In Colombia I am rediscovering the joy of the early stages of learning to speak a new tongue: many opportunities for a good laugh.
The lowest hanging fruit is foreign words that sound like things a potty mouth would say.
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| Kaffeefahrt |
One of Mark Twain's favorite German words was
aß, meaning "ate" in German, but in English where the eats come out. (The ß is a not a B, but a double s.) I always liked
Kaffeefahrt. The Animaniacs wrote a whole song about
Lake Titicaca.
The Colombians have a joke, "How do you say pañuelo (tisse) in Japanese?" The answer is "saque mocito."
Sacar is the Spanish word for remove, and saque - pronounced like the Japanese alcoholic beverage sake - is a form of the imperative. The rest is what you remove with a pañuelo.
I appreciate the humor of pretending to speak Japanese by saying "sake", but I also appreciate that it's funnier (in the pitiful sense) for a Japanese person that "sake" is about the only thing I understand.
The German expression "Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof" ("All I understand is 'train station'") expresses being overwhelmed upon immersion in a new linguistic world. It is a healthy form of self-deprecation that keeps laughing at others in perspective.
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Indeed, learning a language gives you plenty of opportunities to laugh at yourself.
In German the word for shooting star (
Sternschnuppe) is easily confused with star dandruff (
Sternschuppen). In Spanish, "
Quieres una galleta?" (Would you like a cookie?) sounds a lot like "
Quieres una gallina?" (Would you like a chicken?). I have made both these mistakes, as well as realized too late that it is
avena (oats) I like to eat, not
arena (sand).
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| Wanna cookie? (These chicks are neighbors.) |
Accents can cause amusing confusion, too. My French colleague often says that he is angry when he wants to go for lunch. Could be that he is sick of his databases and ready for a break, but I think he means "hungry". Childish (in the vein of Lake Titicaca) but entertaining is also asking a native Spanish speaker what s/he puts on his/her bed to cover the mattress (did s/he say sh*t?).
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Whether it is because the sounds of a foreign language remind us of words we know, or because foreign speakers confuse deceivingly similar words, interacting across linguistic boundaries provides plenty of entertainment.
And everyone has a turn to laugh.
