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")

[danielita]

I was in the market and I wanted to buy dice. I asked the sales clerk if she had any "dedos"

One of my students told me about when she was in Canada and wanted to buy a coke from the vending machine. She put her money in, but was missing $0.10. The machine, knowing she was missing the dime, prompted her on the electronic display with the word "dime", so she leaned in close to the machine and said "una coca cola por favor.."

[Ben Round de Bloc]

A friend of mine, who's in the beginning stages of learning Spanish, ordered agua de pene instead of agua de pi�a in a restaurant. Good pronunciation though. The waitress lost it and had to walk away and come back a few minutes later to finish taking the order.

[Ben Round de Bloc]

Another friend of mine, who was having problems with his feet and needed to see a podiatrist, told us that he needed to make an appointment with a ped�lago.

[Aabra]

I always enjoy teaching the phrasal verb "put away". Guaranteed fun.

[lozwich]

I went to a wedding on the beach last year, and was having a great time telling a friend all about it when she started rolling around laughing. Apparently I'd said we were all on the beach without our underwear, not our shoes (which is what I meant).

In the town where MamaOaxaca lives, there's this nice old bloke who sells ice cream at lunchtime. One day he had tequila flavoured ice cream. I asked for a co�o de tequila por favor.

And once, a very long time ago, when I had an excuse to be speaking Spanish so badly, I asked how much the waiter would pay for me, rather than how much my share of the meal was.

More bloopers to follow this week: I'm on a lot of painkillers just now, which make my Spanish very hilarious indeed!

[Aabra]

Actually I almost forgot about the classic.

Ask your friends (probably not appropriate for students) to translate the following sentence into Spanish:

"I want to see gas."

[bradipo]

When I first came back to the states, after studying abroad in Mexico, my mexican boyfriend at the time wrote me in English. The letter in general had some mistakes but I attributed it to his level of English. At the end of his letter he wrote "you strange" which I at first thought was odd (though probably accurate) until I realized that he must have put the letter through an on-line translation.

I had also told him one time that I really wanted Egyptian sheets, in a later letter he promised to give me Egyptian sh*ts.

On my part, when I was in Mexico I told my mother in law that wanted to buy bread without "preservativos"

[jillford64]

On Saturday nights here in Morelia they showcase the cathedral with a little festival of music, fireworks, and lights. I tried to tell my Mexican girlfriends that I was going to go watch the cathedral get lit up, but I ended up saying I was going to go watch the cathedral get set on fire.