# Hesitant in Four Languages **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 26, 2002, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005 "2002-12-26T19:01:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gazelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Gazelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gazelle)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/1 "2002-12-26T19:01:52Z")
I’m fluent in English. Or as close as you can get to fluent with a high school education, a love of reading and a penchant for writing. I’m hesitant in four languages: German, French, Spanish and Polish. When I say “hesitant” I mean that I can speak a little of each of those languages. Quite a bit of German, a little French, a scant amount of Spanish and and not much Polish. Since I’m not fluent in any of them, I have favorite nonsensical phrases that I like to use so I can say, “I speak a little X!” and spout the goofy saying, which will usually gets me a laugh. For example: **French** : Voulez-vous couchez avec les hippopotames? - "Would you like to sleep with the hippopotami? **Spanish** : Palabra a su madre! - “Word to your mother!” **Polish** : Dah mye boozhyee! (\<— Not spelled correctly.) - “Give me a kiss!” Anybody else do this? Anyone have a phrase I can use for their language of choice? ---
**Author:** ![Skerri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Skerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skerri)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/2 "2002-12-26T19:09:35Z")
I have a tiny grasp on French. I live with a French guy, and one of my old roomies is French, so I picked up a lot of slang. Most of it is NOT MPSIMS material. 😃 It does not help that I took 5 years of French in high school and college. I learned a little Spanish in high school, but my teacher sucked. I used to work with a Cuban guy who taught me some stuff. My favorite expression is “Su madre trabaja en la calle”, which means “your mother works in the street”. It’s a literal translation that I looked up in high school, so I’m sure there’s a better way to say “yo, your mom’s a ho.” Not really a good conversation starter, but it’s fun to yell it at people when they say something nasty to me. ---
**Author:** ![Gazelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Gazelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gazelle)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/3 "2002-12-26T20:25:41Z")
Oooh **Skerri** , thanks! I’m practicing yours as we speak. Word! ---
**Author:** ![Casey1505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/4 "2002-12-26T20:34:53Z")
Latin–very poor. I remember someone telling me this back in high school: oubi o oubi est me sub oubi (Where oh where is my underwear?) I guess it was funny back then. ---
**Author:** ![White\_Lightning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@White\_Lightning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/White_Lightning)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/5 "2002-12-26T20:43:17Z")
I was hesitant in Portugese for a while, I worked with a bunch of Portugese guys for a couple years so I learned some basic action words and some more… colorful action words. Taking French in HS resulted in a period of hesitancy that lasted about a week into the summer after I graduated. The only French words I can still understand are the ones that are in the script for the movie my friends and I made as our final project in our senior French class. 3.5 years of college Russian courses in my first two years there resulted in a hesitancy that approached fluency during the periods I was taking intensive courses in it and quickly reverted to hesitancy that actually lasted a good while, almost a year after I stopped studying the language I could still understand native speakers almost perfectly, although I was totally unable to respond in kind. Even that has since evaporated, however. I acquired a degree of hesitancy in Spanish in my youth that related solely to soccer conversation, some of which is still accessible (for instance, I could holler at you to “pass me the ball!” at a moment’s notice if I were so inclined), and which I hope to build on to utilize in my new job which features a large Spanish-speaking population. On the whole, I love the application of the term ‘hesitant.’ ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/6 "2002-12-26T20:44:09Z")
My former stepfather, who died about a month ago, had a brother-in-law who once told me an equivalent phrase in German: _“Spazieren mit mir?”_ (“Walk with me?”) ---
**Author:** ![Gazelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Gazelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gazelle)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/7 "2002-12-26T20:55:58Z")
**White Lightning** , gladya like the term. Stuck “fluent” in the ol’ MS Word Thesaurus and out popped this (sorta) antonym. It’s amazing to me that, at one time, I was pretty close to fluent in German… and now it’s gone. I love listening to my dear friend and neighbor speak it to her family members. One time I begged to listen to her end of the conversation on a transatlantic phone call… She was talking to her mother and asked, “Wo ist meine bloete Schwester?” I thought she said, “Wo is meine _blumen_ Schwester?” When she got off the phone, I gushed over her cute nickname for her sister. “Blumen Schwester” would mean “Flower Sister.” She laughed at me: “I said _bloete_ Schwester, silly! DUMB sister!” Doh. **dougie** , what a sweet little post. It produced for me a vision of an idea for a book or movie… Wouldn’t _"Spazieren mit mir?_" make a great romantic foreign movie title? ::sigh:: I’m sorry about your former stepfather, **dougie**. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/8 "2002-12-26T21:11:31Z")
In my First year russian class we used to make endless Russian “yo’ mama” jokes which quite frankly, didn’t make a whit of sense in Russian but amused us anyway. Examples: Tvayoo Mamoo stroyityel = Yo’ mama’s a construction worker Tvayoo Mamoo rabotaet v oolitzee v Moskve = Yo’ mama works in the streets of Moscow. Followed invariably by the ultimate comeback: Tvayoo Mamoo rabotaet v oolitzee v Akademgorodok= Yo’ mama works in the streets of Akademgorodok (a small city in Siberia). ---
