In the world of sitcoms and dumb movies, a guy going to a foreign land is bound to say something completely idiotic in the strange language.
While shaking hands with a possible business partner, he says, “your rhinoceros is very snotty.”
Or “your mother is pregnant with my baby.”
Then, either everyone laughs while he says, “what did I say?” or he goes about his life without noticing the puzzled looks that follow him.
It’s very stupid. Where did he learn the phrase? What made him say it?
Have you ever, upon meeting a stranger, blurted out a string of vowel and consonant sounds, hoping that it’ll mean something?
Mistakes do happen, of course. You try to say a particular word, but get it slightly wrong and it means something different. Or your accent is bad, and the word you’re saying sounds like something else.
Or you don’t know the exact word, so use other words to get the idea across, and sound kind of silly. Happens all the time.
Here are things that happened to me. Of course, I’m leaving out all the many times that I couldn’t figure out what was being said, or I couldn’t make myself understood. What follows is a short list of the ones I ended up working out.
THEY TRIED IN ENGLISH:
1. CheekBeard. A Dutch guy was cutting my hair and wanted to know whether I wanted sideburns. So he asked, “do you want your…cheekbeard?”
This is probably a direct translation of how the Dutch say sideburns. It cracked me up, and I laughed hard and at some length. The guy got kind of annoyed, and with reason, but I just couldn’t help it. The word tickled me.
2. Potatoes. I was very sick, and stumbled into the doctor’s office. She did some stuff that I can’t remember, then looked at me and asked, “Have you had potatoes?”
Now, I’d been working on this farm for about 5 months, and as far as I could remember, we’d had potatoes every damn day. So I said, “yes, I’ve had potatoes.” Good God, do I have some kind of potato disease?
She put an IV in, and after a while my head cleared. Hepatitis. Have I had hepatitis?
That was the last time I could honestly answer that question with a no and I blew it by saying yes.
3. Caving. The Italian family gathered around, and after talking amongst themselves for a while, the father tried to tell me what they were talking about.
“You,” he said, “you, caving costa ner.” Big smile.
Caving? On the Costa Ner? No. Where’s the Costa Ner?
This one took a long time to get through. Some of this isn’t just a language issue, because they were saying that I look like Kevin Costner, which I don’t.
I TRIED IN FRENCH:
I was speaking to a French-speaking guy about Caracas. I’d never been there, but I was telling him that another friend had called it an ugly and dangerous city.
“Une ville laide et dangereuse.”
The first three words should be pronounced sort of like, “OON VEEYA LED….”
I, making the classic American mistake when speaking French, dropped the ending consonants. Hence: “OON VEE LAY….”
My friend was very confused. I had said, “A life milk and dangerous.”
A far cry from the sitcom lazy attempts, but still pretty funny once we figured it out.
In an expensive restaurant, it slightly bugs me when a waiter doesn’t know how to pronounce a foreign-language item on the menu. Not a big issue, but they should train them better. We look to them for help on these things.
But it’s happened several times that I’ve ordered the Salade Niçoise (pronounced NEESWAZ), and the ignorant waiter has corrected me. “Oh, you want the salade NEESWAH?”
They make the (previously noted) classic mistake of thinking that all French words drop that last consonant, especially when it’s an S.
And finally, every single time I typed the word, “consonant” in this post (including the one in this sentence), I’ve misspelled it and gotten the red underline. Why can’t I remember how to spell that word?
The real annoyance isn’t that the waiter mispronounces the word, but that he corrects your correct pronunciation with his incorrect one.
At one of my previous shops, a Mexican worker asked one of the Mong workers how to say “good morning”, and was misinformed. The next day, he told a group of Mong women that Mexicans had inferior equipment. At another shop, a Russian taught me several greetings, but I didn’t trust him until he encouraged me to try my Russian on his daughter. If I’d ever been a translator, it would have been hard for me to not inject some humor.
It would be so much simpler if people would give up on these silly-sounding languages, and just speak English like civilized folks. It’s easy. After all, even young children learn English.
So, Cathy and I and her family are travelling in Taiwan and we stop at a roadside restaurant. We all sit down and her father announces: “I want to get nasty!”
We exchange nervous looks. Her father is, after all, something of a rake. He looks at us and asks: “Does anyone else want nasty?”
How does one answer this question, when posed by the father of your wife?
Finally Cathy asks him what the hell he’s saying. He repeats it several times to our dismay, and finally walks over to the counter and picks up a can of Nes-Tea.
Nice post!
I’d like to contribute:
My first time in Germany: I was to learn German at an academy in Frankfurt. First day, so: introducing ourselves. I’d learned some German in Spain (where I’m from), so I was able to say:
-Hallo, ich heiße LuÃs und ich bin Schwanger. (Hello, my name is LuÃs and I’m pregnant).
Everyone stared at me and laughed. I’m a guy, by the way… What I wanted to say was:
-Hallo, ich heiße LuÃs und ich bin Spanier. (Hello, my name is LuÃs and I’m Spanish).
Wait…Kevin – no comment about Kevin Costner? Isn’t it funny that you and Rob had the same experience? Kevin gets that a lot in Taiwan or even just among my relatives. Sometimes they call him Kevin Costner but most of the time he’s Bruce Willis.
Shave your head and you have to expect Bruce Willis references.
Yes, I know, I’m late chiming in. I’m lying here in pain and thought I’d cheer myself up by catching up on your blog. Earlier this year when we were in Honduras, we stayed in this fancy hacienda. The hostess would tell us what was on the menu for diner during the day so we could decide if we wanted to eat there or somewhere else. It was the kind of thing where they made one meal and you ate it or you didn’t (no choices). So the one day, she told us they were having “ribs.” Me, being the pious Jew, said, “what kind of ribs?” and she didn’t understand (partially b/c English is not her first language and Spanish not mine but as you’ll see, mainly because of another language issue). I said, “pork or beef?” She still didn’t understand, she kept repeating “ribs” which slowly transformed in our head to “shribs” “shribs” and then we figured it out. She was serving shrimp for dinner. Now every time we’re served shrimp, I ask Rhetick how he likes his ribs. OK, maybe not every time, but enough to keep it fresh.