I was getting ready to catch a plane one day and, as usual, I was practicing my Bulgarian with one of the secretaries where I work. She is a sweet motherly-type of  person about 15 years older than me.

So in my mind I thought I told her, "I have to go home to get my suitcase before I go to the airport."

Unfortunately I sorta flipped two sounds in one of the words and said, "I have to go home to pick up my whore before I go to the airport."

She looked at me for a moment and was so tickled that she started crying before she even started laughing.

I was trying to find the computer lab at the university, but instead of asking if there was a computer on this floor, I asked if there was a computer in this country.  The janitor laughed really hard when I said that.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

The Polish favorite had to do with their dislike of the mandatory Russian classes. The Polish word for 'to forget' (zapomnic) is the same as the Russian one for 'to memorize (zapomnit') So whenever the the Russian teacher would say to the children 'Please memorize this' (Zapomnite eta pozhalesta) the pupils would respond 'we'll forget' (zapomnimy)

Another one from travel in Croatia. It turns out that the Croation word for drink happens to be the Polish word for 'c**t' Creates lots of amusement among Polish tourists when they see the 'tasty drinks' signs and their multiple variations all over the place.

The Czech word for 'love' (laska) means cane or mercy depending on whether the l has a line through it or not in Polish. But in slang it means both 'girl' and 'blowjob' - again lots of potential for problems.

Plenty more like that.

How's this one?

I went to a supermarket in Borgo di Taro, Italy and ordered prosciutto. When the woman behind the counter asked what kind I would like, I suddenly had a brain cramp and couldn't remember the main two kinds of prosciutto. So, I resorted to an old habit which is I began translating from English instead of just speaking Italian. So, I of course asked for "salami duro" (hard salami). The women behind the counter busted out in a cackle that lasted for minutes. Literally. I just slunk away in shame, although I couldn't help laughing as well. (For those of you who don't know, we have two main kinds of salami in the US, Hard and Genoa). The correct word I was searching for in Italian was "crudo" not "duro." Oh well.

My sister-in-law lived in Thailand for five years, and during the first two she always visited the same cafe for her morning coffee with milk. For two years she ordered it at that cafe every morning. Once, when a Thai friend of hers accompanied her to the cafe, she heard my sister-in-law order her usual, only instead of "coffee with milk" she had been ordering "coffee with big heaving breasts." Of course, when her Thai friend burst out laughing, so did all the cafe workers. Oddly enough, they never broke a smirk before. They never corrected her, nor did they embarrass her or ridicule her.

My last incident is a botched pronunciation spoken to my colleagues (academics). For a year I used to leave committee meetings to go to lunch at a nearby restaurant. It was a tapas place. A few times I asked my colleagues if they'd like to come along. No one would ever come to eat with me there. It was very odd. A year later one of my colleagues asked me why do I visit "topless bars" during the school day? This is really a true story.

Mine was in my first weeks in Paris, when my boss told me an acquaintance of ours, a very nice, very proper young English girl, was in Paris but feeling a bit depressed.

I said we should both spend some time with her and try to improve her spirits.

Except that moral, masculine, the word I needed, means "morale" or "spirits"; the word I actually used, morale, feminine, means morals.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

Another funny from my wife: We had the TallShips in Town the other week and she was doing the Liaison Officer on a Latvian Ship. Picking up a few words she learned the word for bridge: Tilt (sp?), Now living in Newcastle we have a bridge that tilts,

now you can imagine the endless hours of Vodka induced happiness that the simple sentence: "tilt tilts" caused.

I like making up words that don't exist. So one day I had to give a presentation in my geography lesson and did not remember the word for deficiency. Mangel.
Now I did know what excess meant: Ueberschuss. So, German being a logical language, where there is Ueber-schuss, there has to be Unter-schuss as well. My class was howling.
(ueber-over : unter - under)

Curiously, I don't remember such a story.