**Author:** ![Gazelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Gazelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gazelle)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/9 "2002-12-26T21:14:06Z")
I love “Yo’ Mama” jokes. Those are great. Thanks **Hello Again**! ---
**Author:** ![White\_Lightning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@White\_Lightning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/White_Lightning)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/10 "2002-12-26T21:33:27Z")
**Hello Again** , my trademark phrase in Russian was “eto da.” I used it with such frequency and such assuredness that after a year or two I even had our professors saying it as if it was at all meaningful. Sorry to nitpick, but I so rarely get the chance: I think it would be more natural to put the name of the city in the genitive rather than use “B” and the prepositional. _Tvoya mama rabotaet v oolitse moskvi_ ?? I don’t remember my case endings. Oolitsa would take prepositional plural and Moskva feminine genitive, which I think is … er… the “bi” letter. I know it’s silly to be talking about making such an expression sound “natural,” but it was fun to indulge myself for a moment there. I do wish I could still speak it. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/11 "2002-12-26T21:43:54Z")
Vaya con huevos! (“go with eggs”) ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/12 "2002-12-26T22:15:02Z")
When we invented the “Tvayoo mamoo” joke, we hadn’t yet learned of the genitive case. We were in our first semester! Or perhaps we knew _of_ it, but we feared it greatly. A greater knowledge of Russian grammar didn’t lead to corrections cause… well, you know, tradition. Tvayoo mamoo egraet shakmatey! = Yo’ mama plays chess! “eto da.” … “it’s yes?” How do you use it? ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/13 "2002-12-26T22:41:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ethilrist \* > \*\*Vaya con huevos! (“go with eggs”) \*\* Extra funny because \huevos\ in some dialects has the same ribald overtones that “balls” has in English. I know just enough Spanish to amuse the natives. ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/14 "2002-12-26T23:12:03Z")
I learned Portuguese when I lived in Brazil. When I came back to the US, people were always asking me to say something in Portuguese, but I never knew what to say. Finally, I asked someone what he wanted me to say, and he answered, “Say ‘The dog has a hairy butt,’” strangely enough. So I said, “_O cachorro tem uma bunda peluda_,” and I always say this now when someone asks me to say something in Portuguese. It’s very handy. ---
**Author:** ![White\_Lightning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@White\_Lightning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/White_Lightning)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/15 "2002-12-26T23:44:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by \*\*Hello Again \*\*\* > “eto da.” … “it’s yes?” How do you use it? Anywhere and everywhere. “it is yes” or “this is yes” is universally applicable because it is universally meaningless. **Loopus** , the first phrase I learned in Portugese was _eu no queiro sair sequestrado,_ for similar reasons as you’ve outlined. Sorry for the spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Theobroma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@Theobroma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Theobroma)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2002, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/16 "2002-12-27T00:21:57Z")
C’est la vie C’est la guerre C’est la pomme de terre! (sorry about spelling errors) (That’s life, that’s war, that’s a potato!) Am I fluent yet? …a fellow I knew in college knew how to say “your mother prostitutes herself with goats” in Arabic. I’ve forgotten how, which is certainly a good thing, but it’s one of my favorite creative insults of all time!! ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2002, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/17 "2002-12-27T00:43:48Z")
Japanese: “Gomen nasai, Nihongo tabemasen.” This was good for getting people to leave us alone in Japanese: “I’m very sorry, I do not eat the Japanese language.” Gives the impression that you’ve not only memorized it by rote, but have somehow managed to memorize the wrong phrase. Say it with a Brooklyn accent. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2002, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/18 "2002-12-27T02:00:14Z")
“Ruce vam k posteli svazu” is one of the few phrases I remember from Czech 101 (it was the first line of a rather bizarre song I had to translate). It means “I will tie your hands to the bed,” and I expect it would be quite the conversation stopper if I actually had the courage to use it. ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2002, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/19 "2002-12-27T03:12:54Z")
When I was in French class we used to sing this little song that we made up just because it rhymed: _C’est la nuit Aujour d’hui Et la maison n’est pas fruit_ It’s night today, and the house isn’t fruit ---
**Author:** ![typo\_mna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@typo\_mna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typo_mna)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2002, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005/20 "2002-12-27T03:20:46Z")
[Here’s](http://hcs.harvard.edu/~igp/glass.html) something my high school chum Ethan came up with. It may be of use to you. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hesitant-in-four-languages/145005.md?page=2)