this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024
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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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[–] Vanth@reddthat.com 142 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

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

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 37 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] Vanth@reddthat.com 25 points 2 weeks ago

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".

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[–] rudyharrelson@lemmy.radio 105 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Not my story, but one a friend told me.

Someone had the misconception that there was a huge, huge sector of labor dedicated to working in cemeteries in the USA. Like almost everyone knew at least one person who worked at a cemetery. This misconception arose due to the ubiquity of the term "graveyard shift" regardless of the actual job being performed.

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[–] tunetardis@lemmy.ca 89 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

One time when I was a kid, we went on a long car trip and a thunderstorm approached. My dad said, "Don't worry about the sound. It's the light that kills you!" My Japanese mom was not cool with this. "No, it's the sound. What are you talking about?" A fierce argument ensued.

So, the words for thunder and lightning in Japanese are kaminari and inazuma, respectively. But that's not a perfect translation. kaminari means something like "peal of the gods", and is the forceful, dangerous part. inazuma is basically just a light show.

English is the opposite. Thunder is just a sound, while lightning can kill you. To put it another way, in English, one word is light + electricity while the other is sound. In Japanese, one word is sound + electricity while the other is light.

Anyway, I was about to speak up when my big brother tugged my arm. "No. This is a popcorn moment. Don't ruin it!"

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 23 points 2 weeks ago

This is fascinating to learn.

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They're both wrong, it's the electricity that kills you. Light and sound are just side effects.

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[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 72 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Years ago, when I first moved to America from the UK, I was working in a pretty quiet office that backed on to a field. One day mouse appeared, freaked out a couple of the gals in the office, and then it ran and hid under an office cube.

I investigated to see where it was hiding, but it was pretty dark down there. So I asked if either of the gals had a torch. They both got an expression of wide-eyed horror, which confused me for a few seconds.

Then I realized that torch had a different term in America. So I corrected myself and asked if either of them had a flashlight. And they looked very relieved. They thought I was going to get an old school torch and try to smoke the mouse out or set it on fire, and probably set the whole cube on fire in the process.

[–] Daeraxa@lemmy.ml 33 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

I was in North Carolina for work recently and one lady was talking about her local brewery where she could "grab her growler" and head over there. Took me a while to recover from laughing at that one.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I means a bottle for transporting beer here, I'm guessing like all British slang it means genitalia?

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[–] frosty99c@midwest.social 65 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

I made this comment about a year ago: https://midwest.social/comment/6247683

"A friend of mine is a non-native English speaker. He teaches at an elementary school and works with ‘English as a second language’ students. He casually mentioned that he always tells his students to take a ‘horse bath’ in the bathroom sink after recess if needed. He was traumatized when I told him that he’d misheard that phrase for his entire adult life."

[–] jplate8@lemmy.world 28 points 2 weeks ago (12 children)
[–] ieatpwns@lemmy.world 61 points 2 weeks ago

Whores bath. It’s when you hit up the bathroom to freshen your junk before you get busy

[–] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)
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[–] dmention7@lemm.ee 58 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I used to work with a Ukranian coworker, who had so little of an accent that I often forgot he was not a native English speaker.

One time during a meeting, I mentioned "there's more than one way to skin a cat" and I can still picture the horrified look on his face when he processed what I just said.

In all fairness, it's a pretty morbid expression!

[–] y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I have a Moldovan friend who does have a thick accent and had a lot of trouble saying "beach" and "beaches" for a bit.

Once he found out why people were laughing, he decided to keep saying he "loved going to Florida for the bitches" anyway.

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[–] Daeraxa@lemmy.ml 55 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

My Dutch friend. We were on discord playing guild wars and the topic of alcohol came up. The majority of the group are british and we were talking about different drinks like whisky, gin etc and the question came up "so what famous dutch spirits are there?".

There was a bit of silence before he said, "I don't know, William of Orange?". Turns out he had never heard of the word 'spirit' to refer to high proof alcohol before so selected a famous historical dutch figure.

[–] LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz 21 points 2 weeks ago

I could imaging a William of Orange rum. Bet it would taste pretty good.

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[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 50 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

The Dutch word "poepen" (taking a shit), is a Belgian euphemism for sex. Which is always a great source of fun when making friends near the southern border.

[–] y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I love that in my head im reading "poepen" as "poopin'" with a funny accent

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[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 46 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I went to the doctor because I was worried about me grinding my teeth (bruxism).

Instead of saying "hagishiri" or 歯ぎしり I said "hagEshiri" or ハゲ尻

so I told to the doctor I was worried about my bald ass.

