Jim Eagles: Faux pas in foreign lands

It's lucky most people round the world have a sense of humour or some of the misunderstandings that occur when we travel abroad would lead to fisticuffs or worse.

One of Winston Churchill's more memorable phrases was that Britain and the United States are two countries separated by a common language.

But the anecdotes sent in by Travel readers clearly demonstrate communication is even more difficult when you are struggling with a foreign language.

On the other hand, there's no better way to understand a culture and get to know people than to learn the language, and the odd slip of the tongue often adds to the fun.

It was difficult to choose five winners from the dozens sent in, but my panel of judges finally selected Jenny George and Chris Brown, whose anecdotes appeared last week, and Christine Brown, Barry Rosenberg and Mark Boyack, whose offerings are below.

Lonely Planet will send each of them an international phrasebook in the hope of avoiding further misunderstandings.

Christine Brown's husband nearly created an international incident while dining at a French B&B just after the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

"We were enjoying an evening meal with other guests, doing our best to make polite dinner conversation in our fractured French, when my husband leaned over to a stuffy banker and his wife from Lyons and confided to them that 'nous espions' ('we spy'), when he meant to say 'nous esperons' ('we hope').

"The conversation went strangely silent after that.

"Our French has improved and we now own and run a bed and breakfast here in Kerikeri and happily entertain guests from France on a regular basis with no more faux pas like that, nous esperons."

* * *

Barry Rosenberg offered an anecdote from a forthcoming book about the perils of being a vegetarian in China.

Having memorised the Chinese phrase "I am a vegetarian" he couldn't understand why every time he went into a restaurant people would stare and giggle. Was it the way he used the chopsticks?

Finally, in the city of Hangzhou, a local who spoke perfect English, took pity on him.

"Pardon, sir," he smiled politely, patiently. "You didn't say you were a vegetarian. That would have been 'Wo shi sushizhe'. What you said was 'Who shi shacai'."

"Oh, well what does that mean?"

He was biting back the smile. "I am a vegetable."

* * *

Mark Boyack reports a slip of the tongue by a friend who was in Manila and slowly learning Filipino. "He got on to one of those small buses, got out his bus ticket and loudly proclaimed to the bus driver and the passengers, "Here are my testicles."

Boyack ran into trouble himself using a developing proficiency in German to discuss birdlife. "My attempt at the German plural for bird came out as a common slang word for sex and I ended up stating in all seriousness that 'What I like about sex is the feathers'.

"The worst thing is that I have no idea how often I used that word with my aunties and uncles without them showing any alarm at my somewhat odd statements."

* * *

Craig Panther's slip came while he and his wife were travelling in France. "We'd just finished lunch at an inner city restaurant in Dijon and the waitress asked if I wanted any more to eat. In my finest schoolboy French I declared, 'Non, merci. Je suis plein." or, literally, 'I am full.'

This was met with titters from staff and tour guide. I found out that colloquially 'Je suis plein(e)' means 'I am pregnant'."

* * *

Karen Anderson ran into a similar problem while on a student exchange in Brazil. "I had been there only a couple of weeks when I wanted to tell my host family I was expecting a call from a friend. So I pulled out my trusty Portuguese dictionary and said 'Estou gravida uma ligacao.' I couldn't understand why my hosts suddenly looked so shocked.

"Turns out you shouldn't take your dictionary too literally. 'Estou gravida' means 'I am pregnant'. It took a good 10 minutes to then convince them that, no, I wasn't pregnant and it was merely a mistranslation."

* * *

Margaret O'Connor found herself extremely puzzled by the efforts of her New Zealand companion to buy a particular set of Russian dolls at a busy market near the Kremlin.

"Neither the sales girls with their basic English nor I with my basic Russian can understand what she wants. Finally what she is saying clicks with one of the young Russian girls but they do not stock that particular doll. Meantime, I am still mystified. Who is SpongeBob SquarePants?"

* * *

Matthew Niederer reported a couple of language difficulties in Kyoto, Japan. "I meant to tell the woman I was staying with that I was going to the bathroom ('Toire ni itte imasu'). Instead, I said, 'Let's all go to the toilet!' ('Toire ni ikimashoo').

"Also in Kyoto, the cherry blossoms were out and everyone was celebrating. I meant to tell my guide I thought the blossoms were pretty ('Hana ga kirei desu'). Instead, I said, 'I hate flowers!' ('Hana go kirai desu.')."

* * *

Kaye McKean's problem came while trying to buy some tomatoes from an old lady sitting in the street with a basket of tomatoes. "In my broken Russian I thought that I asked for five tomatoes. The babushka, however, interpreted my request as offering her five roubles for the entire basket. A small debate ensured. She was angry that I would offer her such a lowly sum and replied angrily.

I repeated my request, hoping like most foreign language speakers that if you say the same thing slower and louder that they will understand. She assumed I was insisting on this lowly price and eventually gave in, thrust the basket at me and held out her hand for the money. I proceeded to take five and give her the remainder back. It was only then that she and I realised the misunderstanding.

"In the end I went happily on my way, five tomatoes in hand, and the smiling babushka had more than enough money for many baskets of tomatoes and change to spare."

* * *

Kelly Henshilwood was living in Toulouse in southern France when she was taken out to dinner by a charming Frenchman. "The French like to hear English people speaking French and so he asked me to say a few things, to which I replied with all the usual, my name is, my job is and and I live in ('j'habite en...').

"Unfortunately my pronunciation sounded more like 'j'ai bite' and the Frenchman was rolling around laughing at me I had no idea why until he managed to stop laughing long enough to tell me I had just said 'I have a willy'. I never made that mistake again."

* * *

Michelle Green was only six years old and visiting a family in Germany when she learned - as many a parent has also discovered - the risk of automatically agreeing to anything.

"A kindly grandmother asked me a question. Well, I didn't speak a word of German and had fallen into the habit of nodding politely and answering 'Ja' to any question posed. I later found out that the question translated to 'What is your name?' to which I'd replied 'Yes'."

* * *

Howard Jack has had problems using his smattering of French during business trips to Noumea. One came when he went to order a croque monsieur at a local takeaway "and got a slightly puzzled look from the staff, but still got the order." Later he learned he had "ordered two toasted sandwiches for hire."

Another instance, he says, "involved pronunciation and is one probably a lot of English speakers make. We were booking a trip to the Isle of Pines or Ile des Pins. I said something about the 'Eel der Peen' and got a very strange look from the lady behind the counter. The 'I' in 'Il' is pronounced as 'ee' but the 'I' in 'Pin' is not. Saying it as 'ee' refers to the male organ."

* * *

Dave Marr has a special problem communicating because he is from Scotland. "When I was eight, and camping in France on the family holiday, mum sent me up to the shop to buy two baguettes, explaining French for two was 'deux'. Of course by the time I got to the shop I'd forgotten, but overheard someone say 'trois' and thought, 'Oh it's just like Scottish,' and said 'Twa baguette' and then panicked when she handed me three!"

Marr also had problems while working in a restaurant in Austria. "I would give the customers the menus then later ask them 'Have you decided?' Because they always looked at me in a puzzled way I looked it up and realised I was in fact asking them, 'Have you exploded?'."

* * *

Belinda Wilson was working at a summer camp in Vermont when she discovered that American English is also a foreign language. "One night I was roped in to create the tennis draws, which meant taking notes in a room full of gorgeous teenage tennis jocks. I made a mistake in writing up the draws and looking up in all innocence I asked, 'Do you have a rubber?'

"I shall always remember the silence and the excruciating embarrassment. At the end-of-term dinner they presented me with a condom and an eraser."