this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024
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An example of what I mean:

I, in China, told an English speaking Chinese friend I needed to stop off in the bathroom to "take a shit."

He looked appalled and after I asked why he had that look, he asked what I was going to do with someone's shit.

I had not laughed so hard in a while, and it totally makes sense.

I explained it was an expression for pooping, and he comes back with, "wouldn't that be giving a shit?"

I then got to explain that to give a shit means you care and I realized how fucked some of our expressions are.

What misunderstandings made you laugh?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

My work once sent me to Madrid. I only have some high school Spanish.

I had a cold at the time and soon ran out of cough drops. My coworker told me where I could buy some more, and what to ask for.

When I got to the store, apparently I misremembered what he told me to say. I said to the woman, "quiero caramelos de mentales."

She looked at me confused. I tried again, slower: "caramellos...de...mentales?"

She seemed a bit alarmed. She said something in Spanish. I said "lo siento, no comprendo."

She called over her coworker, who asked me "what are you looking for?"

I said, "cough drops." She looked confused. "Cough...drops? What is it?" I tried "caramelos de mentales" again, no success, just confusion.

Then I remembered I had some wrappers in my pocket so I pulled one out and showed her. Suddenly they both beamed with understanding. "Ohhh! Caramelos mentolados! You were asking for 'brain candies.' She thought you wanted something illegal."

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

In Spain, my first real long-term girlfriend. American. We are visiting some of my relatives. She speaks passable Spanish. My aunt ask her something. She replies that she's embarrassed, but she uses a "false -friend", Embarazada, which means pregnant in Spanish. Me knowing what was going on, let the thing run for a bit. When explanations came there was a hilarious bit of manga size eyes and laughs.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

My favorite anecdote revolves around the many meanings of shit, which is hardly surprising, since the way this word is used in English is in no way forthcoming to a non native speaker.

So I was sitting in this call between my company (a medium size German tech company) and a big US corporation, discussing the development of a tool that we were doing for them. The people on both sides all knew each others at least in passing, and one of the people asked if one of my collegues was in the call, too.

Them: "So, is mr. X here, too?" Us: "No, mr. X had another appointment." Them: "Ah okay. Mr. X really is the shit." My collegues: wait...what? did they just...? Me, to my collegues: it's good, it's good, it wasn't an insult! My collegues, getting more and more aggrevated: "Did you just call mr. X 'shit'?" Them, not understanding: "What? NO!"

The Americans did not understand what the problem was, because they did not really think about what they said and that it might not be understood the way it was meant by a non native speaker.

It took a lot of explaining from my side after the call to cool my people down. They were completely bewildered, and they could not believe that calling someone "the shit" could possibly be a compliment. Me, I had a big big laugh the entire time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I've had a few weird exchanges with my wife, although we both are native french speakers.

Turns out the word we use in Switzerland for prune (the fruit) is only used for the dried version of the same fruit in France. Perfect set up for a strange conversation about baking until we found out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I enjoyed this because it took me a second to think what a not-dried prune is: a plum.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Ah! You know what? I looked for a translation of the damned word... without trying to translate the word for plum, as it is obviously the same word in my head 😅

Thank you for letting me know 😂

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago

The other day there was a girl on the train responding to the conductor saying "Nächster Halt, Itzehoe" (next stop, Itzehoe), which sounds exactly like "It's a hoe". She went "It's a what!?" with her companion cracking up immediately.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

my now wife is american. i learned uk english. one day we and some friends sat in a team speak voice chat. my now wife asks where XY is. i tell them, that they left to smoke a fag (which is uk söang for smokeing a cigerette). She was very concerned to say the least.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

no spouse of mine is gonna be friends with a homophobic killer

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Well i am non binary but we best fit the lesbian lable. doesnt matter at all, i just wanna do my part to prevent lemmy to become heteronormative. we already had that on reddit to an annoying amount ^^

But thats what i assume her thoughts were based of the speechless reaction xD

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Shit I'm a non-binary lesbian too and I did a heteronormativity 🤦‍♀️

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Asking for a specific dish at a restaurant in Japan whose name was also the name of that very dish. They thought we were asking if we were at the right place, but we were actually just trying to order some. Or vice versa, I can't quite remember.

I think it was anagomwshi, on Miyajima island

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It was actually nonverbal - I didn't understand the so-called "Indian head wag." Working with a lot of programmers from India, I was often faced with that sort of gyrating head gesture while explaining something. To me as an American it kind of means well yeah sort of, or okay but not really - but in India it indicates understanding, like a simple head nod in America. I couldn't figure out why so many people seemed to think I was being unclear. I would repeat things or say them in a different way, and sometimes they would do the head gyration even more - turned out they were just saying okay.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Me. A white boy teenager.

My best friend. Child of first gen Chinese immigrants. Fluent in Cantonese and English. Compared to his parents, he is very westernized. Can I call him a Twinkie? I mean, we aren't friends anymore, but that seems like an "our word" kind of word, and that's not mine.

Anyway...His parents own a Chinese restaurant. He gets me a job there in high school.

One day, my friend calls to me by my full name. One of the chefs hears it and repeats it to confirm what he heard.

It's at that point, dear reader, that my friend realizes that, if said with a Cantonese inflection, my last name sounds exactly like a common vulgarity of that tongue.

I won't say what it is, because it's a pretty uncommon name. But I will say that for several weeks after that, every single time I walked into the kitchen, I'd be greeted by all the cooks like Norm walking into Cheers.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Can I call him a Twinkie

The asian term for it is 'banana'. Yellow on the outside, white on the inside. (Before the pitchforks come out, I'm one myself).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

As a black guy I've been called "Oreo" for the same reasoning.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

It's coconut for Indians and South Asians.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

I've never had that sort of thing while personally interacting with people who speak other languages. However, when deployed I used to hear people speaking other languages regularly. So it wasn't that they were communicating directly with me, but I used to love overhearing what they were saying and "bad translating" it to english. And that was hilarious.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

Have a coworker who regularly says "Choca my life," to brush off little annoyances. He'll also say "Choca your life" in a sing-song gallows humor way to express sympathy for annoyances other are going through.

Anyway, I had just started at the job and we were having a Thanksgiving lunch where everyone was going to bring a dish. I was going to bring a Sopapilla Cheesecake and he was excited about it, but the night before the meal when I went to turn the oven on it wouldn't heat up (turned out to be a bad breaker).

The next morning I'm telling the story and appologizing for not bringing the desert, and he comes up and says "Choca your life!", which I hadn't heard him say before.

What I heard was "Choke on your lies!"

I was thinking this guy was serious about his cheesecake.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Apparently roasted corn is funny in Spanish. 🤪

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

One of my 2 am cringe memories involves loudly asking my 3rd grade classmates if anyone would like a kiss.

I meant the chocolate.

I also had a fun experience in Belgium where a guy at a bar approached me and we each just tried different languages until we landed on one that we both knew. (I know this is common in Europe but you don't run into this in North America as often)

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