#41

Me in very bad German: "Two ice cream cones please"
Ice cream man: "What flavour?"
Me: "Hazelnut please"
Ice cream man: "Both Hazelnut?"
Me: “No, just for my wife” points helpfully at wife
Ice cream man: "What flavour do you want?"
Me, after a long pause as I realise I don’t actually know the names of any other ice cream flavours: “Er, hazelnut please.”
*Ice cream man raises eyebrow, wife spends the rest of the day answering “haselnuss” to pretty much any question I ask her and laughing.

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#42

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#44

My dad did that in Sweden but with German.

#45

Finnish pal managed to get through compulsory Swedish class at school by Swedishing up English words. She had already absorbed English by osmosis from TV.

#46

I once told my german teacher I bought sex toys (Liebesmittel) instead of groceries (Lebensmittel).

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#47

“du bist ein toilet?”

#48

I feel like a dick when I try to talk to someone in their own language so I just try to keep it non verbal.

#49

In French class at school my teacher asked me to try and work out what “travaux manuels” was in English. I forgot the words “manual labour” existed and instead said “hand…jobs?”

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#50

“Uno… ice cream sandwich… por favor”

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#51

I went snowboarding with some friends some time back, and none of us had very good French. Late in the week, once we’d all got a bit better and were progressing pretty well down the mountain in our lessons, one of the French guys who was also having lessons wiped out in truly spectacular fashion, and lay groaning in a heap in the snow.

My friend, wanting to show some sympathy, went over and asked “ca va?”, at least he meant to, but actually asked “d’accord?”. My French isn’t good enough then or now to know whether he actually went over to an injured Frenchman and said “Agreed” (or even if ca va was appropriate), but that’s what we thought it was when we ran it back later, and it still makes me laugh thinking about it.

#52

The story of a German girl in a youth hostel who said to someone who was smoking “You shouldn’t do that, you’ll get crabs!”.

Cancer in German is Krebs, the mix-up is understandable.

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#53

D’accord just means OK, doesn’t it?

#54

I lived in Japan for two years, I could do a hundred of these. I remember once making someone in a tiny restaurant so exasperated as I tried to explain that I didn’t want fish flakes with my tofu that he went and closed the kitchen for the night (it was a very small hole in the wall place)

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#55

Got another one.

I did an internship in Portugal for four months as part of my year abroad and had only been learning Portuguese ab initio for a couple of years at uni. On my first day at work, I went to a cafe for lunch, got really flustered because I couldn’t understand the northern accent and then tried to leave with whatever fried thing I’d pointed to on the deli counter. The door said “puxe” (pronounced “push”) so I spent some time leaning against the door getting laughed at by old men in the cafe while the owner kept telling me to “push!” Later that day I learned that puxe is Portuguese for pull.

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#56

:grinning: mate yours are absolute gold.

#57

we got through a week in remote places in Slovenia where no-one spoke English using my wife’s fairly good Spanish vis-a-vis the locals’ fairly good Italian. :thumbsup:

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#58

Yeah, Tasche vs. Tisch

Silly mistake but I was a few beers deep and getting sloppy and overconfident with my german innit

#59

similarly my ex’s parents had a house in Andalucia they wanted to call it “Three Shells” but accidentally put a sign up at the gate saying “Three Pussies” or something

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#60

Were you trying to get cavity search?

#61

I must have been 10 or so, on holiday in Lanzarote. Mum and I went for ice cream. I pointed at the green one and asked for what I thought was going to be mint choc chip. The ice cream seller found my attempts at whatever I was burbling out “Il glace mint chocolat?” or something similar.

Ended up being pistachio.

Hated them ever since.

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