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[–] ModernRisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 46 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

As I’m half Arab/half European, my Arabian family tried to talk my native language. One of them wanted to say “I love you” which is in Dutch “Ik hou van je”.

He ended up saying; “ik geil van je” which translates along the likes of “I get horny of you”.

Had a good laugh but was bit odd to explain lol.

[–] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 30 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Kinda reminds me of how in Spanish, it's common to say "te quiero" as a sweet, friendly way of telling someone you love them.

Of course it translates literally as "I want you", which sounds SO SEXUAL in English 😂

[–] Squorlple@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Also in Spanish, you want to say “Tengo calor” = “I have heat” instead of “Estoy caliente” = “I am hot”, because the latter is used to mean “I am horny”.

My Spanish teacher also told us of a time he had taken a class to a Spanish speaking country and a student accidentally broke a glass while in a restaurant. The student wanted to exclaim “I am very embarrassed!”, but used a false cognate and instead exclaimed “Estoy muy embarazada!” = “I am very pregnant!”

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[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 40 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I had sort of the reverse, working with German-speaking coworkers. I used the term "schpiel" to refer to a long talk I was going to give. This led to a moment of confusion because that's not what the word means in German. It means "game" or "play" and in the context they thought I meant to imply that I was not taking the speech seriously, or maybe wasn't going to be completely honest. Almost like a con. That's probably how the loanword first entered the English language, and its meaning has drifted over time.

[–] TheUsualButBlaBlaBla@lemmy.world 28 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The word spiel “schpiel” is of Yiddish origin. It comes from the Yiddish word shpil (שפּיל), which means “play” or “game” same as German.

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[–] EndOfLine@lemmy.world 40 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I was once working with a team in India to resolve a database issue. During a particular call, we had to export data several times to create backups. Exporting the DB data is done with "dump" commands and my Indian counterpart would repeatedly tell me that he "took a dump just now".

[–] General_Shenanigans@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The taking/giving/reaching out term differences between Indian dialect and American English caused me some confusion on one of my calls. They kept saying they were trying to “take RDP from” server A to server B. I interpreted that as connecting from A to B, since they used the word “from.”

It took a bit, but I eventually realized that there seemed to be to be a fundamental difference in the way these things are thought about.

Americans, we always are reaching toward, pointing to, connecting to, or connecting something from HERE to THERE, like we’re shooting a gun or drawing a line. That is not how these Indian guys were looking at it.

If you are “taking RDP from” server A to server B, then that means you are on server B trying to connect to server A. It’s more like if you were to imagine reaching out with your hand and grabbing something toward you.

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[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 36 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

I went to Mexico and told a lot of people that they don't speak Spanish. When someone said something that I couldn't hear well, I'd compliment their digestion.

Right phrase: No hablo Español (I don't speak Spanish)
What I said: No hablas Español (you don't speak Spanish)

Right phrase: Que dices (What you say)
What I said Que diges (what digestion!)

[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I think most people can guess as it's very common to hear the "no habla" one.

I've got one though: A roommate told his new Spanish boyfriend that she wasn't feeling like meeting his parents because she was "muy embarazada".

Turns out that's not embarrassed, that's pregnant.

[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That's a really common one here in San Antonio where people speak conversational Spanish but don't know more formal words like that. One of my friends tripped and fell in front of her family visit from Mexico. It was at our graduation and she stepped on her gown. She said "estoy embarazada" and everyone freaked out, running to her aid. Her parents were really confused how their lesbian daughter got pregnant.

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[–] icogniito@lemmy.zip 32 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Well to preface this, 6 months ago I moved to Japan to study Japanese.

During a trip to Tokyo I randomly ended up talking to a group of salarymen on the way to the same restaurant at me in akihabara. After a while they asked me if I live in Japan and I answered yes and then proceeded to say 日本にしんでいる instead of 日本に住んでいる, for those who don’t speak Japanese, I accidentally said I am dying in Japan instead of I am living in Japan which is surprisingly close pronounciation wise lol. This was met with loads of laughs

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[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 27 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (7 children)

it's worse when you do speak the language, but your laziness in one language affects the other: in spanish, if you leave out the punctuation like it's english, you could accidentally end up texting people that your potato is into anal gangbangs instead of into how much your dad likes new years parties. lol

mi papa disfruta fiestas por ano neuvo (my potato likes new anal gangbangs)

vs

mi papá disfruta fiestas por año nuevo (my father likes new years parties)

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[–] 93maddie94@lemm.ee 27 points 2 weeks ago

I was in a sign language class (ASL) around Halloween and the instructor asked if we had ever encountered a ghost. We thought he signed tornado so we signed about times we were near tornadoes while he’s looking on with disbelief and shock and awe about all of our supernatural encounters. We had a good laugh when we figured out the confusion.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I heard a story about how in world war 2 British and American generals got into an argument about the importance of a certain matter.

