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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Guy I worked with when younger, at a restaurant, primarily a Spanish speaker. He kept telling me that another one of our co-workers "won the race"... I had no idea what he was talking about. "He win the race, he win it!"
What race? Eventually he expands to say it was easier to say in Spanish, but basically if there was a race to be fat and ugly, this guy would win that hypothetical race.
He was very pleased with himself.
I would love to hear the actual idiom if anyone out there knows it haha
Eventually he expands to say it was easier to say in Spanish, but basically if there was a race to be fat and ugly, this guy would win that hypothetical race.
There's a very similar expression in English: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/take_the_cake