Learning someone's language is one of the biggest compliments you can give them. It shows you value their culture enough to invest a lot of time and effort in order to connect with them on a deeper level. It's basically like saying, "Your world matters to me," but with actions, which makes the sentiment even more powerful. So if you make a few mistakes, nobody will mind. In fact, sometimes those oopsies can lead to hilarious moments, as seen in a recent Reddit thread where native English speakers shared some of the funniest and most inventive uses of the language by foreigners.
My Czech sister in-law calls Silence of The Lambs, 'Don't Speaking of Small Sheep'. Onepen99
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Hearing the French president of our company pronounce "focus" with a strong accent that made it sound like he was saying "f**k us", and hearing him give a dry run of a speech where he was emphatically insisting "I need you to f**k us, we need them to f**k us, we need EVERYONE TO F**K US!"
Some poor sod had to go and tell him he needs to stop asking everyone to f**k us, and instead to f-ohh-cus. littleIdiotUK My girlfriend is Romanian. On our third date, she invited me to her house. We were talking about shopping when she announced that she had "Chicken tights"
I looked confused. She repeated " I have chicken tights" whilst rubbing her legs. I was trying to imagine what this article of clothing looked like, and said "That doesn't help!". She then opened the fridge and showed me the chicken thighs. It became our first in-joke.
Many other things she says that I don't correct because they are cute, are just mispronounced or slightly wrong words.
I love the way she says "Daffodiles" (rhymes with crocodiles), "Bubbles" (bulbs), "Casserole" (any tupperware type container), "Jardiniere" (any flowerpot), "SAL-mon" (with the L), "Sheddle" (schedule), and many others.
She also does the he/she gender mixing, but only usually when she is talking excitedly about something, or is tired.
Conversely, I have been trying to learn Romanian for 3 years, and she laughs hysterically at me every time I try to start a conversation. I believe I sound like the Allo Allo policeman. RPG_Rob ADVERTISEMENT
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My dad is Swedish and has lived in the U.K. for 20+ years now but still can’t say “totally” : he says “turtle-ly” which always makes me smile.
A few direct translations have also crept into our family vernacular: “adders” means something tastes disgusting (“smakar huggorm” literally “tastes like adders”) being one of my favourite examples. a-ks94 Spanish friend always misses out 'bit' when describing how she's feeling so will say 'i'm a wee confuse' instead of I'm a wee bit confused or 'i'm a wee sick' when she's unwell. It's very endearing. AcademyCat1719 ADVERTISEMENT My wife’s Filipino. Always confuses he and she. I get confused who she is talking about half the time. Gone_For_Lunch Many years ago I had a Spanish colleague who instead of saying “you’ve really opened a can of worms” used to say “you’ve really opened a tin of beans”. Love that! JukeboxTears My wife cannot for the life of her say "vegetable" or "vet" properly. She's Swiss and says "wegetable" and "wet", she's got better with time but when she's particularly excited it comes back again. mrafinch My partner uses the phrase “less more than” instead of “less than”. I always find it funny and never correct her. anon ADVERTISEMENT My wife is from Taiwan. When she first heard ‘Jamming’ by Bob Marley she thought it was a song about chow mein. To this day we still sing “and I hope you like chow mein too!”. PsychologicalDrone My ex described a new shop that just opened. Apparently it was a “snake shop”. When questioned he elaborated “it sells drinks and snakes”. From then on, the local shop was referred to as “the snake shop”. VixenRoss Had a Chinese friend/girl I was seeing who I was meeting in a city centre. Called her to ask where she was as I was on the right street but couldn't see her. She said she was outside "eeartess". I was thinking it was some restaurant or something I'd never heard of. Totally confused as I could see nothing like it.
Then I found her.
Outside Yate's. anon ADVERTISEMENT My dad had a Chinese girlfriend when I was younger. I was about 11 when she would quiz me on words and how to spell them.
For about a week she kept asking me to spell "ent ra preeny us" which I never got right, until my dad read the word to me and laughed as he said "I think she means entrepreneurs". solsticefaerie