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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My friend tried to call me a "night owl" because we tended to talk very late at night for my time zone. She accidentally called me a "lady of the night".
EDIT: "lady of the night" is a term for prostitute
I don't remember the details, but a similar situation on a ship with people from all over the world, resulted in my shift being called "vampire shift". It was very suitable too, as I got up at sunset, and my shift was over around dawn. I liked it that way - it kept me out of the sun.
EDIT: This was in addition to the other shifts; day shift (noon->midnight), night shift (midnight->noon), and chief shift (0600->1800). My shift was a weird one that only I had so that I could overlap with both day and night and cover for the chief tech during his off hours.
Kind of like "graveyard shift", which isn't a funny translation, it's commonly used (where I live) slang for the overnight shift. I like "vampire shift" better than "graveyard".
Yeah, honestly I'd keep that one.
We had two female black cats named Midnight and Luna,
When guests would come over ask about our young children about the cats, a child would explain to the adult guests that Midnight and Luna were our ladies of the night, explaining that Luna means moon.
This went on for years.
Friend: You're a talkative owl-whore! 😂
You: ☹️