The British thought the matter needed to be tabled and the Americans were shocked and thought it must not be tabled.

Took some time for them to realize "tabling" an issue meant the exact opposite in America and UK

Since hearing that story the exact expression came up for me online once and on a work call once with British and American speakers.

No foreign language, but still.

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[–] Plastic_Ramses@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago

My argentenian friend called stuffed crust pizza "the pizza with cheese borders".

Still call it that almost 20 years later.

[–] cobysev@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago

When I was living in Japan (about 20 years ago now), I was dating a Filipino woman who spoke very good English. But I quickly learned that she didn't understand colloquialisms.

There was one day when she kept calling me multiple times throughout the day. After the 5th or 6th call, I picked up the phone and said, "Jeez, you're killing me!"

She immediately started crying and asked, "Why would you ever say that?! I would never kill you!" Which got a laugh out of me and just made her cry even harder.

I quickly realized she didn't understand English expressions. I explained it to her, but she said she didn't want me to ever say it again, because just hearing the accusation hurt her, even if I didn't literally mean it.

While dating her, I became hyper vigilant to the amount of expressions we use in English. I had to continually rephrase everything I said because I caught myself using so many colloquialisms that she just didn't understand. She took everything so literally!

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Its less a misunderstanding I had as I grew up with Chinese speakers, but it is always fun to take a new grad student/postdoc out to lunch or something similar.

Because every language has "filler words". In English that is usually "uhm" or "like".

In Mandarin? It is "that one". 那个, Nèi ge.

And "nèi ge" sounds a LOT like the n-word. Fortunately I have found that most college towns and places that are used to an international community pick up on it pretty quick, but it is still REAL awkward when you get a side eye from a black person because this visiting scholar is trying to remember an English word.

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[–] Talaraine@fedia.io 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Was in Spain on a Spanish club field trip. I forget what I did as it was years ago but I wanted to express how embarrassed I was about something.

Used the word 'embarrasada'.

Hilarity ensued.

Edit: Oh look! Other people in this thread did the same thing lol. I feel so much better.

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[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 22 points 2 weeks ago

Slightly morbid academic one.

My computer science professor (who is from Eastern Europe) was explaining an algorithm that he and another professor (from South America) developed. The algorithm processes a graph by first creating a "frame" around it. Since English was not the first language for either of them, the first word they thought of was karkas (каркас, frame in Russian). English word "carcass" sounds pretty much the same, right? but only later, after the work was submitted, they realized they were creating a dead body around the graph.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago

We visited an office, and the person guiding us around told us about one of the employees that "it is his first day" - we all misheard this as "it is his birthday". And started to sing...

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (9 children)

Chatting on Skype with a Chinese developer, he said "I need to take Friday off for family matters" and I said "no worries"

He apologized profusely, and eventually I realised that to him, "no worries" meant something like "No! I am very concerned!"

I've since taught them some more Australianisms.

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[–] lemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago

When my wife was in university, she went on an exchange with a dozen other students to a Chinese university. The program assigned her group a pair of local guides.

The first night, the guides offered to take them out for snake. Everyone refused.

The second night, the guides repeatedly offered everyone snake, saying that there were plenty of local places to get snake. Everyone refused.

The third night, her group had a discussion. They didn't want to offend their gracious hosts. Snake had to be a popular local delicacy, because the guides repeated their offer daily.

They decided to be adventurous. One of them spoke up: "yes, we would like to try snake..."

The guide said, "what kind of snake do you want? chips? hot dog?"

[–] poddus@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 2 weeks ago

my grandfather (polish) was talking to my cousin's boyfriend at the time (german) in english. the poor guy was trying to make a good impression so he was really going the extra mile. it took about 10 minutes for them to realize one was talking about chess, and the other about jazz.

[–] Jolteon@lemmy.zip 18 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

If there's one important thing to learn from this thread, it is that idioms do not translate. At all.

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[–] Volkditty@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I am an English monoglot. Years ago, was working overseas in Kuwait when I experienced a sudden onset of testicular pain and swelling. Went to the hospital and got taken to an elderly Arabic ultrasound technician to examine my junk. After a few minutes of smearing cold jelly on me, he says something...in Arabic.

I do not understand.

He repeats it, this time poking me in the fupa.

I look confused and try to adjust my position on the table to give him better access, hoping this is what he wants.

He sighs, searching for the little English he knows. Finally he says, "Like pooping...but not pooping!" and wags his finger in my face. That's how I understood he wanted me to tense my lower abdominal wall so he could check for a hernia.

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