What came closest to it was embarrassing in hindsight, when my parents pointed out an error in my interview in a local paper when in Germany. (I broke the top score record of my school in a national maths competition; but for the record, this was a second-level high school I ended up in instead of gymnasium(=top level), due to my initial lack of language skills; and I crashed out of the competition at county level.)

They asked me about what I want to be when I grow up, and I said 'astrologer'... instead of 'astronomer'. (I was clueless because in Hungarian, the corresponding words don't have the Latin origin like in most other European languages.)

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

My first job in Germany was as a dishwasher at a restaurant-cum-biergarten in, um, the greater Munich region, and one day I needed a new sponge.

Now I was aware that the German word for "sponge" differed from the polite term for female genitals by just the letter "w", but I wasn't quite sure which was which. So eventually, I picked one and walked up to the (woman) boss of the restaurant intending to ask her for a sponge.

What actually came out of my mouth - and within hearing of the entire staff of the restaurant - was "Chefin, haben Sie eine Scham für mich?"

Just like that, the whole kitchen went silent, and everybody looked at me. And instantly I realized - I should have used the word with the "w".

"Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut

I have two from recent adventures:
First, I went to a Swiss book store and asked for a book on birds. A vögel buch...but ubeknownst to me, vögel is a slang word for sex (the "f" word version)...so the gal took me to the shelf on birds, and said, "Is THIS what you are looking for?" When I told my friends, they all howled, wondering if she might have wondered if I meant the brown covered book version instead...

Second, I was buying bread, and meant to ask for potato bread with nuts, but instead of saying nuts (nüssen), I said "mit nissen", which means, roughly "with spit, or with phlegm"...the bread lady didn't laugh, but did quickly correct me...my wife had a good laugh though ("eewww!!)

Half the population is under the age of 18. Tanzania's future is NOW...join the 50% campaign!

I can't think of any faux pas which I have made persoanlly since I've been living in Italy as an American expatraite (not bragging, I just can't think of any at the moment).

But there is one hysterical incident which involved  a cousin of mine which might be worth telling.

An Italian cousin who came to visit me in the US about ten years ago. I decided to take him up to the Adirondacks becasue he is an extraordinary lover of nature and espcially the legendary "mountains of America".

He was also very fond of American vulgarities for some reason and developed the aweful habit of contantly saying "Fuck you, asshole" even on the most inappropriate occasions.

So while we were traveling throuhg the Adirodacks, we stopped off at a McDondalds to get a bite to eat. My cousin ordered a hamburger and fries. The girl behind the counter accidentally hit the box of fries with the back of her hand and some of the fries ended up all over the counter. My cousin looked at the fries and shouted, "Fuck you, asshole!!" because that's what he thought Americans always said when somehting went wrong. Obviously, the girl behind the counter was shocked and I stood there dunbfounded and embarrased, not knowing what to say.

I remembered something funny that happened to my father. When we were in Germany, he wroked in one room with a funny German. Once, someone knocked on the door, both of them asked "Who is it?" at the same time - but, as my father was in a funny mood, he asked that in Hungarian. But, to his surprise, so did his roommate!

It turned out that the roommate was actually asking "Who is it" in French, in bad French - he asked "Qui est-ce?" with German accent, i.e. a (French) z instead of s+c.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

There is a district in Japan by the name of Kinki. There run the famous Kinki Nippon Railways. The train takes you to Kyoto and Osaka. Enjoy the ride when you have a chance.

I will become a patissier, God willing.

I was in a bar in Nice a long, long time ago when an American walked in and stunned the bartender (and all patrons within earshot) with the declaration:  "J'ai baisé une bière."  (I fucked a beer.)  What he really intended to say was "J'ai besoin d'une bière." (I need a beer.)

Well in Romania I've had many embarassing moments because of the word for "lemon".

