” with “is that coffee?”
One little slip-up that’s always good for tittering from Japanese people is the Italian toast “chin chin.” That happens to be a slang word for penis in Japanese.
As I’ve never had a Spanish lesson in my life, I think asking a Spanish shopkeeper “Do you speak matches?” instead of “Do you have any matches?” was excusable :smack:
