Thread: How badly have you mangled other languages?

There was recently a thread on here asking people what languages they speak. It turns out that many of us are bi-lingual or even tri-lingual.

So with all this learning languages some of us must have embarrassingly mangled another language.

I'll start things off. Two days after I was married my mother in-law (two out of the three) and some of the family flew out from Bangkok to stay with my wife and I for a few days.

One night my mothers in-law and sister in-law were in my kitchen cooking. I wanted to make it known that I liked to cook and this was my kitchen and not my wife's kitchen.

So I said in Thai "This is my kitchen." But I stuffed it up. My wife had been teaching me to talk dirty in Thai and I got confused. What I said was closer to "This is my p&n!s." When they didn't seem to understand I just repeated myself, but louder. It wasn't until one of my mothers in-law was rolling on the floor laughing I realised I had made a mistake.

Now my Thai is a lot better but I still occasionally embarrass myself.

So, how have you embarrassingly mangled another language?

My attempts at French when I was over there last year were an embarassment but the French were most forgiving and actually said they preferred to speak English in my case!

Originally Posted by paydepst

My attempts at French when I was over there last year were an embarassment but the French were most forgiving and actually said they preferred to speak English in my case!

When I went to France, I found they had a hard time understanding accents. They had a hard time understanding me, AND FRENCH IS MY 1st LANGUAGE !!!! (I'm from the province of Québec, Canada; the french accent here is different from the one in France.)

I traveled internationally for a few years on the job and had a really tough time with other languages. I really admire those folks who can speak multiple languages. It was so bad for me that I started carrying a pocket card with a bunch of pictures on it so that I could at least make a little headway. It is just amazing what the little differences can do to a conversation. I asked for a cigar one time in Spanish and thought it would be understood in Rio.......man was that a mistake..........

Have fun,

Lynn

As I wrote in the recent "What Languages Can You Speak?" thread, I'm fluent in English and Hebrew... but the fluency in Hebrew came at a price.

During my seventh year in Israel, we (wife, daughters, and I) moved from Jerusalem to Tel-Aviv... from a very religious neighborhood, to a very secular one. In addition to buying a [gasp!] color TV, we also splurged on a VCR.

Across the street was a "video store", so we bought a subscription for 100 movies. One day I went inside, looked around at the various movies that were available, and got in line.

When my turn came, the young woman behind the counter asked me which ones I wanted to rent. I pointed to the "Ghostbusters" box, and proudly said, "מכסחי שדיים".

She burst out in laughter, tears in her eyes, and managed to say, "לא מכסחי שדיים, מכסחי שדים!"

The difference is that שדים means "ghosts", while שדיים means "breasts"

Thankfully, "Ghostbusters" (the movie) was even funnier!

When I first met the Afghan Brigade Surgeon I mistakenly called him Dr. Dushman not Dr. Dost Muhammad. Dost Muhammad means friend of Muhammad Dushman is Dari for enemy or a badperson. Oops Afghan in the tent got silent, I realized what I said and apologized prophetically.

I was in France on a school trip years ago and a mate of mine tried to say he was embarrassed, got confused, and unfortunately managed to tell a table full of people that he was pregnant..!

Portuguese is my first language. English is my second language. French is the third - but not even close to the quality of my english (which is good enough... but with lots of space for improvements). German is barely enough not to starve to death, Spanish is non-existent (almost) but simply because of that old rivalry between Portugal and Spain. When they visit my country they don't make an effort - when I go there, I don't make any effort as well.
Being in Belgium now, I have lots of opportunities to improve on my French. One of them is... well... at work!
When I came here, a month ago, when I spoke people quinched their eyes, as if making an extra effort to understand my uninteligible mumblings. No embarassement, though...
However, last year, when I came here with a friend of mine (who speaks perfect french) we were at the rain station buying tickets to Amsterdam. He did the talking... However, not being able to keep my mouth shut and thinking that my french was good enough to ask a simple question, I decided to ask the ticket lady how many stops there were before we arrived in Amsterdam. The thing is: because the words "stop" and "fish spine", in french are vaguely the same, and my accent is not so good, I ended up asking "how many fish spines before getting to Amsterdam". Obviously, the lady didn't understand... My friend did, though... and decided to burst out laughing! But nevermind... I mock is English as well.
But let me tell you a story about this friend of mine...
In 2007 we decided to do a bit of traveling, just the 2 of us. We did this Interail thing - 25 days going about in Europe, backpacking and just enjoying ourselves. Of course, all play and no work makes Jack a stupid boy so we decided to take brakes from our fun and do some studying! He went to a Summer University in France and I went to Belgium to do a Composition Course. Anyhow, we met up in Brussels a couple 10 days later and went to Amsterdam and the to Berlin; in Berlin we stayed at a youth hostel in one of those dorms where people come in and go all the time. One night, very late at night (I was sleeping in a bunk bed over my friend - and had bough a watch in the afternoon), my friend was woken up by very intense snoring comming from a bed next to his. He woke up and thought that I had changed beds. So he decided to find out if it was really me... tapping gently on the man next to him, in the dark, he found a watch. Immediately he decided that it was me... So he decided to shake him and say "Francisco! wake up!" Nothing... He then started poking the stranger on the forehead until he woke up! When he started mumbling some stuff in german... my friend realized that it wasn't me. In the morning he told me this story. I was very amused! But then the stranger came into the room (a huge german drunk bloke...) and my friend, with his very poor english, decided to appologize for the previous night's unfortunate events. He said, and I quote: "I'm sorry but last night I touch you. But I think you were my friend!"
Well... I guess you had to be there...

english being my first language.. i mangle it the most.. here's a fun tale from freshmen year in high school..

i was trying to open the restroom door and it seemed to be locked.. so my math teacher strolls by and tells me it's ok if i use the teacher's restroom..
we're both in there standing at urinals when he asks.. "is this restroom much different than the student's?".. for some reason i thought urinals were called janitals.. so i jokingly said.. "we'll the genitals are a little higher up here"... the teacher looked puzzled and said.. "i dunno.. i seen some pretty tall seniors"

english is my first and only language i gave learning korean a shot but man oh man do i slaughter that. i did mange to learn a few phrases though