Ask Lemmy

My favorite anecdote revolves around the many meanings of shit, which is hardly surprising, since the way this word is used in English is in no way forthcoming to a non native speaker.

So I was sitting in this call between my company (a medium size German tech company) and a big US corporation, discussing the development of a tool that we were doing for them. The people on both sides all knew each others at least in passing, and one of the people asked if one of my collegues was in the call, too.

Them: "So, is mr. X here, too?" Us: "No, mr. X had another appointment." Them: "Ah okay. Mr. X really is the shit." My collegues: wait...what? did they just...? Me, to my collegues: it's good, it's good, it wasn't an insult! My collegues, getting more and more aggrevated: "Did you just call mr. X 'shit'?" Them, not understanding: "What? NO!"

The Americans did not understand what the problem was, because they did not really think about what they said and that it might not be understood the way it was meant by a non native speaker.

It took a lot of explaining from my side after the call to cool my people down. They were completely bewildered, and they could not believe that calling someone "the shit" could possibly be a compliment. Me, I had a big big laugh the entire time.

I've never had that sort of thing while personally interacting with people who speak other languages. However, when deployed I used to hear people speaking other languages regularly. So it wasn't that they were communicating directly with me, but I used to love overhearing what they were saying and "bad translating" it to english. And that was hilarious.

My work once sent me to Madrid. I only have some high school Spanish.

I had a cold at the time and soon ran out of cough drops. My coworker told me where I could buy some more, and what to ask for.

When I got to the store, apparently I misremembered what he told me to say. I said to the woman, "quiero caramelos de mentales."

She looked at me confused. I tried again, slower: "caramellos...de...mentales?"

She seemed a bit alarmed. She said something in Spanish. I said "lo siento, no comprendo."

She called over her coworker, who asked me "what are you looking for?"

I said, "cough drops." She looked confused. "Cough...drops? What is it?" I tried "caramelos de mentales" again, no success, just confusion.

Then I remembered I had some wrappers in my pocket so I pulled one out and showed her. Suddenly they both beamed with understanding. "Ohhh! Caramelos mentolados! You were asking for 'brain candies.' She thought you wanted something illegal."

Asking for a specific dish at a restaurant in Japan whose name was also the name of that very dish. They thought we were asking if we were at the right place, but we were actually just trying to order some. Or vice versa, I can't quite remember.

I think it was anagomwshi, on Miyajima island

I've had a few weird exchanges with my wife, although we both are native french speakers.

Turns out the word we use in Switzerland for prune (the fruit) is only used for the dried version of the same fruit in France. Perfect set up for a strange conversation about baking until we found out.

I was surprised that my Japanese online friend couldn't differentiate sit and shit... sorry