St Attila-
“Dear Will: The Plums were poisoned.”
That is the funniest thing i have ever read on this board.
I don’t know who you are but I love you and I will worship you forever and ever and always and read all your posts and be a real live Fan.
Thank you thank thank you thank you
And sorry to everybody else for the massive hijack but I had to say something right away or my small intestine would have shot out of my ass from laughing so hard.
An Italian colleague often adds and subtracts h’s. When he says he’s “hungry” it comes out “'unrgy”, and his accent sometimes makes this indistinguishable from “angry” and he always speaks very vehemently.
He:“I am 'ungry!”
Me:“Really? Why?”
He: [looks at me like I’m an idiot] Because it is almost two o’clock and I 'aven’t 'ad my lunch!"
Me: [backing off] Well, geez, that’s not my fault!
We also once had a Swiss friend totaly confused as to whether it was “Venus” or “Wenus.” Usually I don’t think it’s funny to make fun of somebody’s accent, but him saying, “Weenus, Weenus!” over and over had us laughing so hard that it was hard to get him straightened out.
This is one thing I can’t understand.
I’m Australian, we were at some place doing a tour in the US. My mother said “I think I could get your job we’ve been through so many times”.
The tour guide looked at us like we were mad and said “You like my hat?!?!?!”
We had a good laugh about that for weeks.
A friend of mine told me that he had a friend from france once get mad at him. He says she kept yelling at him over and over what sounded like “I ate you mike! I ate you!”. He says he taunted her over that for days.
My grandmother does some funny things from time to time. She’s Filipino, and in the Philippines, the languages lack the f sound, so Filipinos substitute p (the national language is “Pilipino”). So, at my parent’s wedding she sang a song, it went…
“Peelings, noting more den peelings, peelings of loveeeee”
When my family was in England, my mom asked a policeman for directions to the tube. He answered:
“Well, walk down here, and turn left on mine street…”
My mom kept repeating “Mine street?” with an expression of absolute confusion and befuddlement and he kept answering “Mine street.”
We politely dragged her away as it was obvious to t he rest of us that he was saying “Main street”. We still tease her about it.
My high school Spanish teacher was from El Salvador, and used to be extremely careful when she pronounced words with a long e sound. She explained to us that when she first started teaching, she had once asked the students to “take out a shit of paper,” and the class went out of control.
I had a friend from Denmark ask me about a city in the western US.
“Fernicks.”
“Furnace?” I asked.
“No, Fernicks. Arizona.”
“Oh, Phoenix!”
This isn’t exactly a mispronouciation, but our Portuguese babysitter liberally mixes English and Portuguese when she talks to the kids. She likes to tell the story of the irate parents who demanded to know what she was teaching their kids. Seems one of the had asked for a table knife at home.
The Portuguese word for knife is “faca.”
*Originally posted by Turpentine *
Cool. I’m holding you to that 'cause it’s going in my sig.
Hey, Ell, I got a book on speaking 'Strilian, so I’m getting better. “Oi reckon oil have a share nare and worsh the solt orf.”
Yeah, Astroboy, I pity the Japanese for the limitations their language imposes on them sometimes. I had a Japanese guy ask me if he was in Gilbert Hall the other day. You can imagine how much fun that was for both of us. “Girubatu.”
See the website http://www.engrish.com for more stuff like this.
*Originally posted by Ell *
**This is one thing I can’t understand.
I’m Australian, we were at some place doing a tour in the US. My mother said “I think I could get your job we’ve been through so many times”.
The tour guide looked at us like we were mad and said “You like my hat?!?!?!”
We had a good laugh about that for weeks.**
I don’t understand that. 
I’ve got two. An Italian co-worker was talking to an American female co-worker he had just recently met. He asked when her birthday was, she replied September something and he said “Oh, your a virgin too!” (meaning Virgo). Another was the French VP of sales giving a presentation to the English speaking staff. He made several statements like “…we must focus on new business…” and “… we must focus on quality…”. He probably used the word “focus” around 20 times, and each time it sounded like “fuck us”.
My fiancee (Japanese) keeps pronouncing “see” as “she”, which caused her to announce in a Burger King, “I’ll go upstairs and take a shit” when she meant that she would look for an open seat.
In fairness, I make similar mistakes. The word for ‘closet’ in Japanese is ‘shire’, which sounds very similar to ‘shiri’ which means ‘ass’. At first I wondered why my fiancee and her mother laughed so much when I told them where I put my coat…
A weekly variety show in Japan (Karakuri Super TV) has a regular segment making fun of how many Japanese speak English. Recently, though, they turned the tables by having foreigners try to speak Japanese. Their first victim was a French guy who couldn’t pronounce the letter ‘h’. He quickly caught on to what they were doing and told them “H ga dekinai” which he meant as “I can’t make the ‘H’ sound.” Most Japanese, however, would translate his explanation as “I am unable to have sex.”
–sublight.
Man, I haven’t laughed like this in a long time!
An Indian friend of mine had invited me over to her place one time. She asked me if I would like some wotka and juice. I thought it was some concoction from her country. I’m always willing to try anything twice, so I said sure. Imagine my surprise when she got out the VODKA and orange juice!
An itialian friend of mine in Texas had some of her family visiting from Pennsylvania. There is a major road near her house in Texas named Pipeline street. (Yes, as in Pipe Line) Her italian family thought it was pronounced like “Pippalini” street.
OH!
MY!
GOD!!!
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard!!!
“No Smorking?!?”
AAAAAHHHHHHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahahahah!
When we lived in California, my German grandparents came to visit. My grandfather asked repeatedly to see “The Big Sewer.” It took a lot of effort for my mom to keep a straight face when saying, “Sure, we’ll go to the Big Sur.”
LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!
I haven’t seen a funnier thread in ages!
My sister was doing her patient information interview with her new doctor, an older man with a very thick Greek accent. Everything was standard questions (“Gout in the family?” “No.”) and she was bored until the question:
“Do you fall in holes and die?”
Woke her up.
“What?”
“Do you fall in holes and die?”
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”
“Do you fall in holes and die? You know, do you eat organic foods?”
“Oh, do I follow a holistic diet?”
“Yes, yes, yes. That is what I’ve been saying!”
Um, not quite.