Lost in translation……..what’ s your funniest story?

When I was baby-sitting my little grandson ( he is now23 ), I had to use the loo. I always kept him within eyeshot . So I kept the toilet door open. He looked at me and said ‘Nanny, why do you have such big knickers? My mummy has teeny knickers ‘ .

Our elderly neighbour had taken up gardening late in life, and informed us one day that he had been reading about lawns, and that his was full of micro orgasms. Had to shut the listening teenagers out as they were convulsed with laughter and we didn't want his feelings hurt.

I once stayed in a hotel in France and there was a notice in the bedroom which read "Consummations forbidden in this room"
it took me a while to work out that they meant something like "Food must not be consumed in this room".

At least none of these almost for you shot! We were driving through Georgia years ago but took local roads and it was very hillbilly. We stopped to put petrol in and my late husband went in to pay, it was busy, a couple of policemen were getting hotdogs too. Our 9 year old followed him in and called across to him Daddy, ask if they sell rubbers, you wore ours out last night!.
He said he was sure one of the policemen went for his gun, clearly a case of child abuse, but he managed to ask if they had erasers and clarified the misunderstanding, they had done a lot of drawing the previous evening.

Witzend

Oh, and new foreign resident in MiL’s SW London area asked their local butcher for a hen. Which caused a lot of amusement after the chap (I never heard the nationality)

It hadn’t struck me until then how you can call both the live and the dead bird a chicken, but a hen is only ever the live bird.

I had a colleague, who was from the Isle of Barra. She told the story of how they were having chicken for dinner and it was only when the granny talked about how delicious the hen was, her children realised that it was the hen, which had been running about the farm, that they were eating! I think the word hen was used for a live, but also dead bird.

My very proper tennis friend always referred to annoying people as real twats.I was shocked to hear this but didn't like to enlighten her.

…after the poor chap had left, obviously.

Oh, and new foreign resident in MiL’s SW London area asked their local butcher for a hen. Which caused a lot of amusement after the chap (I never heard the nationality)

It hadn’t struck me until then how you can call both the live and the dead bird a chicken, but a hen is only ever the live bird.

When I was working for an airline a Japanese passenger once asked me what the ‘fright time’ was. 😂

I once worked as a Ski Rep in Italy and mistakenly told the clients they were having broda di cane instead of broda di carne! No-one turned up for dinner as they thought they were having dog soup and it was meat soup!

I was on holiday with DH in Florence when we saw a sign with an arrow which read Senso Unico. My husband had been studying Italian prior to our visit and said "Shall we go and find the unique sensation?" I had worked out that we were in a one way street so I told him what I thought it really meant.

Years ago a Dutch friend was visiting England. He wanted to buy Palm Olive soap from Boots chemist.
The same soap is sold in the Netherlands, but the pronunciation of palm olive is different. The assistant was confused when asked for some Pal am o leafy!

If you get asked to bring a plate in Australia they mean food to share, not a plate! If you ask for chips you will probably get potato crisps not fries. Depending which part of the country you are in.

I wish there was a like button on here. Some of these are so funny 🤣

Thanks for this thread. It's given me a good laugh and lifted the spirits.

I once accompanied a Morris Dancing team to France as their interpreter as they were dancing at a festival run by their twin city. At the final concert the Morris Squire told me that he was presenting the seal of the city to the French mayor and asked me to translate his speech. No problem I said but then realised I didn’t know the word for seal ( as in wax seal) in French. I knew the word for the marine seal was ‘foque’ and there was no way I was saying that word in front of 12 Morris men as I knew they wouldn’t be able to contain their laughter so I showed the seal to a French friend and asked her the word in French …. It was TAMPON…. so embarrassing presenting the tampon of Southampton to the mayor of Le Havre with the stage shaking floor with laughter behind me!

My husband is Welsh and didn’t speak English until he was 12. Recently we went to the ballet to watch a friend’s child dance, as we left he said it had been very well corrugated but the man sitting behind us was a pain in the throat as he kept kicking the back of his seat. There are many other interesting phrases too many to mention. These are my favourite.

We had a Serbian girl stay who had taught herself English from Janet and John type books. We took her out for a pub meal and she kept saying too much food so we thought she had had enough to eat. What she actually meant was plenty of food.

Diplomat, I had a similar mixup with my son as a toddler. He said he liked the 'potty' song from the radio. I believe it was Gloria Estefan Party Time.

I've enjoyed this thread!

GrannyBettie

I was having a skiing lesson in Italy and the instructor told me, and my fellow students, to make sure we watched his backside!

Bet he was a tight arse 😂

At the end of WW2 my DH's father met a German soldier and they became lifelong friends. In 1966 my teenage DH and his parents were staying with the German and his family when the World Cup final was played, and they watched it on TV in the local pub. When the winning goal was scored my DH (proud of his A-level German) stood up and shouted "Wir haben noch ein tor geschissen" . The German for "scored" is "geschossen". The word he used referred to excavating ones bowels. The raucous laughter of a German pub full of men still rings in his ears!

Many years ago a colleague (who became a close friend) and I were at a meeting in London. After the meeting we shared a taxi to our respective mainline stations. I asked the driver to take me to Euston, but my friend who was newly diagnosed as Diabetic asked to be taken to St Pancreas! I never let her forget it!

@Diplomat
I remember something similar happened to me. Many years ago I was working in a co op when one day a man came in, think he was Turkish, asking for “flagilla,” I didn’t have a clue what he wanted and he kept repeating it over and over.
He was beginning to get frustrated but I still had no clue.
It was only when he put his hand up and made a pssss pssss noise and mimed holding a spray can while repeating “flagilla flagilla” really impatiently, when the penny dropped that he wanted…..fly killer!

My youngest daughter is well known within the family for mispronouncing words. She once stood up in class and confidently announced that an octopus had 8 testicles! She has also described us as her intermediate family and said her friend never battered an eyelash.

A story from my father's army days.
He was stationed in Algeria where French was spoken. One evening some British soldiers went to a bar to get cold drinks and one of them had started drinking a beer, not noticing that there was an insect in the glass.
A local man wanted to warn him about this and kept pointing to the glass saying "Fourmi, fourmi", which means "ant". The soldier thought the man wanted to take away his drink and moved away but the local man just followed him, repeating the same words over and over again.
The soldier got angry and punched the local man, who had only meant well. He only found out after returning to barracks what the local man had been trying to tell him.