Second language oopsies?

[shadowmouse]

Many of you have probably had, or encountered, problems with second (in some cases third, fourth or more) languages. What were some of the more memorable ones?

Signs in China almost aren't a sporting target. They are often mangled by the printer -- "posh to open" on an emergency exit, for example. Well, hey, maybe the note was in bad handwriting, it was *almost* right!

And of course there is the "kids say the darndest things" factor. I was teaching a group of 10th graders many years ago. "Teacher, do you like beer?" "I like beer, very much!" "I have beer in my bag, do you want to see?" Dreading the result, I said yes, because if a 10th grade girl had a bag full of beer it was my responsibility to do something about it. Yep, she reached right into her school bag and hauled out her b.e.A.r. With great relief, bungee went on to review vowel sounds for the rest of the lesson.

It isn't as if I haven't mangled my own share of words. I read widely as a kid, but that left me with a vocabulary that included words that I never had to use out loud before I just gave up and started hanging around college students. It was the early days of D&D, the first boxed set, we were trying to figure out how to down an encounter and I wanted to remind them that I'd won the roll for an item a couple of weekends before -- a brazier of controlling fire elementals. "Hey, do you think that brassiere would help? The one for controlling fire elementals" Took a while for the laughter to die down enough for someone to tell me the importance of distinguishing z and s sounds. Me: "Oh, brassiere is a word I know, but I never had a reason to say brazier before, I just read it." And that was true.

Then there was that time I was studying German over next to Monterrey Bay, just up from Cannery Row. One of the guys in the class had a laps and screwed up the Bier/Wein rule, causing him to declare there was a sniper "scheissen durchs Fenster". To shoot is schiessen, scheissen be something else.

Then there is the fun of jet lag combined with the stress of being out on the streets of (then West) Germany for the first time and trying to get some important things for the apartment. Sleeping on my air mattress wasn't going to cut it for three years, so I set out to buy a real one. Mattress -- die Matratze, what could go wrong? bungee sets out, keeps discovering that although he'd studied German, High German was not what older people (keep in mind this was in the mid 80s) in Stuttgart were prone to speak. After a few unintelligible encounters with Schwaebisch my German, still fresh from the classroom, started to slip and there I was, trying to find a Matrose. Got some strange looks!

More recently, I spent too much time in a Chinese hospital, where nobody really spoke English. That left me, with my trusty phone app (yay! Pleco) to try to sound things out and look them up. A new doctor was looking me over and my helper, a guy from Inner Mongolia who barely spoke standard Chinese, asked her which department she was from. He knew I was tired of being the training dummy for new students. I was relieved to hear that she was really a doctor from another department doing cross training, but I heard her to say her specialty was "neiku". WTF? Closest Pleco could give me was neiyiku, and I was pretty sure (at least hopeful) that she *was not* a doctor of underwear! Once she was done with my bandages, ten minutes of mangled Chinese with helper guy and Pleco got things straight for me... neike (internal medicine). Well, that was a relief!

Surely, some of you must have a tale or two!

[rad586]

Writing "Sweat!!!" instead of "Sweet!!!" in guild chat .......

[Afrospinach]

And of course there is the "kids say the darndest things" factor. I was teaching a group of 10th graders many years ago. "Teacher, do you like beer?" "I like beer, very much!" "I have beer in my bag, do you want to see?" Dreading the result, I said yes, because if a 10th grade girl had a bag full of beer it was my responsibility to do something about it. Yep, she reached right into her school bag and hauled out her b.e.A.r. With great relief, bungee went on to review vowel sounds for the rest of the lesson.

I encountered almost this exact situation while I was at school. I cannot remember the exact scenario but the class was trying to guess a word or something. Mine happened to be "bear". This guy kept on telling me "beer,beer beer". I dismissed him out of hand because I thought he was an idiot. Turns out he was just an Aussie.

He was utterly dismayed when moments later someone who could actually talk said what he thought he said lol.

Writing "Sweat!!!" instead of "Sweet!!!" in guild chat .......

That is pretty tame

During vanilla we were having a discussion about healing and I piped up that "druids are better at nigger heals" in G chat. Of course, N is right next to B on the keyboard. Actually I am not even sure that was true, just priests never really(or our ones anyway) used G heal.

[Freighter]

Does it count if you do not understand why people react so harshly? If so, the word ugly and how harsh people react to it, especially if you're talking about skin color.

I'm told I pronounce egg with an a, so a lot of native English speaking people can't understand that I actually say egg.

I used to say I'm boring instead of I'm bored, I didn't know it was supposed to be bored. Had people tell me no, I'm not boring at all. Made me confused.

[shadowmouse]

Turns out he was just an Aussie.

Interesting, thanks! She might well have had an Aussie teacher at some point.

