Wednesday, February 02, 2011

No, that isn't what I meant

We all have those language moments.

You know, when you say something that you didn't mean because you changed a letter or so.

Like when I tried in Estonian to say "closed street" and said "mitten street" instead.

Or when I tried to say to an elderly Israeli woman during her visa interview that "I thought" something. Turns out, transposing the syllables changes "I thought" to "I f*cked."

Oops.

So I did that again today. I was trying to say "It is time to begin class."

I didn't use the right verb for "to begin" anyway...it is an issue my classmate and I both have...there are two verbs commonly used for "to begin" or "to start," hakkima and alustada, and I inevitably use the wrong one.

But today, I not only used the wrong word, but I changed the word by ONE LETTER.

So instead of it being time to begin class, it was time to, uh, poop, in class.

Nope, not what I meant to say. Not even on my bad days.

Ah, language.

6 comments:

Sasha said...

In college Russian class years ago, my dashing young male professor was teaching us how to form imperatives. We were practicing by telling him to give us things. I meant to say "(give me) деньги" (money) but I definitely said "(give me) дети" (children).

Lisa said...

Let's see, in the last 2 weeks I have lamented the presence of condoms in processed food, and offered the ambassador a very special cheese made from the milk of an ass. Language learning is, um, special.

Digger said...

Thanks y'all! That makes me feel better!

Unknown said...

I have a bad habit of talking about the "armed bacons" instead of the "armed forces."

H.H. said...

How about the word for "bored" in Turkish becomes "I'm f*cked" if you changing the pronunciation ever so slightly (a long "i" to a shorter "i")

Needless to say, I am never bored in Turkish!

Shannon said...

Shoot ... I make these mistakes all the time in ENGLISH.