Take care in Romania when you try to use your Spanish language skills to compensate for your lack of Romanian. The very common word “muy” means “very” in Spanish. In Romanian, “mui” is the infinitive of “to give a blowjob.”
[See the full “What I’ve Learned” list here. Start at the bottom and read up.]
The only language I ever learned other than English (debatable) was French, and in Georgia, you don’t get to use that much. In Italy, after nearly two weeks, I finally started spitting out baby sentences to go along with my mime-like skills and pointing. So, when I went to Mexico, I kept saying grazie instead of gracias, much to the amusement of many…
Learning things like the not-quite interchangeable meanings of muy/mui make me think I’m better off pointing rather than risk a scene from Frankenstein where the angry villagers give chase.
Is there a story that goes with this lesson?
Da, Lucas, Leif a intrebat multe fete, dar elles on dit:” ou est l’argent?” e lui ci ha rinunciato pentru ca he wanted it gratis. Taanstafl, Leif, there is no such thing as a free meal, anymore! Pardonnez mon joue de paroles
Mark – Knowing a bunch of languages is over-rated, particularly if they are sister languages. I have continual problems switching back and forth between Spanish, Italian and Romanian [example: http://killingbatteries.com/2006/11/italspanmanian/ ]. It takes like two weeks to finalize the conversion. In the meantime, I’m throwing in all kinds of words from the other two languages, screwing things up and getting no further in accomplishing my goal than if I had just pointed and grunted. Furthermore, there’s no country in the world where pointing and grunting can be misinterpreted as a request for oral sex from the listener’s little sister. Well, maybe Tennessee.
Lucas – No. there was no mishap with someone’s little sister. Not at all. Everything’s cool.
Gemma – I’m the only one allowed to post quad-lingualy on this blog. It’s only fair because that’s how I really speak every time I cross borders between Spain, Italy and Romania. By the way, you can keep your French. I have enough problems.
I’ll be fucked if I can understand anything anyone is saying…
Adrian, pick up a multilingual dictionary and maybe the first part of your sentence will be granted
hey, i just started reading your blog and felt it only fair to point out another few troublesome language faux-pas i’ve encountered.
in Mexico “calor” and “caliente” are not interchangible. (the first means hot as in warm, the second hot as in horny: this is a TERRIBLE mistake to make in a crowded Mexican nightclub)
in Ghana the phrase “i like it” is the same as saying “i want it”. You’ll save yourself a lot of time in the marketplace knowing this, as well as saving the vendors energy since they will chase you down the street yelling at you for not buying their stuff.