Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Mumsnet classics

Relive the funniest, most unforgettable threads. For a daily dose of Mumsnet’s best bits, sign up for Mumsnet's daily newsletter.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

Help me get over my vanilla cuntyness

284 replies

Youuttercono · 26/04/2017 21:59

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. Blush 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.

OP posts:
donajimena · 26/04/2017 23:19

My beautiful Spanish SIL asked my children if Satan had brought them nice Christmas presents Grin

SleepFreeZone · 26/04/2017 23:30

This thread has made me Mutley laugh 😁

BaronessBomburst · 26/04/2017 23:38

One of my colleagues used google translate to produce basic operating instructions for some machinery, from Dutch to French. Apparently Error Code 1 means that the tampon is filling.

SlothMama · 26/04/2017 23:45

I once I wrote in my GCSE French class that in the future I'd like a big ginger pussy. My teacher found it hilarious and told everyone! Looking back on it was pretty funny

Apparently the feminine word for cat is slang in french for pussy....

HoldMeCloserTonyDanza · 26/04/2017 23:48

This thread is hilarious. Like someone above's friend, I also alarmed my French exchange host family my telling them at the end of a delicious meal "je suis pleine" Grin

I also find it hard to properly enunciate "cou" (neck) and "cul" (arse). Blush

honeyroar · 26/04/2017 23:54

My mistakes in foreign languages are too many to recount. (Perhaps telling my French friends that I was going to buy a Citroen and having them ask me if it was round, yellow and smelled nice because I'd pronounced it the English way was my best). One of my best/worst word errors in English was trying to tell my dad what the vet had said about my horse's leg.. "She's got semen running out of the cut" to which he said, "no darling I think he probably said serum!" I was 14 at the time and wanted to curl up and die.

And why does auto correct change wellies to willies!! I've fallen for that one too. Just because Americans say gumboots, or whatever.

onemumtwocountries · 26/04/2017 23:54

A few years ago, back when my English wasn't great.

I'd been on a date - I didn't fancy seeing the guy again and was trying to avoid him. I told my friend that 'I'd been trying to blow him off ever since our first date'. Her face was a picture! BlushGrin

PenelopeFlintstone · 26/04/2017 23:55

Go back in there, get the same server and say, "I'd like a vanilla cunt please and, this time, don't give me a fucking vanilla ice cream!"

Cheekyandfreaky · 27/04/2017 00:01

Lochan i either know your friend or someone who did exactly the same thing- were the staff all male on the side of the school she sent it to by any chance?

Mrdarcyfanclub · 27/04/2017 00:05

My husband told a Spanish ticket collector that his ticket didn't smoke (fuma) rather than didn't work (funciona) Grin

nancy75 · 27/04/2017 00:08

In a Spanish exchange trip my friend tried to tell our host she was embarrassed about something and ended up telling them she was pregnant. As we were only 16 at the time the woman we were staying with was understandably quite concerned at this turn of events!

BertieBotts · 27/04/2017 00:17

I teach English to Germans and my German is at a weird level where I can speak with what sounds like confidence/fluency in terms of speed etc but I often make really rubbish mistakes Grin DS is constantly trying to explain u/ü to me but I don't get it.

One annoying thing about English is that vowel combinations aren't really set which means that for example ie and ei can both be pronounced completely differently or exactly the same way, and although in German it's always consistent (ei = eye, ie = ee) my brain is just not wired to note the difference between ei and ie spellings and I always mix them, and subsequently the pronunciation up.

This is how I came to announce to a very amused class that I had a stiff father (Steif Vater) instead of a stepfather (Stiefvater) Blush

Instasista · 27/04/2017 00:22

I can't read these anymore. I am roaring with laughter and waking the house up

StrangeLookingParasite · 27/04/2017 00:23

I also find it hard to properly enunciate "cou" (neck) and "cul" (arse).

Yeah, I surprised the guy at SOS médécin one night, describing where the pain was. But for francophones, there is no difference between bitch and beach, or shit and sheet, either.

Flossimodo · 27/04/2017 00:36

I am a fluent AND native English speaker. And for some bollocky reason I regularly say something fucking stupid in my own native language. And for that, I have absolutely no excuse at all.
I wouldn't know how to begin to ask for a vanilla cunt in Spanish, or even recognise if I had inadvertently done so.
I'm hoping that has to be a good thing. Anyway, I manage to get over it and so should you.

