Off topic: What are the most amusing mistakes your students made?
jimgreene87 United States Local time: 21:42 English to German + ...
Kunst?
Dec 10, 2009
I was helping out a friend of mine in college who had just started taking German. She answered one of her questions about art museums, but, instead of writing Kunst (art), she mixed up the t and the s.
"Sarah?"
"Yea, Jim?"
"Look at that word, and tell me if that is really what you want to say"
*looks at it for a good long time* "I guess so..."
"Do you often go the the c*** museum?"
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david young France Local time: 03:42 French to English
my favorite
Dec 10, 2009
is the common French mistake "I came in (had an orgasm in) London last week" (instead of "went to")
My personal blunders on arriving in France many years ago included asking my employer to send me my "fraises" (strawberries) instead of my "frais" (expenses)
and "I just had my horses (chevaux) cut" instead of "I just had my hair (cheveux) cut"
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xxxblomguib Brazil Local time: 22:42 English to Flemish + ...
please have a look at it....it is a joke about a speech given by the wife of a french president when invited by Her Majesty QE at Buckingham Palace.
The beginning is in Dutch, so most of you won´t understand, but take a look and listen as from 1min25"....
The thing is that this women in the joke wants to give a speech on "happiness" (she actually wants to give a speech on a subject that she thinks the queen as a women might appreciate) and she knows that the french have a problem with stressing the correct syllables in words in English, so she starts thinking how to pronounce this word, and starts her speech for the queen of England....the result is hilarious....
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xxxblomguib Brazil Local time: 22:42 English to Flemish + ...
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Carole Paquis United Kingdom Local time: 02:42 Member (2007) English to French
sauteurs and tills - dictionary work gone wrong
Dec 10, 2009
One of my pupils wrote in alleged French:
Je porte un sauteur (jumper, as in someone who jumps)...
But the best I have every seen:
En Walsall, toi boîte magazins caisse toi tomber.
In Walsall (my town), you can (as in a can) shop (as in a shop) till (as in a till) you drop (of course infinitive, why conjugate ?)
It took me ages to work out what that poor soul was trying to say...
I also had people cleaning the widows (les veuves) instead of les fenêtres (windows). Wrong line!
Personal experience:
When I was in my twenties, a friend of mine (honest, not me!) asked for the recipe for "chicken pox" (well, there is chicken in it!)..
In an essay at University, someone wrote that foreigners were very often made spacegoats in their adopted country. I still have visions of a goat in a spacesuit...
Carole
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Sara Senft United States Local time: 21:42 Spanish to English + ...
TOPIC STARTER
Another body parts-related error
Dec 10, 2009
This was my own error.
I was interpreting a message in to Spanish. During my interpretation, I accidentally said "coño," which is a slang term for female genitalia. Fortunately, I caught my error quickly and immediately self-corrected.
jimgreene87 wrote:
I was helping out a friend of mine in college who had just started taking German. She answered one of her questions about art museums, but, instead of writing Kunst (art), she mixed up the t and the s.
"Sarah?"
"Yea, Jim?"
"Look at that word, and tell me if that is really what you want to say"
*looks at it for a good long time* "I guess so..."
"Do you often go the the c*** museum?"
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Cedomir Pusica Serbia Local time: 03:42 Member (2009) English to Serbian + ...
Spanish, Serbian, Russian...
Dec 10, 2009
Well... in Spanish there is the verb "correr" (to run) and the famous "se" which can be added practically to any verb without changing its meaning. For example: "me voy" - "I'm going", etc. But, once added to "correr" it means "I'm coming..."
Even though I knew it in theory, I once shouted down the street to a friend who was waiting for me: "me corro!" People made way as they didn't want to be in the way when it happened...
Another one: many Serbs used to claim at one point that they spoke Russian quite well (there is a big similarity between the two languages). To test it, people used to ask them: "Ah, now that you speak such good Russian, could you please translate what: 'U minya krasniy zhivot' means in Russian. The Serbs would say: "I have great life", while in fact the phrase means "I have red stomach". An example of faux amis...
Cheers!
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The translation workplace 
People made way as they didn't want to be in the way when it happened... 