Tongue-Tied Tales

What more can we say? Please enjoy these few tales of our language learning travails.


Hoof In Mouth Disease

Some words just never seem to get correctly downloaded into our brains. Such was the case with Becky and the Chinese word for "bird" (which is "niau".) This wouldn't normally be too big a deal except that Becky was apt to confuse it with the sound "niou", which is the Chinese word for "cow." It tended to result in some curious stares - and made for rather interesting conversation - when she told new friends that her family had a couple of "love cows" in a cage back home.

Hot Lips Hughes

Pronunciation is only half the battle in learning Chinese … you've gotta get the tones down as well. While most misspoken tones are quickly passed over, every so often we blow it with the wrong words and end up more than a bit red-faced. One day, for instance, Danny wanted to invite a local pastor's wife to a special meeting. Now the words for "please ask" (or invite) are "ching wen", so Danny said to the woman, "I want to 'ching wen' you to go to a meeting." Problem is, he got his tones somewhat muddled up where "ching wen" is concerned, and this dear woman burst out laughing and confided, "I don't think my husband would allow it!" Seems that he'd actually - by using the wrong tones - asked the pastor's wife to kiss him. Atta boy, Danny!

Aauuuggghhh!

Language learning is certainly not without its discouraging moments. Arlene was diligently trying to use her fledgling Chinese with a young local boy one afternoon, when things slowly ground to a halt. Looking up at her with big, brown eyes just a bit filled with frustration, the little guy said (very slowly, as if to someone painfully dense), "I don't understand English." Not exactly what you want to hear when you haven't used a word of English in the entire conversation.

Delicacy Of The House

You've got to be bold in order to learn a new language, but sometimes boldness can result in a little face loss. Gregg found this out when he was at a restaurant with some of his local friends. Sans menu, he decided that he'd like to have chicken nuggets for lunch, and figured it shouldn't be too tough trying to order such a simple item. He already knew that the word for chicken was "ji" and that the word for pieces was "fen", so all he had to logically do was put them together and he'd get his "chicken pieces." Well the rest of the guys at the table wanted to know what Gregg was going to order, so he proudly practiced, "Ji fen!" Five minutes later, when the others finally stopped laughing and picked themselves up off the floor, Gregg found out he was about to order chicken droppings instead of chicken nuggets. On the bright side, he discovered his mistake in time to prevent eating a new specialty of the house.

Say What?!

One of our short-term workers from Finland got some serious attention at a local church when she confessed at the pulpit to having an on-going problem with “affairs with men?” Turns out that the translator had never heard the phrase “fear of man” before. Ouch!