I was just remembering this incident (with a mixture of humor and chagrin), and thought I'd share it as an example of everyday life here for us.
A few weeks ago, Eric and I were up in front of the church here in Switzerland (congregation maybe 200 on any given day), to introduce ourselves to them as new missionaries who are here to learn French. Since I already spoke a little French, they asked me to explain what our future plans are.
I started out just fine - I had it all written out beforehand - but when I came to the part about what Eric will be doing, there was a low ripple of giggles in the audience.... uh oh.... I turned to someone for help, whispering, "What did I say?"
What I thought I had said is that at Bongolo hospital Eric will be working with the "budget"...but apparantly what they heard is that he will be working with the "butcher"! So much for his expected job description!
C'est la vie! (That's life!)
If you have any funny stories of foreign language bloopers that you'd like to share for all to enjoy (and to make us feel better :) ) please share them under the "comments" for this posting.
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3 comments:
A famous blooper I heard when I was in Spain. The word for pregnant is "embarazada" while the word to feel embarrassed is "tener verguenza." A woman stands up at church to share her testimony and feels nervous/embarrased to be talking in front of people. And since it was the pastor who asked her to share . . . the american mistakenly says that the woman is "embarazada" and it is the pastors fault.
Thanks, Taryn!
While visiting a pastor in Russian, he kept asking us if we wanted a snake. After a while we finally asked him why he was offering us a snake and found out that he really was offering us a snack.
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