Drink! Gals! Us!
I spent a summer working with a group of Spaniards and some English friends. Being fans of Father Ted, we were in the habit of releasing tension by loudly mimicing Father Jack's cry of 'arse!'. I asked my Spanish friend for a Spanish translation. After a puzzled frown, he replied nosotros, which I happily shouted for the rest of the day. The next morning, I was asked politely why I was shouting 'us', at which point I realised my English accent had not clearly enunciated 'arse'. Cue a week's solid teasing.
Sent by: Ian
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Hooray for Father Ted fans everywhere... talk about untranslatable humor :)
My Spanish teacher used to tell this story. When she was learning Spanish in high school, she was in a notoriously rowdy Spanish class. One day they had a very timid Spanish teacher who in desperation offered to teach them any Spanish word of their choice if they were good for the class period. Tempted into submission by the possibility of learning a dirty word, they talked amongst themselves and determined the word they wanted to learn was 'butt'. The teacher furtively wrote »å±ð³Ù°ùá²õ on the board and told them it was the word for 'behind' (relatively polite Midwest American English euphemism for 'bottom'). For the rest of the day, cries of »å±ð³Ù°ùá²õ-head! rang through the hallways. Eventually they learned that the word the teacher had taught them was not the anatomical part but the preposition 'behind'.
I was spending my first holiday with my boyfriend in Barcelona. It was a cold day of December and we were looking for a warm cup of tea or coffee. We found the famous Starbuck's and so decided to have a warming rest there. I was happy to try my Spanish knowledge so I asked in Spanish for a cappuccino sure of what I am saying, but when the girl who was serving us aked: ¿°ä²¹±ô¾±±ð²Ô³Ù±ð? I didn't understand but I didn't ask for any explication, so I replied: No, gracias with a big smile! My boyfriend was wondering what the girl had said (and me too but in silence!) After ten minutes arrived two frozen cappuccinos ... Only in that moment we understood caliente means hot. My boyfriend could have killed me! So, a hot rest has been transformed to a frozen moment of relaxation and obviously we were more and more cold but when we came back to Italy, thinking about my mistake we could't stop laughing.
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