Have you been involved in a cultural
or linguistic Faux Pas?!? If so, and you'd like
to tell the world (wide web) about it, send your
story to webmaster@berlitz.com. If we use your Faux Pas on
our site, we'll send you a Berlitz T-shirt. Just
remember, include your name, address, telephone
number and shirt size, and tell us whether you'd
like us to use your name or e-mail address! Language Faux Pas courtesy of
visitors to Berlitz World!
The following
e-mail was sent to the employees of a U.S.
company:
Subject:
Network Crushed
We apologized the
network has been crushed this afternoon around
3:15pm. The problem was someone attempted to send
or transfer a huge file through the network, the
server memory halted, and the network crushed. If
someone needs to send or transfer a huge file on
the network please let me know so I can give you
some suggestion how to do so without network
crushing.
New Jersey -
U.S.
I was a Peace Corps
volunteer in Nepal working as an English Teacher
several years ago. One of the teachers at my
school invited me to his house for dinner one
evening. I went home first to clean up and change
clothes. On my way to his house it started
raining so by the time I arrived I was soaked. I
walked in to his house and his entire family was
waiting to greet me. He said "What happened
to you Mr. Phil; you're all wet?" I
responded: "I forgot my "Chata."
All of a sudden the children burst out laughing.
"What did I say?" I asked. He explained
to me that the word for umbrella in Nepali is
"Chhata" (with an aspirated ch sound)
and that "chata" (unaspirated) refers
to hair.
Philip W. Rudy
Melbourne, Florida - U.S.
My first trip
overseas was when I was 15, and I visited France
with a group from school. Our
first afternoon in Paris, we had some free time,
so a friend and I went off to buy some postcards
and stamps, and to try out our French. We went
into a tabac, found some postcards, then went to
pay for them and to buy some stamps. I said to
the saleswoman, "Je voudrais aussi des
timbales." Looked at me and said, "Des
timbales?" I said, "Oui." She
said, "Tu veux des timbres." Instead of
asking for stamps, I had asked for some
casseroles. So much for impressing her with my
French!
Laurel Baumer
Wayland, Massachusetts U.S.
We were visiting
the city of Merida in Mexico during the
installation of a system. One of the engineers
travelling with me, was importing some
replacement cursor positioning devices. We refer
to one of these as a mouse and Spanish speaking
engineers usually call them "ratones",
which is the Spanish word for mice. Our engineer
duly recorded the devices in the customs form as
"mice". The customs officer requested a
clarification: "You indicate that you are
not importing living things, yet you list mice on
you form". He explained the situation to the
officer who processed the duty payment for these
and allowed them through. They then proceeded to
search all of his bags. One of the customs would
not come near the bags. The other officer opened
the boxes containing the devices with a great
deal of care and fear until he became convinced
that these were indeed computer devices and not
mice.
Marcos A.
Solá-Cruz
Melbourne, Forida - U.S.
When I visited the Basque
region of Spain upon finished high school, I was
speaking to my friend's parents in beginner's
Spanish. We were eating "calamares y su
tinta". I was so nervous eating these,
knowing that they could be poisonous, that the
fork flew out of my hand since I was shaking. I
wanted to tell them that I was embarrassed, so I
said "Estoy embarazada." They started
laughing since the translation meant that I was
pregnant!!
Orly Schlein
New York, NY U.S.
This April, we
attended my wife's second cousin's wedding in
Boiano, Italia. My brother from Vancouver was
with us for the festivities and spoke no Italian
whatsoever, however, he bought an Italian
phrasebook at the airport and studied on the way
to the wedding and the reception. At the end of a
fabulous event, my brother strolled confidently
up to my wife's Italian cousin's, including the
bride and groom and individually prasied them and
said "Bene Cuoto, Bene Cuoto!" They all
looked around at one another bewildered since
none of them speak any English and couldn't
relate to "Well done" to being
"Bene fatto", instead of "well
cooked!".
Doug Farley
Toronto, Ontario - Canada
I was working as a
country doctor a few years ago and had learnt
some very basic Serbo-croatian. One day a very
elderly Serbian lady presented with her husband.
She spoke almost no English. I bravely commenced
with "Shta mozhem da radim za tebe
danas?" (What can I do for you today?). She
was overjoyed to have at last found an Australian
who understood her lingo. A torrent of rapid fire
Serbian ensued as she attempted to make up lost
time in describing every conceivable ailment that
had befallen her since arrival in this country. I
grasped just the occasional "noga"
(leg) , and "boli" (pain). I nodded
very sympathetically and agreed, "noga
boli". Eventually her husband intervened
with a question in Serbian which sounded
suspiciously like "When do you want to see
her again?" . At last I thought....
something I can say ... Dva nedelja (two weeks)..
I pronounced with great certitude. The lady
suddenly looked stunned. Her husband almost
rolled on the floor laughing. What he had
actually asked was "How long is she gonna
live, Doc??"
Name Michael
Taylor
Bendigo, Australia
One day in our chemistry
class the professor was giving a lecture on how
to carry out an experiment. During the lecture, a
part of his instructions went like this "
....Now take a copper wire of any material and
dip it into the blue colourless
solution.....". Students, who were taking
notes burst out laughing at the imposssible
concept of "copper wire of any
material" and "blue colourlesss
solution". The professor, though flummoxed
at first, saw the humour and started laughing.
Sudip Kalyan
Dey
West Bengal, India.
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