Job Discussion Forums

[El Gallo]

Part of the fun of learning and teaching another language is the inevitable bloopers students make trying hard to communicate and thinking of the right combinations of words to make up a sentence. Different word meanings and idioms add to the fun.

Yesterday, I needed a cable with stereo mini-jacks (male) on both ends. I went to the electronics store and ask for "cable con las dos colas masculinos" (I didn't know the correct adjective is "machos"). After the store clerks tried not to laugh at me and after a further lack of communication, I said in frustration, "cable homosexual" They laughed louder but immediately understood what I wanted.

In a vocabulary test with the words "parents" and "blow,' one student wrote "I am going to a party with 30 of my parents" (false cognates "parientes" and "parents" Another student wrote, "My mother blows me when I'm hot".

Maybe we can start a thread here with some of your favorites.

[thelmadatter]

These stories are great. I tell my students some of my bloopers in spanish (they are college aged)... I

When I was dating this guy some time back I sent him a little hand-drawn map to my house. I wanted to say "little map" and I knew that "mapa" was masculine... so I said "Voy a enviarte un mapito" (pito is slang for male appendage). The guy and my students find it hilarious.

Who was the person way back when on this forum who was out looking to buy "grocerias"?

[Guy Courchesne]

[MamaOaxaca]

My two favorite stories come from another person, not that I've never made bloopers, but mine tend to be boring. (sigh)

There is a town in this region called Putla, you see where this is going right. And there is one street in our town that is the transportation hub of the region, you can catch a bus or van or taxi to just about anywhere from that street. Each bus station, taxi stand and the like have a "shouter" who shouts out their destinations. So this teacher, a very petite older American women was walking down the street, and as she was passing a man he shouted "�A Putla!" This very petite older American women was not about to let anyone get away with calling her that. She totally bawled the poor bewildered man out, going on and on about how just because she was foreign it didn't mean that she didn't know what he was saying.

The same women told me a story that happened to her in Argentina. She had taken an overnight bus and they were arriving at their desitnation. To prepar for arrival, she got out her comb, only she couldn't find it in her bag. She asked her seat mate and those in front and behind her if it hadn't fallen on the floor. She was very upset at the idea of losing it, because her mother had given it to her and it had previously belonged to her favorite grandfather, it was very important to her as it was the only momento she had left of her grandfather. Only she didn't get the pronunciation quite right and was going on and on about her grandfather's pene. The whole bus was laughing.

[ls650]

If you're talking to a Mexican woman in Spanish, if you want to tell her that she has beautiful eyes, be really, really careful.

I'm just saying, is all.

[samizinha]

One of my students said that he needed to expose himself the other week... what he meant was participate in an exhibition
I've made terrible bloopers in Portuguese... at age 17, telling my host mom that I was going to look for nice Brazilian camisinhas (condoms) instead of camisetas (shirts). I also had trouble pronouncing p�o (bread) and regularily asked my family to pass the pao (wood/dic*).

[seanie]

Students':

"If you come to my house, you must eat my meat."

(A KET student wrote this to practise modals. I think it was because I'd told them I was a vegetarian.)

"I wash my bush."

(A written answer to an exam question about daily routines.)

"The man is up the woman."

(A student said this in a PET speaking exam. He was describing a photo of a man giving a woman a piggyback ride.)

mine:

When I was in Puebla as an exchange student, I went to the market to buy 'fibrous cheese' (queso de hebra), but ended up asking for female cheese (queso de hembra). The people at the cheese stand roared with laughter, and one guy jokingly said he sold only male cheese:-)

peine & pene: (I meant to say the first word; my interlocutor heard the second)

belga & verga: (ditto)

colleagues' and their students':

me vengo instead of me voy

vergas duras for verduras (this one was reported to me...)

"I like to pull off at the side of the road." (student writing)

"Please close your arse." (in a role play... student meant to say "eyes")