What's your most embarrassing language mistake?
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Original post by Cetacea
That's probably quite common actually! In Spanish to express age you would say 'Tengo 24 años' (literally means 'I have 24 years', i.e. 'I'm 24 years old'). However if you miss out the tilde 'ñ' in 'años' and put 'anos', you are saying I have 24 anuses!
For some reason in Chile (and possibly other countries) most mobile phones don't have the letter ñ. So when new year comes around everyone texts each other feliz ano nuevo (happy new anus).
I was on a rare two-to-one session with my school's French assistant (it was usually one-to-one) and my classmate expressed sadness that his girlfriend had returned to her home country. When the French assistant asked why, I bluntly said 'il peut pas la baiser'.
I meant 'il peut pas l'embrasser' or 'il peut pas lui donner un baiser' obv
I meant 'il peut pas l'embrasser' or 'il peut pas lui donner un baiser' obv
Original post by laurie:)
not me, but when my mum was a french horn teacher in norway, she wanted her students to bring a mirror into every lesson, but kept asking them to bring in a seal, as in the animal, instead - and wondered why she got wierd looks 
Fun lesson, though!
Original post by qwertyuiop1993
Haha that would have been hilarious to witness 
But then again that's the joy of language learning - you get used to making a fool of yourself and after the initial embarrassment you can look back and laugh with your friends (or random people on thestudentroom)
But then again that's the joy of language learning - you get used to making a fool of yourself and after the initial embarrassment you can look back and laugh with your friends (or random people on thestudentroom)
Luckily my mum told about that mistake before I told anyone about it, plus since it was just a French word that I "anglicised" I wasn't going to just use it. It did make some of my friends laugh when I told them though
When I was 11 I went to a Spanish summer camp thing cuz my mom was teaching English. My Spanish wasn't that good but I had no choice but to try. I remember one day one of the guys was waiting for me before heading to dinner but I was taking ages cuz I couldn't find my comb. He came into my room and asked me why I was taking so long and I said "he perdido mi pene" which I obviously thought meant "I've lost my comb!". He literally started roaring laughing and I just kept repeating it, thinking he was just laughing at my accent. The girl I was sharing a room with had started wetting herself laughing too and she came over and handed me a dictionary... Turns out comb is "peine"- I was pronouncing it wrong and had actually been shouting that I'd lost my penis...
Original post by A Mysterious Lord
I was speaking to a French guy in 5th Avenue in Manchester a few years ago. He said he was French so I said "Bonjour". He then asked me something in French but it had been so long since I studied French I'd forgotten most of it, so I just replied "je vide le lave vaisselle" - I empty the dishwasher 
Positive rep purely for being in Fifth
my foreign friend gave an oral presentation in class and said 'genitals' instead 'janitors'.
I meant to say "qué pena!" - what a shame, in Spanish. I actually said "Qué pene!" which means "What a penis!" Thankfully it was my mock GCSE speaking exam.
Original post by rhiam
asked a woman in a shop how much something costed (in italian before i knew any more than than what the phrase-book told me) felt really proud of myself until i realised i had no idea what her response was
haha my 10 year old cousin did the same thing when we were in Montreal!
we were in our hotel and he wanted to go swimming, so he asked me how to say "where's the pool" in French, and then he went up to the information desk and asked them. meanwhile, I was laughing like crazy because I knew he had no idea what the response was!
Can't think of any of mine, but my French teacher has come out with some good ones: "Spacegoat" instead of "scapegoat", and her amazing one yesterday which I haven't stop finding funny yet was:
"Fernandel was a famous French...I don't know the word...you know in English you've got television programmes, you know, like what's it called..."Black Ladder" and "Hello Hello"..."
"Fernandel was a famous French...I don't know the word...you know in English you've got television programmes, you know, like what's it called..."Black Ladder" and "Hello Hello"..."
Genital instead of genial in French oral.
Worst one was in my own language actually.
Went up to my parents and went, "Can I have a nob job?"
...I meant hob nob.
Weirdest moment of my life.
Worst one was in my own language actually.
Went up to my parents and went, "Can I have a nob job?"
...I meant hob nob.
Weirdest moment of my life.
Whilst on a French exchange one of my friends said: "Je suis chaud!" (I'm horny') instead of "J'ai chaud" (I'm hot- temperature-wise).
Needless to say, our French friends were amused.
Needless to say, our French friends were amused.
Original post by jismith1989
There is - jouir (unless of course you were counting that as an idiomatic way to say it).
I revised for my Higher French exams by watching all six series of Sex and the City with French subtitles...I now have a very wide French sexual vocab I never really had the desire or need to learn.
Apologies, it requires a bit of backstory: My friend and I were holidaying in Shetland, and we were taking a journey from the mainland to a place in the far north, called Baltasound on the most northerly island, Unst. This required taking a bus to Toft (a port in the north mainland), then a ferry across to Ulsta (port in south Yell, another island in Shetland), then a bus up to Gutcher (port in north Yell), then a ferry across to Belmont (port in south Unst) then a bus to Baltasound.
We had just taken the ferry from Toft to Ulsta, and were then looking around the bus stops and none of them seemed to have a timetable for a bus to Gutcher. The local tourist information didn't know (
), so one of us phoned the bus company and found out they don't really run a bus from Ulsta to Gutcher, they run one from Lerwick (capital, on mainland) to Baltasound ... but seeing as they were going through Ulsta anyway, they'd stop and pick us up. However, it wouldn't be coming through for about 3 hours time.
Friend and I were killing time by taking photographs of Ulsta (which was quite pleasant) and sitting on a small bridge playing hangman, when we noticed a couple of people kept repeatedly walking between the bus stops and looking confused. When they next came past us, we started to ask if they wanted the bus to Gutcher ... but they interrupted and told us they were French tourists.
