Ask Lemmy

I was surprised that my Japanese online friend couldn't differentiate sit and shit... sorry

I was resolving a conflict once and, instead of saying "make up or breakup", I said "make out or breakout". The fact I screwed that up probably helped the conflict cease though.

I have only ever heard the story, but my grandma came over here from Germany after WW2 to marry my grandpa (American Army) after they met in Germany.

Anyway, they are driving and she is learning English and she gets horrified and says, “THEY SELL THAT HERE?!”

My grandpa turns the car around and drive back to read the sign which had “pups for sale”. Because she was German and the U is usually pronounced with an OOH sound, well…she quickly learned how to say “pups” in English.

A work colleague on a few occasions has mixed up “ball handling” and “hand-balling”, easily done if English isn’t your first language!

Slightly morbid academic one.

My computer science professor (who is from Eastern Europe) was explaining an algorithm that he and another professor (from South America) developed. The algorithm processes a graph by first creating a "frame" around it. Since English was not the first language for either of them, the first word they thought of was karkas (каркас, frame in Russian). English word "carcass" sounds pretty much the same, right? but only later, after the work was submitted, they realized they were creating a dead body around the graph.

I've made this mistake and apparently others have as well: the words for lips (kuchibiru) and nipple (chikubi) got mixed up in my head leading to some awkwardness in Japanese.

I was on a voice call with a friend, and people who are familiar with me know that I'll end specific sentences with "eh" when others would use "yeah" or "you know?" instead. For example, "How times have changed, eh?" and "How'd your assignment go eh?"

They took it to mean "what?" or "pardon?" each time, and they asked me if I was confused, and I explained what it meant to them. It was funny in the sense that I assumed people knew what it meant but then I realized some people might actually find it confusing!

Mrs. Ersatz86, native Spanish speaker with (normally) great English skills, to our daughter and I:

Wait, you guys went to the pub without me?

Me: Well, you were at yoga.

Mrs. Ersatz86: Did you at least stop at the liquor store?

Me: Sure did!

Mrs. Ersatz86: Well where's the booze? What am I, shoplifter?

Me: ... blinks...

Me: do you mean "chopped liver"?

Pandemonium.

I was in a sign language class (ASL) around Halloween and the instructor asked if we had ever encountered a ghost. We thought he signed tornado so we signed about times we were near tornadoes while he’s looking on with disbelief and shock and awe about all of our supernatural encounters. We had a good laugh when we figured out the confusion.

My argentenian friend called stuffed crust pizza "the pizza with cheese borders".

Still call it that almost 20 years later.

A student was telling me about their pet dog, but it sounded like "duck." I kept asking questions like, "how did you get a duck? Your parents bought you a duck?" They couldn't tell the difference between what I was saying either. They showed me a picture and that cleared right up.

I was snowboarding with some French exchange students. They used a lot of slang. On the chair lift we saw somebody fall hard and flat, what we might call a “yard sale”. One of them said “Quelle bordelle”. I asked what it means he said “what a mess”. Later that year, my parents also had a French exchange student, and his parents were visiting and they didn’t speak much English. We were at the beach and I was describing all the seaweed from the storm and of course it’s a mess on the beach. His mom was a bit puzzled when I described the seaweed as resembling a brothel. You know, a mess, like trash, refuse, rubbish.

Polish word for "searching" - "szukanie" - means "fucking" (the performance thereof) in Slovak language. This becomes a topic - and a source of amusement and confusion - almost every time people from these countries meet together, because how often these words are used.

We visited an office, and the person guiding us around told us about one of the employees that "it is his first day" - we all misheard this as "it is his birthday". And started to sing...

The Dutch word "poepen" (taking a shit), is a Belgian euphemism for sex. Which is always a great source of fun when making friends near the southern border.

Was in Spain on a Spanish club field trip. I forget what I did as it was years ago but I wanted to express how embarrassed I was about something.

Used the word 'embarrasada'.

Hilarity ensued.

Edit: Oh look! Other people in this thread did the same thing lol. I feel so much better.