The correct word is "lămâie" which is only slightly different than "lămaie", which is slang for the uhhh, physical evidence of a male orgasm.  So I've ordered drinks "with ice and" the other substance, until I managed to get the hang of emphasizing the "â" sound.

If I'm a little drunk I just say "with fruit" and then they say "with lemon you mean?" and I say "yes" and the problem is solved ;)

Pax

Night and day you can find me Flogging the Simian

I notice all of these wonderful tales involve more than one language.  I only speak English, but why let that stop me?

I was working for a modem company in California when I took a call for my boss from a guy in Texas.  This guy had a really strong accent -- not the clipped Texas of Bush, but the draaaawlin' Texas.

I got his number and asked for his name and company.  He said his name was Jim from...  Albion?  Odeon?  I could not figure it out.  After the third time I said "I'm sorry could you spell that for me please?"

There was this big long pause.  He covered the phone and I heard muffled whispers and laughing.  He came back and said "Yeah, it's spelled Ahh - Beee - Eyumm."

I realized with horror that I'd just asked the guy to spell IBM for me.  I never lived it down with my boss.

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

Many, many moons ago I was in the Norwegian airforce.  A couple of colleagues met with other officers from NATO-countries - in this specific case - from Denmark.  One of them introduces himself as Lt. Kneppen (which was true) - but in Danish, 'kneppe' means f**k.  He got a slap in the face.

In a supermarket in Trier,

"Wo ist die badezimmer?"

I was really looking for the watercloset, but the Americanism was to ask for the bathroom.  I was 16 and fresh into learning the language so i had little of the nuances.

The poor clerk looked at me like I was silly.

I said donkey instead of year in French, got mocked pretty bad.

I somehow can't remember my personal gaffes. I do remember the fun people had with my German at the beginning of my research stay. I was fine for discussing my work, others work and so on. Practical stuff on the other hand was very rusty, so I'd end up with various convoluted phrases 'triangle thing you hang clothes on' when I wanted to buy hangers, 'thing on the bottom of a room, opposite of ceiling' for floor.

I do remember one from my sophomore year roommate, a Japanese guy who actually spoke excellent English, but when stressed did the Japanese thing of mixing up r's and l's.  In a polisci class he had to deliver a presentation on American elections... you can guess the mistake.  After the first few titters he realized what he was doing and started ad libbing for better effect on the various deficiencies in American erections...

I was the youngest member of a design team for a new refinery unit in backwoods China.  We had a business dinner with all the old timers from the Chinese side and our little team.  I had been told the words for waitress (Xioa Jie????? -- been a long time) but got the inflections wrong and called the young lady a chicken.  The whole table nearly peed themselves laughing (in a nice way).  

My wife's favorite was describing herself as "spunky" to a British real estate agent.  That was a real ice breaker!

instead of saying, "i envy you." i said, "i WANT you." judging by the reaction of the guy i was speaking with (raised eyebrows, eyes POKING OUT, smile ear to ear), i knew something was amiss... ~

ptinfrance

my personal favourite: when i went into the local village hardware store -ferramenta- and asked for some thumbtacks - drawing pins in english.
 it came out a mix of mistranslated english and american: 'tacchi a spillo' - literally tacks with a pinpoint - only problem is that phrase in italian means ' stiletto heels'.

i still cringe at that shop....

kidding, we had a huge guffaw about it, and many more since.

similar topic -sorta - italy has a weird way of imitating english/american in a particularly cheesy way, hysterical once you get that,  it's everywhere, tho' i can't think of any examples right now,  duh.

there is the bus company in siena whose name is TR.AIN, which i'm sure is very helpful to the tourists, while giving the merchants another day to sell paliokitsch while aforementioned tourists turn up to the bus station and are staggered to find no trains.

there is a tractor parts factory down the road whose name is MEAT.

you get the drift...

luckily i find this hilarious, as there is an abundance of this through the looking-glass stuff.

Peace is not the absence of war -- peace is the absence of fear. Ursula Franklin