The Armenian word for kiss is batchik. Pronounced out loud, it sounds like “butt cheek.” If I ever hear someone saying “Give me a kiss” in Armenian, I’m going to think “Kiss my butt cheek.”
If the people of Nagoya, Japan detect an unusual interest by Russians in their city, it’s probably because nagoya is Russian for ‘female nude’.
Belgium
I’ll never forget the amusement when, in eighth grade French class, we learned that the French word for a chalkboard eraser is “le tampon.”
In fact, the word embarazado means “pregnant” in Spanish.
It’s a long way from embarrassment to pregnancy…
Robin
In pretty much any language other than English, there’s a word pronounced something like “preservative” that means condom.
Claiming that one “roots” for a specific team could be rather embarrassing in Australia.
Embarazada, surely. Hard to imagine anything other than female being pregnant.
Visiting Denmark this summer gave me some words that aren’t quite polite in English. Their word for a clearance sale is slutspurt. Books are bøger, pronounced more or less “booger.” And whipped anything is skum.
I dunno about Denmark, but a quick walk through Ikea will demonstrate that a lot of words that must sound okay in Swedish sound…not okay in English.
“I’d like to order a Turd bookcase, please. And the Rektum dining table in maple, with 4 Kumragg chairs.”
Well, if we’re getting into nitpicking, male seahorses can get pregnant.
The word phoque (pronounced something like /fuk/) in French simply refers to a seal (the animal). Definitely a different meaning than the English word with a close pronunciation.
A joke used by Willy Shakes himself:
“Pucelle” (as in “Joan la Pucelle”) is French for “virgin”, but a “puzzel” (pronounced the same way) was 16th-century English slang for a whore.
My husband was trying to send an email at work that kept getting bounced back to him. Finally he realized it was because of a spam filter. He was writing in Swedish – and used the word “slut” (to mean “end” or “finish”).
Brilliant filter for an major international non-governmental agency to be using. :rolleyes:
English German
Fart - Fahrt (Trip) Habe Eine Gute Fahrt. Have a good trip.
Gift - Gift ( phoenetically) poison. The wine bottle has dust on it…oh…it must have been gift wine." (german relations giggle as it was indeed a present and indeed not all that good.)
And the governor of California.
I always wonder if World Champion figure skater Irina Slutskya’s last name has the same giggle potential in Russian as it does in English.
the Polish word for Aunt is chocha* …
in Spanish chocha an impolite term for a woman, just change the first letter of aunt.
*not sure how it’s spelled in either language.
I once commented to my (fluent English-speaking) Russian friend that it was a good thing Irina wasn’t raised in the US because she would have been teased something fierce. My friend gave me a blank look. “Because of her last name,” I said. Still blank. “Slutskya.” … Nothing. “SLUTskya.” … “Ooohhhh. Yeah.”
Language-context can make otherwise giggle-worthy things seem totally innucuous. Different neural pathways and all.
Der Gross Fahrt is the German title for the western The Big Trail.
Some people are not sure how to pronounce the surname Fuchs. It’s fooks, and is German for fox.
In Latin class we had to decline the verb facio “to make”. We were taught to pronounce it with a hard “c” (unlike in altar boysm, where the Church Latin gave is a “ch” sound). So the guys would address each other out of class:
“Hey, facio!”
“Facio, too!”
I thought it was pronounced Fewks.