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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:
CloneClubSestra · 27/04/2017 04:16

Not me (well nobody told me if I did...) but a native-English-speaking manager making an end-of-year speech. They attempted Cantonese. This was the 1990s... The number nine is gau. So is penis but with a marginally perceptible change in inflection. LOTS of Cantonese speakers tittering behind their hands politely at the prospect of a good year of penis penis penis ahead! Grin

ItsNachoCheese · 27/04/2017 04:27

😂😂😂 at all of these Grin

Original poster
Youuttercono · 27/04/2017 06:51

Hahahah! These are brilliant! Thank you!

Yes, I know coño isn't as bad in Spanish, I once heard a parent call their child it Grin

OP posts:
BreakfastAtSquiffanys · 27/04/2017 07:01

I was so uncomfortable the week we spent in a French hotel staying in Room 100.
Everytime I was asked for my room number (to charge a drink etc) I was incapable of pronouncing "cent" correctly and apparently it sounded much more like "sein". Which is breast.
I wanted to change rooms after 3 days

Vanillaradio · 27/04/2017 07:10

In France One of my friends meant to say she was looking for the town hall "Mairie" What she actually said was she was looking for a husband "Mari"!
The worst I have managed was to say I had come to research my luggage instead of collect it. And in Spanish that I wasn't going to jump in the pool because of my lentils (contact lenses!)

MatadorBowerBird · 27/04/2017 07:30

Still tittering sporadically at the fields full of cunts this morning! Grin

SerJorahsSecondChoice · 27/04/2017 07:37

God, this thread has killed me! I'm still laughing at 'Hello whores!' and the thought of the colleagues meeting nervously to discuss it.

"Do you think she meant it?"
"No, no - I'm sure it was just a slip of the tongue."
"Who's going to tell her?"
"Umm..."

On honeymoon in Paris and my new, fluent French speaker husband tried to impress me in a Macdonalds by ordering. They were serving lovely potato wedges at the time so he looked at the board, saw they were called 'potaoes' and thought 'ok, don't know that word but it must be what they call wedges' and ordered. The woman looked at him like he was a complete idiot and said in impeccable English 'you mean the potatoes, yeah?' It was an English-translated menu board and the letter t had fallen off. He still hasn't been allowed to forget that.

FurryDogMother · 27/04/2017 07:42

Whilst holidaying in Cyprus, I wandered down the beach one morning saying 'squid' to everyone instead of 'good morning' - calamari instead of kalimera. In my defence, I was hungover :)

PoochSmooch · 27/04/2017 07:43

Am doing proper lols at these!

I live in France and am an OK French speaker, but I still make howlers all the time. I have to blank most of them out, or I'd never leave the house for fear of fuckup Grin

One of my neighbour's dogs is a bit of a nuisance and tends to follow me on runs. I took him back to his owner a couple of weeks ago, really fed up as he'd wrecked my run, and feeling absurdly over confident, started to shout at his owner that he had followed me again and he really needed to keep him under control. The owner looked really abashed, and I ran off smugly, happy that I'd told him what's what. It was only when I rounded the corner that I realised I had had a brain fart and used "montrer" instead of "suivre" (no idea why), so instead of telling him his dog was following me again, I'd yelled "He's showing me again! He keeps showing me! You need to stop him!". He hadn't been looking abashed, he'd been looking baffled, and no wonder Blush

My hairdresser and I like to practice on each other, him in English and me in French. He was helpless with laughter at one of our earlier sessions when with my stupid anglophone inflexible mouth told him I make "nice ass nice ass NICE ASS of mistakes in French". Beaucoup/beau cul. It's hard!

And I always, always use "embraser" and never "baiser" because that shit will go wrong.

ginswinger · 27/04/2017 08:02

I told a Moroccan waiter I didn't eat meat or swimming pools. My frined laughed a little too hard

Hoppinggreen · 27/04/2017 08:05

And this is why when we go to Spain my children always have their ice creams in a Copa!!!!!

Fiderer · 27/04/2017 08:10

I got "schwül/schwul" mixed up too. Now I just use "stickig" - muggy. No one corrects me any more.

And "irre"/"Irin" - one being crazy, the other Irish. Now I just say I come from Ireland.

