Ask Lemmy

A student was telling me about their pet dog, but it sounded like "duck." I kept asking questions like, "how did you get a duck? Your parents bought you a duck?" They couldn't tell the difference between what I was saying either. They showed me a picture and that cleared right up.

Another friend once thought twat was a synonym of twit. First time she called someone a twat in my presence I was gobsmacked but thought I must have misheard; there was definitely nothing twattish going on.

The next time it happened I made a note to raise it privately with her later. "You do know what twat means don't you?" "Yeah, it's another word for twit." "Er, no."

A work colleague on a few occasions has mixed up “ball handling” and “hand-balling”, easily done if English isn’t your first language!

my now wife is american. i learned uk english. one day we and some friends sat in a team speak voice chat. my now wife asks where XY is. i tell them, that they left to smoke a fag (which is uk söang for smokeing a cigerette). She was very concerned to say the least.

day 2 at a new job

Boss's boss and I are the only two there.

Boss^2: Vhat is za status of our new office in Catalina

Me: O.o (They have offices all over the place but I am not aware it's someplace named Catalina exists, I've heard of the dressing before so maybe it's a thing?)

I...um I'm not sure

Boss^2: Well, you need to find out.

Me: I don't even have anybody's phone number yet this is just my second day if you have some people you'd like me to call I can do that.

Boss^2: yez, look up the office and call them and ask them what their status is.

Me: (starts googling Catalina, an island in California? That wouldn't make any sense. A region in Spain Catalonia? That would make a little more sense but still not a lot and I don't speak Spanish)

Boss^2: well?

Me: I can't find an office in Catalina or Catalonia. You wouldn't happen to have their phone number would you

Boss^2: Catalina, Catalina, CAT-O-LINA, sea ate aya oh lee n ya

Me: Wait, Carolina, I'm so sorry let me find them.

(Rings, voicemail) It's 8:00 a.m., there's no one there yet.

Boss^2: rrr o k

I was on a voice call with a friend, and people who are familiar with me know that I'll end specific sentences with "eh" when others would use "yeah" or "you know?" instead. For example, "How times have changed, eh?" and "How'd your assignment go eh?"

They took it to mean "what?" or "pardon?" each time, and they asked me if I was confused, and I explained what it meant to them. It was funny in the sense that I assumed people knew what it meant but then I realized some people might actually find it confusing!

Our Austrian exchange student told us "My sister wants to be a wet".

The v sound is hard for German speakers

I've made this mistake and apparently others have as well: the words for lips (kuchibiru) and nipple (chikubi) got mixed up in my head leading to some awkwardness in Japanese.

Sounds like you don't know shit. (Standup comedy >4min)

Also your comment made me think of Jimmy Yang, who apparently knew English when he moved to the US, but not that well, not knowing any expressions. When someone asked him "what's up", he just looked at the ceiling.

As a kid we giggled at "Disney Home Video" because "Disney" is a proper noun, so doesn't translate, and "video" is "video" in Finnish as well, but "home" means "mould", (as in the fungus.)

I was selling a TV to a guy who barely spoke English. The TV was $50. He said "I only have fifteen monies". Idk why, but that was so hilarious to me that I let him have the TV for fifteen monies.

An opposite thing happened to me.

Wanted to trade something online. The other party listed trade as currency for object or other object + currency for object.

I had the other object and thought they would pay me the currency and their object for mine. It took a while for me to understand what they were waiting for.

They seemed to be a native English speaker. It's a second language for me, so some meanings get lost in translation.

I mentioned once giving a person of the female persuasion a wide berth (meaning to avoid that person. I can't remember why, maybe she was particularly annoying or something).

My friends face made me realise he didn't know that particular word and couldn't work out what a wide birth was.

I can't think of one off hand, but yours (E: and several of the replies) made me lol, thanks 😂

It was me who did a dumb recently. Talking to a cellist, in English: "Oh, you're a striker?".