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.

😂😂😂 at 'the spaniel's testicles'!

How does one nominate a thread for Classics? I think this one is deserving!

We're moving this awkward thread over to classics.

@Bahhhhhumbug

W just thought of another one told me by an ex work colleague when she first went out for a meal with her rather well to do future in laws. The dishes were all in French and being unable to understand what any of the dishes were she panicked and just ordered the last one at the bottom. Unfortunately it just said 'When available' which she pronounced with an attempt at an exotic accent saying she would have the 'Von Aval-abul' please

Hahahaha

OP, you have my sympathies. But it's a mistake sooooo many of us make (think año and año). I also speak fluent Spanish, and still confuse follete (f) and folleto (brochure). As I'm a travel writer, I have on several occasions (although less so these days, with all info being digital), asked hotel receptionists, "Can you give me a f?"

Oops año and año!

FFS año and ano.

CaulkheadNorth - that's made me laugh very hard out loud on the bus. Thank you after a long tiring day at work!

Husband thought he would impress his Italian colleagues by ordering lunch. Apparently managed to ask for penis rather than bread! 😂

I once asked for Durex batteries. I wanted Duracell batteries, but the condoms were fairly close to them. I was 14 and mortified.

Oh this thread is making me chuckle out loud. Am a linguist, but best typo would be in English, filling in expenses form for my then boss - to be charged to Bustiness Development. I was mortified!!

I'm crying and crying with laughter about "Hello Whores!" in Tagalog from page 1.

Actual tears 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Another one who's had embarrassment from schwuel coming out as schwul - was trying to explain that it was so humid and muggy I felt faint, but exchange partner's father thought I was unhappy because I was kinda gay!
This was just after I thought he'd proposed a nice country walk but actually I'd been carted off cross-country running... (laufen can mean walk, but usually requires more energy, it turns out.)

Just before my A-level exam my teacher gave me a list of words I wasn't allowed to use. Schwuel was one, Quark another - the rest all had u-umlaut.

I used to work in an international lab with loads of miscommunications all the time, but my favourite was when a Greek lass asked me, very shyly, just why a wheelie bin was called a wheelie bin.

I tried very hard not to sound too patronising as I explained "Because it has wheels on it."

You could see the light bulb going on with her huge blush - she'd spent two years wondering why those wierd Brits called them willy bins...

When I lived in Spain I walked into the grocers and asked for a horse (caballo) instead of an onion (cebolla). Met with lots of blan faces. I also told my boyfriends mother, when she was trying to get me to have another helping, the equivalent of "I don't fucking feel like it", rather than "I really don't want anymore". Oops....

I once asked my German ex-MIL if she wanted "Vorspielen" (foreplay). I meant "Vorspeisen" (appetisers). Ex-MIL was horrified; ex-husband fell about on floor in uncontrollable laughter...

And I second all of BirdandSparrow's - bloody nightmare - and add grifo/grifa. Cue "Can I have a glass of marijuana water?" (instead of tap water)". Aaaargh.

Saying costipada-which means that you have a cold in Spanish to a lady at a playgroup who asked how I was doing.
She was from Venezuela, where it means constipated
May I add I'd just met her?
I realised what I've said when she touched her tummy and said : Me too!
I guess it's same as chips in America and crisps over here!
I must add I am quite fluent in Spanish, but not a native speaker and I've learned it mostly watching telenovelas

Drinking wine and almost crying with laughter! Pretty good for a Friday teatime!

Not a translation mistake, but similar to a PP. I once sent an email to 60 pre-school parents reminding them that coats, bags and willies all need to be named so they can be returned to the correct child if lost.

Mortifying...

My FIL is German.
His English is very good but sometime he gets letters mixed up in his pronounciation of words (his English is 100 times better than my German btw). Anyway, the first time I met him many years ago, I laid on a lavish spread. He ate all he could, sat back and announced 'You have very nice nipples!' 😆
That was 13 years ago and I still have a snigger to myself when we are having 'nibbles'.

I studied French and Spanish and then did a translation MA, this thread is absolutely hilarious I've actually been crying with laughter at some of them.

A waiter in Austria got very cross with me when I insisted that I wanted the menu. Evidently I was asking for playing cards (kartenspielen) and should have said speisekarte. My 16 year old DD who had just got an A* in her GCSE German was too busy hiding under the table with embarrassment to help me out as the waiter and I just got crosser and shoutier.

As a young (male) language assistant in Spain I tried to tell a class of teenagers that the phrase "gather me to you" in a song meant "embrace me" (abrazame) but actually said embarazame - impregnate me!

Also tried to tell an elderly landlady that I don't like jam and came out with "no me gusta comer preservativos" - I don't like eating condoms. The look on the faces of the rest of the family at breakfast was priceless but I didn't have a clue mat I'd said till later

I once ordered logynon (contraceptive pill) instead of longan (fruit) for desert in a Thai restaurant

I have had a shitty day but reading these has made me howl with laughter - thank you all!

A friend of mine hurt his finger while in Italy, and tried to form an Italian phrase based on a French verb (casser). He ended up telling the nurse that he thought his finger was an ice cream (cassata).