If you've ever interacted with someone who speaks a different language, what is the funniest misunderstanding you've had?
If you've ever interacted with someone who speaks a different language, what is the funniest misunderstanding you've had?
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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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.
I enjoyed this because it took me a second to think what a not-dried prune is: a plum.
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 😂