Language Gaffes

Adult learners of a foreign language all have stories of making embarrassing mistakes. Early on when I was studying some Mandarin, I meant to say, "Wo dudz e", which means, "My stomach is hungry", (or they way they would say the equivalent of "I'm hungry"). However, instead of the "dudz" I should have used (for "stomach"), I said "tudz", which means "rabbit". I wondered why the expressions on my host family's faces went blank, trying to figure out where I was keeping the fluffy little fellow, and precisiely how I would know that he was hungry!

Fast forward 27 years and many, many language blunders later (including a very serious one, which I'll share about in another post some time), I made a doozy last week in English class. I had shared a devotional with the students about how the encouragement we show to others can really impact the course of their lives for the better. I started to share a story about how my life had an impact on a young high school student in a grocery/produce store where we both worked. However, instead of saying chhiau-kip-chhī-tiû* for "supermarket", I just put the words for "vegetable" and "store" together: "chhài tiàm". Several of the students in the class started snickering. I immediately knew I had made a "linguistic misstep" and corrected myself.

Afterward, one of the older ladies in the class approached me and said I shouldn't tell people I used to work in a "chhài tiàm", as this was a euphemism in Taiwanese for a p*rnography store. Yikes! Won't make that mistake again!