Mr. Stuff has a good friend who was born in Mexico, and used to spend a fair amount of time with him and his extended family. Once, an elderly auntie was visiting, and he went over to have supper with them. As they sat down, he noticed that Elderly Auntie was still standing, and he kindly said, “Tia, tienes no hombre?”
After a slightly shocked pause, Elderly Auntie burst into giggles, and so did everyone else. He had meant to say, “Aunt, don’t you have hunger?” (hambre) but had asked instead if she didn’t have a man (hombre). Turns out Auntie had married a real idiot in her youth who had beaten and cheated on her, been a complete drunkard, and then run off, never to be seen again. Auntie being a staunch, old-school Catholic, she never divorced him or remarried. Auntie’s nasty husband was never mentioned in the family, so it was shocking for them to hear someone ask her about a man. Luckily, Auntie thought it was hilarious, and went off into gales of giggles at intervals during the rest of the meal, saying, “Oh, tienes no hombre … hee hee hee hee” and wiping her eyes.
This isn’t an error, but it is an amusing (to me) experience in language barriers.
I was in Spain for a 14 hour layover back in May. It was total culture shock; I realize English isn’t universal, but I did expect more people in the immediate vicinity of the airport to speak English. The only people I could get to understand me were the people at the hotel, and one waiter at a restaurant.
After eating lunch at said restaurant, I headed back to my hotel, but remembered I had left all of my toiletries in my checked luggage. It was rather hot, and I knew that I was going to need deodorant, so I searched for a store. The only thing that was open was a pharmacy.
I walked in, and found the pharmacist.
“Habla Ingles?” I asked.
“Solo pocito,” he replied. (Only a little)
“Necesito… [uh…] deodorant…?”
Blank look.
“Uh… deodorant… Roll on?”
Blank look. By now dread is dawning. It begins to occur to me that I’m going to have to do what I really don’t want to have to do.
“Roll on?”
A slight shake of the head to signal incomprehension. Trying to desperately not to laugh, I realize I’ve got to bite the bullet. I lift my arm, and make rolling motions under my armpit. He smiles as he figures out what I want and leads me to the deodorants.
I was just really glad that I didn’t need something else.
Though rarely if ever used at the first person, “il est chaud” or more commonly “elle est chaude” is sometimes used. Meaning “he’s/she’s horny” rather than “hot”.
On our honeymoon, trying valiantly (but futilely) to remember something from high school French . . . Let’s just say, the French word for “ocean” does NOT have a “d” sound at the end. :smack:
Neither does the Italian. And too many people in Naples speak more French than I.
Naples has lovely, friendly, people who are sympathetic to stupid Americans when we admit to being clueless.
“Preservativo” works almost anywhere in Europe, in case something similar happens again. It’s not the correct word in most countries, but a pharmacist would certainly know what you are referring to. (Please don’t ask how I know this… I was a carefree college-age American girl with a Eurail pass at the time.)
For some reason, when I went to live in France for the first time, I rarely had any problems remembering vocabulary when it was needed. However, many of my American friends there did spend a lot of time acting out vocabulary when they needed something specific and couldn’t find it themselves on the shelves. Except for the one trip to Spain and Portugual with Spanish-speaking friends, I also limited myself to countries where I could speak at least the basics of the language. I had no problems with Italian, and I had learned a bit of German in college. Just DON’T make me remember Spanish vocabulary!!!
The French word baguette (a long, thin, inflexible loaf of bread) is exactly the same word as a slang term for a part of the male anatomy that the bread resembles (and for which preservatifs might be needed). No difference in spelling or pronunciation. The only real difference between the words is context, and while my vocabulary was good, I wasn’t so good at understanding context right off the bat…
Living in Japan for 7 years means I have many of these, the following are my favourites:
I lived in far North Honshu where they have the strongest accent and dialect in all of Japan. They will insist on putting an ‘n’ sound in everything. My friend got the word for grandchild ‘mago’ and slang for vagina ‘manko’ muddled up - used to ask this old guy how his vagina was on a regular basis.
Another friend was doing a valiant effort at a whole speech in Japanese to a large school audience - her theme was that no matter where we come from, we are all still human beings. The word for people is ‘nin’ and person is ‘jin’ but mankind is ‘ningen’ - she thought it was ‘ninjin’ and ended her speech with “afterall, we are all just carrots”. The funniest part is that non of the students or teachers laughed, she only found out her mistake when the head teacher asked her afterwards, what the meaning was behind the carrot comment.
I was at a school playing badminton with the kids when I remembered it was payday and needed to take off early to collect it. I got the word for salary day muddled up - salary is ‘kyori’ day is ‘no hi’ but payday is ‘kyurobi’ - I ended up saying it was cucumber day, so have to leave early. My office teased me about it for years - it was always cucumber day from then on.
My Merkin friend was arranging to meet me in the nearby town and we were working out where to me - she said did I know the ‘two door place’ - I said there were heaps of ‘two door places’, but she was adamant that there wasn’t and I knew what she was talking about - after a while she gave up and said another place. When I got there and was waiting for her, I looked across the road and saw the fake ‘Tudor’ place, then suddenly twigged what she had meant.
When studying Japanese some years ago, I told my teacher that all my students were very enthusiastic. She looked a bit puzzled, and asked, “All of them??” Yes, I said, all of them, very enthusiastic. “Even the men???” Yes, I said, especially the men.
At which point she fell about, as I was confusing “nesshin” (enthusiastic) with “ninshin” (pregnant.)
And my friend, also married into a Japanese family, one year volunteered to make the traditional chestnut cream for the new years dinner, only to have all the women of the extended family fall about. Rather than offer to make “Kuri Kinton” she’d offered to make “Kuri Kintama” which is chestnut balls. Even to this day, they eat Chestnut balls with much hilarity every year.
This is actually only used in southern Germany, since it’s not Hochdeutsch. In other parts of Germany you would probably use “kotzen”. In Hochdeutsch it’s “übergeben”. My favorite is the Swabian expression “bröckele lache”, which literally means “laughing chunks”.
In Luxembourg, I needed a ticket back over the German border, to the city of Trier. I know a bit of French so I thought I’d try using it when purchasing my ticket. What I didn’t know was that French has its very own word for Trier, Treves. So what the clerk sold me was a ticket to another place called Altrier.
I’m much too neurotic to make those mistakes - if I think I’m going to get something wrong, I tend to just not say anything at all. It’s a habit I’m trying to break but it’s taking time.
My French teacher’s friend, on the other hand… they were staying together in a hostel. Much hilarity ensued down at reception when her friend asked the counter staff for another sailor in her bed.
Today at work the other Uzbek linguist IMed me and said she had an Uzbek grammar question. So I replied “So’ring.” This was meant to be the polite imperative “Ask!”
But I should haved typed “so’rang,” the word for “ask.” Instead, by mistake I wrote “so’ring,” the polite imperative form that means “Suck!” :wally
(Please don’t ask how I know this… I was a carefree college-age American girl with a Eurail pass at the time.)