Help me get over my vanilla cuntyness

My partner and I were in Japan and splashed out one night to stay in a very traditional and upmarket 'Ryokan' style hotel.

We had been travelling for a while and badly needed to wash some clothes so asked the lovely, young concierge if the hotel had a laundry service. He looked pretty shocked and confused and slowly answered "Nooooo, we only provide the Kimono (bathrobe)". This completely confused us back for a few seconds until we worked out that he honestly thought we asking for a "Lingerie Service" as if it were a completely normal thing
He found it hilarious when we explained and broke the ice so much we actually ended up going out to a bar with him after his shift :)

Many years ago, I got some dust in my eye walking past some workmen digging up the road in Valencia and my eye swelled up pretty badly.

I went into a pharmacy to get some eye drops and confidently announced, Ayudame por favor - tengo polvo en mi ojo , only to be met by gasps of horror from the elderly pharmacists. Things didn't get any better after I explained the workman outside had caused it.

The thing was, I did know that polvo means both dust and cum, but in my youthful naïveté, I assumed they would understand I meant dust from the roadworks.

Many moons ago my late Nonno had a rather 'intimate' conversation at his restaurant - a young Italian lass practised her English by asking him for another 'fuck' instead of 'fork'.....

This thread reminds me of this joke. A French relative who worked in a hotel used to have it on the wall.

In fairness to your student, Bertie, Americans and Canadians do use "girlfriend" to mean female friend. It always throws me a bit - facebook updates like "so I left my husband at home doing some odd jobs and went out for a drink with my girlfriends."

A woman I knew once told her Italian friends the story of the princess and the clitoris (which could, you will recall, be felt under a hundred mattresses!!!)

My French exchange at school told me 'je m'en fous' meant 'I don't mind'. Her parents asked what I would like to do the next day - guess what I answered? gahhhh

I have an acquaintance who, while on secondment in France, would often have to phone his boss from the car to say he was on his way to the office. Unfortunately, a quirk in his pronunciation meant that he somehow spent six months reassuringly telling his boss 'it's ok, i'm horny' while running late for meetings...

I got married in israel . Our dj was enthusiastically trying to get everyone seated so we could make our entrance and, realising that most of the guests were English, entreated "Everybody to please sheeeet on the tables" instead of sit at the tables! There were lots of guffaws other than from my older relatives but strangely enough most people did sit down !

YY, Notcitrus! I had a particular older lady student once who was convinced that she must say girlfriend when she meant her female friends, even though I explained several times that girlfriend/boyfriend indicates a romantic partner. In the end I taught her the phrase "my best friend" and she liked this so much she never used girlfriend again

Just remembered more. My mum's classic blunder, she loves água de cóco, coconut water served in the coconut on the streets. Only she pronounces it água de cocô, which translates as "shit water" and makes the children laugh every time.

I once left some mandioca roots (cassava) on the side in the kitchen and said to the nanny when she came in "There's some mandioca on the side in the kitchen, the kids want them for kids breakfast". At least my brain said mandioca but my mouth decided to alter it to minhoca, which are earthworms. I didn't realise what I'd said until I left, she was probably really relieved to see the mandioca.

DH makes great pizza, first trip to the UK he went to Sainsbury's to buy the ingredients and came back with flour and an easter egg. Turns out he couldn't say yeast and after 20 minutes of trying to communicate his
"east- a" he decided to cut his losses, buy the easter egg they kept pushing on him and leave.

Also never have a fight with your English bf in German. I told him "du kannst mich mal", meaning roughly "you can kiss my butt", but because us Germans are so incredibly polite we leave out the important bits and just say "you can me". It is enormously infuriating when you have just insulted someone and that someone stands in front of you with a puzzled look on his face asking "you can me what? What????"

Another one I learnt the hard way: in German, friend is Freund or Freundin (male, female). But if you are female, "mein Freund" is my boyfriend. If your male friend is not your boyfriend, then they are 'ein Freund von mir' - a friend of mine.

I got a good half hour being grilled about my multiple boyfriends by drunk 16 year olds, before the penny dropped.

I think that was the night I learnt that Apfelwein (apple wine) is definitely not cider and should never be downed by the half pint...

'Hello Whores!'

Omg I'm crying .
My friend writes comments on Facebook to her friends and family in the Philippines. When I press the "translate" the translation it brings up makes even less sense to me! You were brave

I was talking to DD's incredibly fit French teacher about a problem, I had caught up with him in the playground and he said in English "do I need to have your over the table" what he meant was do we need to go and sit round the table I didnt know what to say take me now didnt seem right so just stood there looking very flustered as he kept repeating himself

DP used to teach English to preschool children in the south of Spain. Some weeks in he got angry complaints from parents wanting to know why he'd taught their children to swear. He'd been saying "Oh dear!" on a regular basis, as preschool teachers often do, and the kids had picked it up.

Unfortunately to people with strong Andalusian accents this sounds a lot like "Hostia!", which means something like "Holy fuck!"...

Also while still boyfriend and girlfriend we were back packing around the US. We stayed in a hostel where the beds had been stripped but they'd forgotten to put a clean sheet on DH's bed. He went to tell the receptionist and I stayed in the room. Ten minutes later an angry manger came in with a bucket and a sponge and told him he needed to clean it himself. They thought he'd said he'd had a shit on his bed.

On the same holiday he was ordering a pizza, he was saying ham but it was coming out as 'am. The waiter got impatient with trying to understand and said "Do you speak English or what? ". To which DH replied "I speak what". It was magic!

DH is Brazilian and I've made a couple of spectacular mistakes.

In our dating days dh would say embarrassing things in English when we were around his family, because he loved to see my cheeks go red and because none of them understood English. Once I was telling him angrily to stop and my now MIL thought we were arguing and wanted to know what it was about because she's obsessively nosey. I told her, in Portuguese that he was teasing me because he likes to see my cheeks go red. Only I didn't say cheeks, I said cunt.

I once asked in the school office for some school knickers for my then 10 year old DS. I meant trousers. He's never forgiven me.

Portuguese is not my strong point.

Also DS had a toy computer/laptop that he loved. He would sit in his buggy and shout out for it. Only he didn't say "computer" he said "Puta". I used to push a toddler along the streets of Rio, who would randomly shout out "bitch" when he wanted his toy. Fun times.

My friend told a stallholder in a market in Honfleur she was wearing a baguette. (Je vais mettre une baguette). She meant she would like a baguette!

The same friend told her exchange family that her school uniform included a prawn, instead of a tie! French schools don't have uniform, so this fact bemused them!

when working for an account would constantly omit the 'o' in accunt - whoops. See. Done it again.

greening I'm doing incredibly unattractive snorts of laughter at "c*nt of bowels", it's easily done!

I am also shit at Hebrew, despite studying it for years. The general rule of thumb for me is that I will only remember the Hebrew word when I'm trying to think of the Arabic. Leads to a lot of stopping mid sentence with a worried expression.

I once tried to write a letter to a very senior Italian lawyer in one of our affiliated firms. I mistakenly used the wrong translation for the opening of the letter, and thus addressed her as "expensive Barbara" (rather than "dear"). Luckily she thought it was hilarious.

trying to explain something in French to our plumber used the word bander (hard-on) instead of the word bande

Snap, Pumuckl! My son was Bagger obsessed at this age, too. We had a fun flight from Germany to the UK when he kept asking for the Bagger Buch...

I am teaching my ds (2) German and when we sat in toddler group a few weeks ago he shouted very loud "Funny bugger" -Bagger means digger in German, my husband thinks we should stick to just saying digger
Loving this thread