most embarrassing moment while learning Chinese

[eliaso]

Happened today:

她: 想我了吗

我: 想你死了

嗯，我是个傻瓜

[imron]

It's like the joke:

 

Her: Did you miss me?

Him: With every bullet so far

[eliaso]

哈哈 Pretty good translation there, imron.

[somethingfunny]

eliaso, I don't see the problem... seems ok to me. I say that kind of think all the time.

[eliaso]

想死你了 - I miss you to death

想你死了 - I wish you would die

[murrayjames]

I used to teach jazz and popular music at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music. Once, I referred to the hammers inside a piano as 榔头 in front of a classroom of students. Half of the class burst into laughter. The other half started to laugh, then suppressed the laughter so as not to embarrass me. I was mortified.

 

As I soon discovered, the correct word was 琴槌.

[LarryH]

Hard to pick out my worst/most embarrassing mistake as I have oh so many to choose from... but one particularly bad one was when I couldn't find my car in the airport car park and I asked one of the staff where Area B was - "B qu zai nar?" - let's just say you have to be very careful with your tones when you pronounce that first letter... Another one that made a colleague laugh was when I was parking the car (theme developing here) and the parking attendant helpfully suggested that I pull into a more convenient space, to which I responded "hao yisi" hao=good, yisi=idea, surely that must mean "good idea" - no, apparently "hao yisi" means "how very dare you!" The attendant gave me a very old-fashioned look and my colleague had to try to explain that it sounded less insulting in English!

[roddy]

Very nearly just sent a translation in with references to papers by an academic named Chen Shideng. Chinese name 陈实等. 

[Guest]

During maybe the second or third month of studying Mandarin, my teacher asked me (in role play) if my friend (a girl, Casey) had coffee - just to check comprehension.

 

"Christian, Casey you kafei ma?"

"meiyou, danshi ta you le."

 

At the time, having recently been introduced to the fancy particle of 'le,' I assumed this would be a fantastic way to say that she didn't have coffee at the moment, but that she did have coffee (i.e. earlier).

 

It turns out the actual translation was "she doesn't (have any), but she's pregnant."

 

Oh dear.

 

 

 

I've got three words for you:

Hanyu Shuiping Kaoya.

 

This is my new favourite thing forever.

[Guest realmayo]

Very nearly just sent a translation in with references to papers by an academic named Chen Shideng. Chinese name 陈实等.

 

I don't understand...

[edelweis]

等 = et al. (and others)

[Guest realmayo]

Ah... I'd put 陈实 into google but the first thing I saw was pictures of some kind of actress or model, she did not look heavily academical.

Then I was thinking hmm maybe scholarly abbreviation such as say 陈述 + 实话 + 等等

[Angelina]

off topic:

 

how would you define the "heavily academical" look? 

 

 

 

[Guest realmayo]

Compare &  contrast:

 

 

 

[Guest]

A few people here have noted a mystery faux pas when using the word 等 - may I ask what it is? I sense a pitfall worth avoiding.

[imron]

The paper was written by 陈实等, which Roddy had incorrectly translated as a single person Chen Shideng, instead of multiple people Chen Shi, et al, because in that context 等 means et al and is not part of the author's name.
 

[somethingfunny]

I asked someone a question on QQ once and all they said in response was: "="

[Ruckele]

Sometimes I have an occasional word slip. Especially since a lot of chinese words have similar patterns and structures.

In Chinese Class we were talking about movies. I was saying something about low budget films and directors.

I then wanted to mention that "Fast & Furious 7 is a big hollywood film" = “速度与激情7是一部大片” but the last word that slipped out of my mouth was

"大便 dabian (poop)” instead of “大片 dapian (hollywood film)

 

So, I ended up saying "Fast & Furious 7 is shit"

Because we were excited about the topic I said the sentence very loud and energetically. The Chinese students and teacher got a quick laugh out of me, as I had to re-say the correct sentence. Word slips always get me or I sometimes forget which tone is correct and say something totally weird.

[Bottlecap]

When you first start having the confidence to speak in Mandarin and they reply in Mandarin.

The blank spare of confusion never ends. Then they give the look of frustration and say it again in English.

 

Once that happens, it's the language learner walk of shame.

 

ALWAYS AT RESTAURANTS

 

 我： 我想要。。

服务员： 要不要加。。。

 

I was in Singapore ordering and they kept asking me if I wanted to add shit. I didn't really understand at the time so I just kept nodding my head.

 

My bill was 7$.... +5$ additional. For two boiled eggs -_-

[lips]

6 hours ago, Bottlecap said:

add shit

Are you sure they didn't *really* mean adding *shit*?