Have given up thinking I'm fluent in German Hmm As I live here it's a bit of a bugger but on the other hand I have taught several of my colleagues what "A hangover the size of Dublin Bay" means. So not all bad.

SongforSal · 27/04/2017 08:21

My Mum is fluent in spanish. Recently she was in a spanish speaking country and was happily chatting to the shop assistants. She picked out some items and went to pay before realising she didn't have any money on her. She 'thought' she told the shop assistant that she was going to nip outside and grab some money of her husband. The shop assistants started laughing, turned out (god knows how) she told them she was nipping outside to get money of her 'lovers'!

FurryLittleTwerp · 27/04/2017 08:26

My mum decided she was going to ask for a wastepaper basket in a small hotel in France, despite speaking virtually no French.

Dad, who spoke quite a lot of French, coached her to say "Je voudrais une poubelle pour ma chambre, s'il vous plait"

She said to the receptionist, with Dad sniggering in the background, "Je voudrais un sommelier pour la chambre"

"I would like a wine waiter for the bedroom"

FFS Grin

AgentCooper · 27/04/2017 08:34

My DH wanted a salted butter caramel ice cream in France. He asked for caramel beurre sale (dirty butter caramel) instead of caramel beurre salé. The woman in the shop was knotting herself Grin

Birdandsparrow · 27/04/2017 08:38

I didn't know about the difference between pollo and polla, (never knew the latter) and wonder why the word that means cock ends with "a", when usually "a" is a female ending. Doesn't really make sense, that.

I've always wondered why the nicknames for penis (la churra) and vulva (el chocho) are the wrong genders in Spanish. Very strange.

When I was learning Spanish I often confused courgetters (calabacines) with socks (calcetines) and have been known to exclaim "my feet are freezing I'm going to put some courgettes on them". Also drawers (cajones) and bollocks (cojones) is another one.
I struggled for a while with wallet (cartera) motorway (carretera) and cinema listings (cartelera).

I used to teach English and have had more than one student discussing what he has for breastfuck. Also Spanairds struggle with the long and short i vowel so I have heard students practising the future tense and say things like "this time tomorrow I'll be lying on a bitch (beach)".
:)

Fluffyears · 27/04/2017 08:41

In Spain recently I saw some souvenirs that proudly said in English 'Live is a party' I should have bought one just for the novelty. I wonder if the ones written in German were also incorrect.

Birdandsparrow · 27/04/2017 08:44

Yes, I know coño isn't as bad in Spanish, I once heard a parent call their child it
Spanish is very rude in comparison and very scatalogical. Little old ladies say coño, they even call each other it as term of endearment: "Cunt, where have you been lately, haven't seen you for ages, how are you, cunt?". Love it. That's before we get into all the sweary phrases about shitting on the virgin or the milk you were breastfed from Grin

Birdandsparrow · 27/04/2017 08:48

Oh yes, I ALWAYS ask for a cañita instead of paja for straw or I'll end up asking for a blow job for my child.

Klaphat · 27/04/2017 09:00

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.

I work as a translator and am crying laughing at this.

MrsHughesCarson · 27/04/2017 09:04

My family is bilingual French/English.
We always find it hilarious that you can buy tubs of mini-bites in English supermarkets as 'bite' means cock in French (pronounced beet).
It always provokes lots of innuendo laden jokes.

Hoppinggreen · 27/04/2017 09:08

I once told a very nice respectable Spanish lawyer that I had a difficult relationship with my Cunt ( similar for word for Sister in law). I then asked him if I could I introduce him to my other cunt who was really nice

heron98 · 27/04/2017 09:16

I did a year abroad in France when I was 19 and lived in a student accommodation with 35 19 year old blokes. As you can imagine, the kind of French I learned wasn't that of Moliere.

One day I went into the bank intending to tell them there was a problem with my bank card. Apparently the phrase I used was akin to "it's fucking fucked, this card is".

After that, I always double checked the register of new phrases I'd learned before daring to use them.

Puremince · 27/04/2017 09:34

I got "pregnant" (heavy with child) and "stupid" (heavy-headed) mixed up in Gaelic.

I was then asked what I'd done that was stupid, but thought I was being asked what I'd done to become pregnant....

acornsandnuts · 27/04/2017 09:52

Oh Lordy. I'm at the very beginning of learning Spanish, my cringe gland in working overtime at the future cock ups im going to make.

So so funny.