Embarrassing Moments: Ridiculous Mistakes in Foreign Languages
One of the things that often prevents us from practicing a new language is the fear of making a mistake. It’s an obvious wound to one’s pride if someone laughs at you, or looks at you puzzled because while trying to ask for directions, you confuse the word “left” with the word “shirt.” However, this pride can unfortunately cause you to stay home and isolate yourself. If you can dare to allow yourself to make the mistakes and risk being laughed at, you will learn much more than you would at home. Okay, watching TV in a foreign language is a great way to learn it, but it doesn’t correct your accent grammar. In the spirit of trying to encourage you, I will tell you about some of my own “traumatic” experiences with errors in a foreign language. Hopefully you’ll find that you’ll at least have tons of funny stories to tell for years to come.
London England – I studied at the London School of Economics in 1990 and considered myself quite intelligent. Since I am American and have been speaking this language all my life, I assumed that American and English are the exact same language, so I never expected to encounter any language problems when I lived there. I was very honored when my friends and I got lost one night, trying to find Gloucester Road. We ran into a policeman, so I thought he would be a good person to ask.
“Excuse me sir, could you tell me which way we’re going to get to Gloucester Road?” I asked.
The policeman burst into hysterical laughter. It was very funny, because I assumed that all the police in London were very, very serious. This one, however, practically burst out laughing. I didn’t quite get the joke, until he corrected my pronunciation: “‘Glow-chester’ Road? There’s no such place. But if you mean ‘Gloster’ Road, it’s just down and to the right.”
Paris France. I was in a pharmacy and found a man frantically searching the shelves. He couldn’t find what he needed, so he approached the pharmacist and I heard him say, in broken French: “Ah, pour ma femme. Ou est les douches?” I understood that he wanted a feminine product for his wife, but he left the pharmacist scratching her head trying to understand why she could help him find the douches. I jumped in and helped the man get what he needed, and we had a lot of laughs in the process.
Strasbourg and Louvieres, France – I have two French host families, and one summer I visited them both, starting in Strasbourg. I’m always eager to learn new slang, so I was delighted when my Strasbourg family taught me the word “tarre”, which means, as they explained, “silly”, or as I like to joke with good friends, “you’re retarded” as in “you’re a fool!” We laughed with delight, and every time he said the word, everyone was so amused. So, I went to the wedding of one of my host sisters in Normandy. They asked me to get up on a chair and give a speech.
Naturally, I wanted to share how much I loved everyone present and make them laugh, so I announced: “Les Francais, vous etes tous tarres, et je vous amour enormousment!” She was delighted to tell them that I loved her nonsense. Unfortunately, I learned that like the US, different regions have different definitions for the same word. In Normandy, calling someone “tarre” implies that you are the child of a parent who is medically retarded and therefore mentally challenged. Highly insulting. Fortunately, only one member of my host family took the offense seriously and wasn’t too eager to talk to me for a while, but I will never forget or misuse that word again!
Paris France. When I was working in Paris, one of the marketing managers who worked out of our New York office visited our Paris hub to give a presentation to a group of Americans. The manager was French, but he had an excellent command of the English language. Well, mostly. I was invited to listen to his presentation and he became very excited about an idea that he wanted to emphasize. He meant to underscore its importance with the phrase, “the belly of the beast.” Instead, out of his mouth came, “…and this idea came out of the bowels There was not a dry eye at the table and it was impossible to stop the laughter for at least five minutes. Then he had a rapt audience, hanging on his every word, waiting for him to make another mistake.
Here is what these experiences taught me:
Laughter is universal. It can actually be a bonding experience to make someone laugh.
Mistakes help you learn. I often remember words because I can remember one of my many funny stories and the person correcting my grammar or pronunciation. So the greater the impact of your mistake, the more likely you are to speak better next time!
Friends will forgive you. If you make a really dramatic mistake and end up saying something insulting, your friends will understand and forgive you.