lost in translation... is this the most embarrassing comment someone could make in all innocence?

grr forgot the

Spooktrain, maybe she only wanted leather from that specific part of the animal?

a friend of mine in Italy went to a diy shop looking for a piece of wood to make a skirting board (zoccolo), what he actually asked for was a zoccola - slag, so the conversation went like this (with verb confusion - italian for do/make also means shag)

shop assistant: can I help you?
friend: yes I need a piece of wood to shag the slapper in my kitchen

Same friend, at the market, asked for a belt made of culo (arse) instead of cuoio (leather)

when I first came to England, I was working in a coffee shop. Most of us were foreigner. Not always mistranslation (the first on was) but mispronounciation of words.

A few I can remember were:

"You know the girl with FAT eyes" meaning to say BIG eyes from my portuguese collegue.

"Just PUKE some coffee in it" instead of PUT som cofee on it from a Craotian collegue

And myself, well instead of "WRAPPING" biscuits and cakes I was "RAPING" them I have no idea how many times I actually said it wrong before someone actually corrected me!

I work for a company which has offices at each side of the street, I'm often told that "x has gone over to the other side".

My niece (in Holland) wanted to call her rabbit Wanka, but was persuaded to change to Minke

AuldAllience you just made me splutter twice! Arse hair and fucking in the street!

As a child I was sent to the newsagent to get my Mums "Woman" magazine. I couldn't see it on the shelves and so deliberated for a moment before asking the man "Have you got any women?"

While working a dinner party to a very posh group of elderly English couples, they all shuffled off to the parlour to have tea and brandy. One gentleman stayed behind to discuss with me and the chef about the pheasant we served and how good it was. "I've always loved a good cock to be honest but you just can't get that nowadays", he says... the chef was gay as well so it made it even funnier. We barely contained ourselves.

The first job I got when I moved to the UK was being a stock controller, picking orders for a big producer of flour, and other baking products, such as yeast.

One day, when sorting out an important urgent order, I noticed a shortage of some product. So I picked up the phone to call the customer and said "Hey Glenn, I've got a yeast problem"

He didn't know what to say.

she just 'boiled her nipples' in a saucepan

Ah dear, I think I just ruptured someting laughing

My sister-in-law has lived in the States for a long time and there they call 'teats' for a baby's bottle 'nipples'.

One day, while visiting us, when discussing weaning her baby she was telling me that she didn't always put the steriliser on....she just 'boiled her nipples' in a saucepan....

Another time she was telling everyone how she needed to get to Boots to get some new 'nipples'....to try and prevent her baby suffering from colic...it's a conversation stopper!!

English friend working as a hairdresser in v posh Parisian salon.
Cuts extremely snooty lady's hair, holds up a mirror to show her how short it is at the nape of the neck, and asks politely:

"Et maintenant, Madame, voulez-vous que je vous coupe un peu les poils du cul?" (And now, Madame, would you like me to trim the hair on your arse a little?)

The German assistant who taught with me in France years ago made a couple of brilliant blunders:

First lesson to a class of twelve year olds, explaining a few cultural differences between France and Germany, she stated that the Germans are less effusive than the French as they merely shake hands in the street when they bump into an acquaintance - whereas the French fuck one another. That un baiser/se baiser thing is tricky...

Invited by v staid French teacher of German to his v staid house for dinner with him and his v staid wife, she remembered she'd forgotten to mention to him that that day she'd rummaged through his classroom cupboard looking for some slides to show the pupils. So she said, in front of v staid wife, "Bertrand, I must tell you that today I went into your bedroom, opened your wardrobe, and rummaged through all your little follies."

can't believe pizza hut's "we'll toss in the salad for free" what's their excuse!!?

My in-laws are all Austrian. BIL announced to us on Skype recently that he had just "fisted his fiance". Turns out he meant fist-bumps (like the Obamas did).

Same BIL did an English exchange with a classmate that declared to a pizzahut waitress "I would like to become a pizza with lots of scum on it" (mushrooms).

My MIL has a few amusing mispronunciations- retrievers (the dog) is said red-rivers and she calls dumplings "dumps". I've not yet been told what horrors my shitty German has made up. I'm nearly certain I've done the warm/ cold one mentioned before.

When I was about fifteen I was thinking about studying law. I told my dad that I was really thinking of going in to soliciting.

He laughed so hard he fell off his chair :o

We used to fall about laughing at gros farter in Germany. Not very mature of us.

Going past a classroom, I heard someone shouting 'Wanking, wanking!' so I went in and found some students clustered round a map of the British Isles. The girl merrily calling this out at the top of her voice meant 'One King!' ie that the UK has one monarch. She was from Taiwan, I think.

A friend of mine wanted to ask for a machine to tape her voice (in the days when we used tape recorders) in a shop in Spain. By mistake, she asked for something to make herself pregnant ('para ponerme encinta'). Then, the next day, our heroine went into the same shop and asked to see some bollocks. She meant little boxes ('cajones' for her cassettes).

If you are on Mumsnet, , you know who you are. Still makes me laugh.

When my cousin first went to live in Australia she was somewhat taken aback at her boss asking her for Durex - what we call Sellotape.
I'm sure my brother (who lives in Stockholm) told me the Swedish word for "plate" was "fart".

I've just remembered an incident a friend told me about - back in the days when computers used floppy disks, you used to get large ones which were, in fact, floppy, and small ones which weren't. We Brits just used to call them all floppies, but my friend discovered that the Australians differentiated between the two types when one of them asked 'hey John, have you got a stiffy?' He didn't quite know how to reply.