Help me get over my vanilla cuntyness

[Youuttercono]

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.

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

So important! I just don't swear much in French, because register can be so hard to gauge. Like a French colleague who'd learnt conversational English with peers, but not much business English. He wasn't feeling well one day and announced to a meeting of senior staff "I 'ave to go 'ome, I'm so fucking seek".

I tried for a straight face, but I couldn't manage it neither could anybody else. Wrong, wrong register. But very funny.

I told my FIL and DH's uncle that they were mentally subnormal instead of allies. The best part was that they didn't notice the incorrect letter and thought that I was actually insulting them.

I had a friend who when he first moved to Egypt was really pleased with using his Arabic in everyday conversation and spent a whole week saying "Bye bitches!" instead of "Goodbye ladies" to the women in his local shop.

Yes I get all my students to do a ridiculous long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeach otherwise they are always telling me that they "love the beautiful bitches" which probably gives a less than professional impression when discussing your latest trip to Thailand.

Trying to make small talk at an Italian campsite I told the Italian family that I spoke a pecorino of Italian and then turned bright red when they fell about laughing! I meant to say un poco

I don't even have the excuse of using a different language for this.

I meant to type 'count'. I missed out a rather crucial letter. I sent the email out without realising...

...to the Senior managers :)

I'm laughing my head off and I'm trying not to burst my stitches from surgery. Thanks you lot! You've all cheered me up as I'm stuck in bed for a while.

In Danish, kylling = chicken and killing = kitten. It's a rite of passage for Danish learners to ask for kitten sandwiches.

Similarly: kysse(kiss)/kusse(cunt) lyder(listen)/luder(whore) I've given up and just rephrase to avoid the situation.

Wonderflonium

How do you manage to avoid the word lyde? It must be in my top 100! Have definitely said kylling instead of killing once or twice.

birdandsparrow Giacomo Casanova made his first well received joke about the genders of penis and vagina being reversed in Latin.

"disce quod a domina servus habet"
“It’s because the slave always bears the name of his master.”

oops: Disce quod a domino nomina servus habet.

I once wrote about the need for more 'publc awareness' in the fight against puppy farming in an open letter to a well known dog magazine. Thank god for proof readers is all l can say

I once asked for jam without "preservativos" in a Spanish supermarket, preservativos being condoms. Agh!

I also remember being horrified at someone eating mackerel "caballa" thinking it was mare - horse being "caballo" ..

Oh my goodness, I can't get past the first page...hilarious!

Spin it. Make yourself sound 'ard & 'orrible..

'Give me a vanilla, cunt'. Works for Phil Mitchell.

Brilliant!

had it not been for spellcheck I'd have sent an email to a German colleague asking her to contact me if she needed any fuhrer information.

I'm literally shaking with laughter at this

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.

Sorry, to disappoint, but in this context, "con" would mean "stupid". So if she said "Je suis conne" it was really much more "God, I'm thick!" than calling herself a cunt.

I once told a taxi driver that I would mount him (monter) rather than show him (montrer). Luckily, he declined my offer.

Well this thread's certainly reminded me to do my pelvic floor exercises...

"it's fucking fucked, this card is".

What a fabulous thread.

My mum has a habit of getting flustered when trying to speak French on holiday. She's particularly fond of greeting shopkeepers with a cheery "Aujord Hui!". Bafflement ensues.

Many native Arabic speakers struggle with the 'p' sound (doesn't exist in Arabic), so you'll get people talking about Bebsi etc.

Our building guard and I communicate in a mix of terrible Arabic (me), terrible English (him) and hand waving. Last week he told me that he was very sorry, but there was a problem with the bomb.

Pump. There was a problem with our water pump. God, my heart stopped.

I once rattled off an angry email to my son's head of year after a particularly unpleasant incident, and signed off Retards, Floofydoof. I don't use that word, it was a slip of the finger. Mortified and I had to talk to him on the phone an hour later.

He was an arse anyway!

klaphat
"Prøv lige hør!" pretty much or just not talking about the sense of hearing at all.

Wonderflonium

Ah, I must say det lyder som om... in about every other conversation I have!

honeyroar you might have amused your French hosts by telling them that in English a 'lemon' is a slang term for a rubbish car...

at all of these! I feel in such good company!

I love language. I am such a geek!

When on german exchange i told the family that my auntie was coming every day to eat our cat, instead if to feed it.

"Un coño de vainilla" is rather funny, OP

It's not really used to describe someone, as in English, i.e. nobody says "eres un coño". It's more an interjection, as in "fuck" - "¿Qué coño estás haciendo?", "What the fuck are you doing?" Or, er, when referring to the real thing, of course.

In Peninsular Spain everyone uses it, all the time. Even the King.