Language Mess-ups

[Anja]

My boyfriend doesn't seem to know the word 'lend' and uses the word borrow for both borrow and lend. For example if he was to lend me some money, he would say last week I borrowed you some money. Always makes me giggle.

[lucybelle]

My boyfriend doesn't seem to know the word 'lend' and uses the word borrow for both borrow and lend. For example if he was to lend me some money, he would say last week I borrowed you some money. Always makes me giggle.

My SO does the same. In Spanish they only have one word for the two so he gets it messed up all the time.

[kittyo9]

My boyfriend doesn't seem to know the word 'lend' and uses the word borrow for both borrow and lend. For example if he was to lend me some money, he would say last week I borrowed you some money. Always makes me giggle.

In some languages, there is no difference between "borrow" and "lend," only the action of one person giving something to another person temporarily, so you'll see that happen a lot. It just so happens that Spanish is one of those languages, so I have had my boyfriend do the same with me. xD Another word I've found that some people have trouble with (including my boyfriend) is "to teach" vs. "to learn." Sometimes he will say "I learned you that," when obviously he means he taught me that.

And lucybelle, my boyfriend forgets that "colegio" is high school, not college, so he tells me sometimes, "Oh, he's a friend from college," and I go around thinking this guy is in his classes right now, and then I ask about him later and he's like, "No, I don't see him, that was years ago." D'oh.

[lucybelle]

Oh I just had a great one- told the class lunch is "penis in salsa". I was told lunch was "pasta penne en salsa", evidently you can't just say "penne en salsa" since penne is exactly the same as pene which is "penis". The class had a good giggle at that one

[snow_girl]

Oh I just had a great one- told the class lunch is "penis in salsa". I was told lunch was "pasta penne en salsa", evidently you can't just say "penne en salsa" since penne is exactly the same as pene which is "penis". The class had a good giggle at that one

Don't tell anyone 'Ich bin Heiss' if it is a hot day and you are feeling warm when you're in Germany. Make sure to say 'Mir ist heiss' saying the first means you are horny!

[kittyo9]

Don't tell anyone 'Ich bin Heiss' if it is a hot day and you are feeling warm when you're in Germany. Make sure to say 'Mir ist heiss' saying the first means you are horny!

hahaha my German professor made sure we knew this before we even started using "heiss" to describe anything. She also made sure we knew not to use "warm" to describe yourself because it's slang for gay. One of my friends in the class was gay, though, so he said it anyway... xD

[TwoThree]

This is a very funny/endearing thread

My SO and I speak English, which is neither of our native languages (it's my third language, really). His English is pretty flawless, except that he sometimes uses his/him instead of her/hers, because Finnish is basically a gender-neutral language and I guess it's difficult to remember the difference when speaking English 'spontaneously' (I've noticed that with many Finns I spoke to).

I guess my English is pretty decent except for the pronunciation of some words (which I might have read and learned, but never heard spoken by a native), and he's always smug about correcting me! Also I have a tendency to use words that have nothing to do with what I want to say, but that happens in every language I speak, so that's probably just due to stupidity :P

Not really a mess-up, but sometimes he'd start speaking to me only to stop and realize he asked me something in Finnish, which I don't understand yet. I like that because it makes me feel like he's really comfortable with me.

[alNimsa]

I've really enjoyed reading everyone's language mess ups, a few laugh out load moments Unfortunately I don't have any to share, because my boyfriend speaks perfectly fluent English. Although I'm sure he has fun listening to me mess up when he is trying to teach me his native language which is Xhosa (one of god knows how many South African languages) I really admire people who are multilingual makes me feel ashamed of myself, especially as im half German and I cant even speak that!

There are 11 official Languages in South Africa: English, Afrikaans, IsiNdebele, IsiXhosa, Sesotho sa Leboa, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga.

[yachica]

I love this thread - We have had so many language mix ups! My SO doesn't speak English so all of our communicating is in Spanish and it's usually me saying something wrong however she does sometimes use google translate She tells me off because I drink to much pepsi (gaseosa in Spanish) and one time she tried to say 'you drink to much fizzy drinks' and it came out as 'you have too much gas ...' lol Another one when I taught her the English for SHE and pronounced is sheet which sounds like shit lol

[elina]

His English is pretty flawless, except that he sometimes uses his/him instead of her/hers, because Finnish is basically a gender-neutral language and I guess it's difficult to remember the difference when speaking English 'spontaneously' (I've noticed that with many Finns I spoke to).

I do that loads. It's kinda annoying when it happens a lot More often than not, I realise it and correct it straight away but sometimes it slips and then I get someone confused haha. You'd think I would've learned it after over a decade or speaking English but whatever

[TwoThree]

I think it's pretty endearing Finns also tend to forget to use articles, and after a short stay I tend to pick that up too. It's easier to say "he's in sauna" or "give me apple"

[lala]

hhaha I just remembered one embarassing moment lol
we were having lunch with some of his cousins and friends and I was talking to a female friend of him who playes soccer. I wanted to tell her that I like every kind of sport which includes a ball like basketball,volleyball.. but I said: I like every sport with balls XD everyone was on the floor laughing and I was just blushing soo bad