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If you've ever interacted with someone who speaks a different language, what is the funniest misunderstanding you've had? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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An example of what I mean:

I, in China, told an English speaking Chinese friend I needed to stop off in the bathroom to "take a shit."

He looked appalled and after I asked why he had that look, he asked what I was going to do with someone's shit.

I had not laughed so hard in a while, and it totally makes sense.

I explained it was an expression for pooping, and he comes back with, "wouldn't that be giving a shit?"

I then got to explain that to give a shit means you care and I realized how fucked some of our expressions are.

What misunderstandings made you laugh?

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

My Dutch friend. We were on discord playing guild wars and the topic of alcohol came up. The majority of the group are british and we were talking about different drinks like whisky, gin etc and the question came up "so what famous dutch spirits are there?".

There was a bit of silence before he said, "I don't know, William of Orange?". Turns out he had never heard of the word 'spirit' to refer to high proof alcohol before so selected a famous historical dutch figure.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 weeks ago

I could imaging a William of Orange rum. Bet it would taste pretty good.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The answer, of course is "jenever".

The funnier answer is "witte wieven"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The majority of the group are british and we were talking about different drinks like whisky, gin etc and the question came up "so what famous dutch spirits are there?".

In case you want an actual answer to that question, look up the history of gin.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

This was a rather long time ago, my gin and oude en jonge jenever collection has rather grown since then lol