Help me get over my vanilla cuntyness

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I haven't told anyone this in RL because I am actually mortified at myself. I am a fluent, but not native, Spanish speaker. But for some bollocky reason I said something completely fucking stupid recently.

Instead of asking for a vanilla ice cream cone I asked for a vanilla cunt. What kind of idiot am I? To make matters worse, the person serving me laughed with her colleague about it (at me, not with me!) I was too mortified to laugh at myself and haven't stopped cringing.

Help me get over it by telling me some gaffes you have made, either linguist or just plain stupid.

Video it , not 'I think'

I've asked a surprised lady in Madrid where the Playa Mayor is instead of the Plaza Mayor. Obviously, the nearest beach is hundreds of miles away.

It's a great experience to live abroad and learn another language, it's so humbling because you're guaranteed to make a colossal arse of yourself many times. My pet anecdotal theory is that women cope with this aspect better than men as their egos are less fragile...bit like the way men don't like asking for directions

Another "not quite as fluent as I thought I was" Spanish balls-up. Having spent a year teaching English in Spain some while back, my accent isn't too bad. But when we visited a few years back, the hotel bathroom had not been properly re-stocked. My request for "sopa" (soup) so that I could wash my face was met with completely blank looks from the evidently rather dim chambermaid. Which made me say it louder, and use face-washing gestures. Still nothing. It was only when I saw the lunch menu later that I realised my error.

These have made me cry with laughter! 😂😄😄😄 brilliant!

i did something similar i was wired no sleep lots of coffee i went to a coffee shop and i went to order a black coffee and a diet coke but what came out was i would like black coc-fee everyone heard i was so mortified i ran out

The first time I asked for a glass of water in Hebrew, I evidently asked for a "c*nt of bowels" - the difference between an o and an oo guys. It took me 20 years to ask for a glass of anything again!

Also I recently wrote to a gp to discuss a referral for a person I misspelled as "son of a pr**k". Needless to say that wasn't their name.

I also once asked a client if they would have trouble 'meeting me in a shower' (instead of shelter). Since I'm a psychologist it wasn't exactly what I mean to say! I'm not very talented in Hebrew.

Oh my word. I've just had a realisation. After all this time I have realised I didn't ask for a vanilla cunt. I asked for a CREAM CUNT. Un coño de nata. Surely that's even WORSE. A creamy cunt.

There is no excuse for this faux pas, as I had been living in the UK for some years when I did it.

I was on a night out with some friends of my flatmate, and we ended up on this basement bar which had good live music but slightly out there punters. I went to the toilet, and saw this woman , who was out of her face on somethingk and started punching her reflection on the mirror while shouting at herself.

I got out of there before she noticed me, and must have looked quite shocked because my friend asked me if I was OK. I then told the entire table that I had just seen a woman fisting herself at the mirror.

It took months for my flatmate to let go of that one.

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

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...

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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!

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!"...

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

'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

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...

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????"

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.

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