What's one of your favorite "Lost in translation" moments, and why?
#1
I can speak English, German, Dutch, Swedish, and French. So one time, I went to a cafe (in America) and ordered my drink first in Italian, corrected myself in German, said "sorry hold on" in French, and finally just wrote down the order. In Swedish. The poor barista....
10points
#2
some kid started mocking ASL (american sign language) so i signed idiot and he wouldn't stop asking me what i said. i said shut up in spanish then. he rolled his eyes and left- love this story
10points
#3
My dad collects signed soccer player cards and sometimes sells cards (which he has more than one of) on German ebay. Over a decade ago an English bloke bought some and sent my dad a message. My dad doesn't speak a single word of English and that bloke seemed to feel it, so he translated his message into German via Google Translate - and man, back then it was quite sh**ty. So this guy wrote: "I am a big Schalke fan" and the translation was: "Ich bin ein großer Schalke Ventilator.", so "fan" was translated to "ventilator". I laughed so hard at this and managed the rest of the process in English. Ever since that day, when someone mentions Google translate, "Ich bin ein großer Schalke Ventilator" comes to my mind and I have to laugh.
9points
#4
My mum ordered half a kilo of giraffe in a Greek greengrocers. The look on the shopkeepers face was priceless.
9points
#5
I was writing an assignment for Spanish class. We are allowed to put our essay through Google translate after we are done to make sure it makes sense. Anyway I made a typo and almost talked about warts in my essay. Glad I caught that before turning it in
8points
#6
Several years ago I had a Korean tourist ask me where where Lovejoy street was, except she asked for “Lovelyjoy.” It was such a sweet mispronunciation that I just smiled and pointed her in the right direction. My wife and I still call it Lovelyjoy. (Trivia: it’s the street in Portland, Oregon that the Simpson’s Reverend Lovejoy is named after.)
5points
#7
When I was in Ecuador working on a horse ranch I asked for “ropa” (which for some dumb reason I thought meant rope) to lead a horse. Clothes. I was asking for clothes for the horse.
3points
#8
In Spanish class in college I was intending on saying that Galápagos penguins mate for life but ended up saying it in the literal sense as in have s-x for life. Those must be some exhausted penguins.
3points
#9
I worked in a jewelry store in key west flordia for awhile. Alot of different ethnic culture there ranging from Brazilian to Asian. Also alot of different ethnic tourist from all over the world. My best one was a woman very confused on tanzinite not being amethyst. She was from great Britain and had never seen this rare stone before. I had the pleasure of educating her about it. Lovely lady. We had alot of laughs, as her American slang was hilariously misinterpreted.
2points
#10
My mom speaks fluent Holliday Spanish. After 20 years a shop lady explained she ordered an ounce of soap instead of ham…
20 years people… 20 years and nobody said anything
2points