No problem! Friend and I both had GCSE French at grade B under our belts, we should be able to give simple instructions, right? Wrong. In very broken French, we thought we managed to get it across that the bus would be at 3.45pm. By 'broken', I mean neither of us could remember how to construct sentences so we said it literally and hoped the message got across; it would be the same as saying to an English person "Bus arrive at *point to written time because neither of us could remember time either*."
The two French tourists then got back on to the ferry and went back to Toft ... so God knows what we said to them, or how they translated it. The worst bit of all was when we got to the hotel in Baltasound, and found two French tourists (who had better command of English.) We'd collected our key and were just leaving the lobby when we heard them say to the hotel manager, "Can we use a phone? We were expecting two friends and they haven't arrived..." Friend and I obviously legged it at this point and started to arrange what we'd say to the Shetland police when being questioned as the last people to see these two lost tourists alive.
It has a happy ending: apparently the two at the hotel got in touch with their friends and found out what happened (we overheard this at breakfast the next day.) The hotel couple did what they were going to on Unst, then later met up with their friends back on mainland. We know this because we saw them later on in the week.
A shorter story if that one was too long or you're not bored all ready: My friend (same friend as above) was taking her French oral exam and wanted to say "The walls in my room are pink." However, she confused the words 'mur' and 'merd' ... and instead said "The **** in my room are pink."
We had just taken the ferry from Toft to Ulsta, and were then looking around the bus stops and none of them seemed to have a timetable for a bus to Gutcher. The local tourist information didn't know (
), so one of us phoned the bus company and found out they don't really run a bus from Ulsta to Gutcher, they run one from Lerwick (capital, on mainland) to Baltasound ... but seeing as they were going through Ulsta anyway, they'd stop and pick us up. However, it wouldn't be coming through for about 3 hours time.Friend and I were killing time by taking photographs of Ulsta (which was quite pleasant) and sitting on a small bridge playing hangman, when we noticed a couple of people kept repeatedly walking between the bus stops and looking confused. When they next came past us, we started to ask if they wanted the bus to Gutcher ... but they interrupted and told us they were French tourists.
No problem! Friend and I both had GCSE French at grade B under our belts, we should be able to give simple instructions, right? Wrong. In very broken French, we thought we managed to get it across that the bus would be at 3.45pm. By 'broken', I mean neither of us could remember how to construct sentences so we said it literally and hoped the message got across; it would be the same as saying to an English person "Bus arrive at *point to written time because neither of us could remember time either*."
The two French tourists then got back on to the ferry and went back to Toft ... so God knows what we said to them, or how they translated it. The worst bit of all was when we got to the hotel in Baltasound, and found two French tourists (who had better command of English.) We'd collected our key and were just leaving the lobby when we heard them say to the hotel manager, "Can we use a phone? We were expecting two friends and they haven't arrived..." Friend and I obviously legged it at this point and started to arrange what we'd say to the Shetland police when being questioned as the last people to see these two lost tourists alive.
It has a happy ending: apparently the two at the hotel got in touch with their friends and found out what happened (we overheard this at breakfast the next day.) The hotel couple did what they were going to on Unst, then later met up with their friends back on mainland. We know this because we saw them later on in the week.
A shorter story if that one was too long or you're not bored all ready: My friend (same friend as above) was taking her French oral exam and wanted to say "The walls in my room are pink." However, she confused the words 'mur' and 'merd' ... and instead said "The **** in my room are pink."
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by TheSownRose
A shorter story if that one was too long or you're not bored all ready: My friend (same friend as above) was taking her French oral exam and wanted to say "The walls in my room are pink." However, she confused the words 'mer' and 'merd' ... and instead said "The **** in my room are pink."
A shorter story if that one was too long or you're not bored all ready: My friend (same friend as above) was taking her French oral exam and wanted to say "The walls in my room are pink." However, she confused the words 'mer' and 'merd' ... and instead said "The **** in my room are pink."
It gets even worse when the word for wall is actually "mur"
A language mistake within a language mistake...TSRception.
Original post by Hype en Ecosse
It gets even worse when the word for wall is actually "mur"
A language mistake within a language mistake...TSRception.
A language mistake within a language mistake...TSRception.
(It's been years and I never did know the word for 'wall'; for all I described of my room, it could just be in plein air.)
Nothing hugely bad...
I used 'puits' all the time when i wanted to say 'well' as in 'well, i'm not sure', turns out it means a literal water-well...
I also didn't know the French verb for 'to hug' and didn't want to use 'serrer dans ses bras' so would always just go for 'embrasser' (to kiss) because it sounded nice... although my friend didn't seem to notice when i'd accidentally ask him for a kiss
Also, i gave a Spanish presentation and used 'sellar' (to seal) when i meant an actual animal seal
Oh, and frequent ignorance of some of the Russian stresses on words means that probably a lot of what i say is incomprehensible
I used 'puits' all the time when i wanted to say 'well' as in 'well, i'm not sure', turns out it means a literal water-well...
I also didn't know the French verb for 'to hug' and didn't want to use 'serrer dans ses bras' so would always just go for 'embrasser' (to kiss) because it sounded nice... although my friend didn't seem to notice when i'd accidentally ask him for a kiss
Also, i gave a Spanish presentation and used 'sellar' (to seal) when i meant an actual animal seal
Oh, and frequent ignorance of some of the Russian stresses on words means that probably a lot of what i say is incomprehensible
When I first arrived to my internship unit, I presented myself. And for some reason I wanted to say "maternal grandfather" (waigong) but ended up mixing it up with "laogong." They all stared at me, then someone asked me "Are you already married?" T.T "Laogong" means husband. >.< I was so embarassed!
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