WokeUpSmeltTheCoffee · 27/04/2017 00:37

Whilst on a Spanish exchange in 6th form I went to school with my pen friend and the class were asked to write a poem about love. I thought I had written a pretty good poem and was very proud when the sadistic teacher asked me to read it out to the class.
Unfortunately my knowledge of reflexive verbs let me down and instead of the subtle point I'd intended to make about different kinds of love for your friends, family and even yourself I had written a poem about masturbation (make love to yourself)!

EBearhug · 27/04/2017 00:39

The je suis chaud/j'ai chaud thing is also a German problem. I told German boyfriend's cousin, "Ich bin heiß" instead of "mir ist heiß." (Though obviously both senses were true, but I was just commenting in the temperature, not my sexiness.)

Welsh has some confusion for beginners with rhiw (hill), rhew (frost) and rhyw (sex). Rhaw (shovel) isn't that different when your accent is rubbish and you can't fully remember all the vocabulary, either.

DaphneCanDoBetterThanFred · 27/04/2017 00:43

onemumtwocountries I just had a hot flush of 'argh' when I read that.. Back in my early twenties, I was dating a man who was not very nice to me, but I was infatuated with him. A lovely guy I knew at work, S, often invited me to lunch in the local pub, where we'd chat, he'd hold my hand and tell me I deserved better. One fateful day, I decided I was being a total cow by leading S on, so when he emailed to invite me to lunch, I decided I should stop meeting him/messing him around and should cancel. I replied that I was going to have to blow him off. He, taking it the saucy way, was thrilled, and when the whole department had stopped laughing at me, I discovered that phrase had two meanings BlushBlush For what it's worth, S - was right, boyfriend was a cock and I should have gone out with S. Or at least followed through on my accidental offer Grin

EBearhug · 27/04/2017 00:43

And then, when I had just finished A-levels and spent some of the summer volunteering at a museum, I greatly confused a Spanish volunteer when I had a coughing fit and dramatically declared, "I must have TB! I'm going to die!" The effect was rather lost on him, because he couldn't understand why I was suddenly going on about television.

MissBel12 · 27/04/2017 00:47

I had a bit of a surprise when my very proper German cousin commented on Facebook 'Gefuhl Geil' with a picture of him with his partner.
Facebook kindly translated this to 'Feeling Horny' Grin- I nearly spat out my food when I saw it, and had to Google it. Turns out 'geil' has several meanings, but he meant it as 'feeling rich' Grin. He had just got his first paycheck!

WyfOfBathe · 27/04/2017 00:55

But for francophones, there is no difference between bitch and beach, or shit and sheet, either.
As an English teenager in France, I had one English teacher who would always tell us to file our "shit". I tried to correct her once but she told me not to speak back, so I expect she's still telling rooms full of giggling teenagers what to do with their "shit".

I made many mistakes while living in France, including telling my headteacher "merci, beau cul" (thanks, nice ass) instead of "merci beaucoup" (thank you very much) and offering a friend who had come for a sleepover "des préservatifs" (condoms) with her toast!

GreenHillsSunnySkies · 27/04/2017 01:10

My college classmate got conejos (rabbits) confused with cojones (slang for testicles) during our year in Spain. The guy in the market was very chuffed to hear what beautiful balls he had. We'll gloss over the time she asked for a straw (paja - also slang for blowjob) for her drink in a bar one time.
Nancy75 I also embarrassed myself more than once by telling people how pregnant I was until someone kindly explained that 'embarazada' didn't mean what I thought it meant.

SinisterBumFacedCat · 27/04/2017 01:13

Hello Whores I can't got bed yet, still crying at this Grin

Tartyflette · 27/04/2017 01:24

Don't feel too bad, OP, I think that in Spanish, coño is rather like the French 'con' which, while not exactly polite, is widely used in everyday speech and is not nearly so bad as it is in English.
An older lady stallholder in a French market gave me the wrong change once and when I pointed it out she apologised and called herself a cunt.
But I have to say I am extremely careful when I order a cono in a Spanish icecream parlour....

AGnu · 27/04/2017 01:38

I'm never attempting to speak another language again! The worst I've done is ask for coconut when I meant chocolate in France. I did perfect "I'm sorry but I don't understand" for my Spanish GCSE oral so I should be covered if we ever go anywhere Spanish speaking!