Does it count if you do not understand why people react so harshly? If so, the word ugly and how harsh people react to it, especially if you're talking about skin color.

I recall an event or two, I'd say it counts. My students also have trouble with bored and boring, it isn't just you. Egg isn't too bad, I had a student who wanted to go to the zoo to watch the animals' ass -- "their ass are beautiful" Right, she meant eyes!

[ellieg]

Not second language but dialect. From Maryland, took a trip to California. They laughed at how I pronounced things. Specifically "phone". Apparantly I draw out the "O" and it sounds like "phowwwn". Also people in Baltimore area sometimes pronounce water as wood-er

[mikepic]

I was learning to count in Spanish as a kid. I mispronounced the word for 8 (ocho), which pronounced is very similar to the slang word for a woman's privates.

[Mordog]

My native language is German.

I was visiting Croatia last summer for Vacation.

With the people there we spoke english.

On the third day right after we arrived at the restaurant i got the urgent desire to use the toilet.

a bit stressed i asked the waiter: May i use your closet plz? ( probably because in Germany we sometimes say " Klo" and closet was the first that came to my minde)

The waiter was performing a very funny show and asked me why i want to piss in his closet...

Was a bit embarrasing but funy for my friends

[Sooba]

Classic one for English-speakers to make in French Canada is mispronouncing "poutine". It's common for French words to end with a silent "n" where you kinda push the vowel sound out nasally. So if you're not used to French and trying to practice, you might not realize that "ine" doesn't do that. Instead "poutine" becomes "putain" that way, which means slut/whore, etc. Now go order one of those at your local burger joint...

[zlygork]

Wasn't really me, but for a few years, my father kept publicly referring to me as "Elle" (She) instead of "Il" (he), because in spanish, "El" means he, and "Elle" sounds exactly the same, fucking with his brain. It annoyed me so much back then.

[Chonar]

Hmmm. In Classic, I didn't understand why the Emperor's cloak had no graphics.
They tried in vain to explain to me it was a reference to "The Emperor's New Clothes".
But I had grown up in the Netherlands, where it's very, very easy to grow up never hearing about that fable, ever.

I guess thats more of a cultural oopsie than a language one.

[Aggrophobic]

I get picked on every day for my less than perfect pronunciation but it's getting better.
The waiter at our local restaurant also still asks me if I want "the news" with my chicken, every time. It's easy to mix up the words for rice and news and apparently I did that more than once.

[Freighter]

I recall an event or two, I'd say it counts. My students also have trouble with bored and boring, it isn't just you. Egg isn't too bad, I had a student who wanted to go to the zoo to watch the animals' ass -- "their ass are beautiful" Right, she meant eyes!

Remembered another one, when someone flaming me in Overwatch on US servers and I asked if he's okay, they heard Are you gay? and started laughing at me.

[shadowmouse]

@Jinro I think @Afrospinach has you beat on the gaming oops, but people hear what they expect to hear and yours is a good example of that. It reminds me of the thread about whether "idiot" was what the guy said.
@Aggrophobic You have my sympathy. Among other things, apparently I have Godzilla delusions and aspire to devour whole districts in Beijing. Why the heck to go and eat have to sound so much alike to my elderly ears?

[Exkrementor]

Writing "Sweat!!!" instead of "Sweet!!!" in guild chat .......

To be fair, there is no real pattern on how to pronounce certain english words. If you dont know how a word is pronounced then the odds are high that you will mispronounce it.

Gauge, Butcher, garage, barage, iron, colonel, cache, niche

If you only heard those words you are probably spelling them wrong and if you only read those words you are probably pronouncing them wrong.
English is not the most logical coherent language.

[Katie N]

From my friends perspective in Australia.

Her: Where are you Katie?
Me: I am at the bitch.
Her: Sorry, say that again?
Me: The bitch.
Her: Where?
Me: The fucking bitch.

I didn't know how to say beach.

[Lochton]

Think my only oopsies would be switching language mid-talk. Could have some full out talk in Danish, then suddenly, English..

[Dwarfhamster]

From my friends perspective in Australia.

Her: Where are you Katie?
Me: I am at the bitch.
Her: Sorry, say that again?
Me: The bitch.
Her: Where?
Me: The fucking bitch.

I didn't know how to say beach.

Golden.

/10char

[Arenis]

Back in 2006 I created a warlock named 'Rapedsoul' because I did not know the difference between raped and reaped. Understandably, I got a forced name-change like a month or so later.

[Pikay]

@De thuong

We were on vacation a couple years ago in the Dominican Republic. The hotel staff announced loudly over the speakers that there's a bitch party this evening and everyone is invited to join. I almost peed myself (okay, maybe because I was drunk as hell).