Comments on: Roast Chestnuts 10:3-5

By: Bob W.

Bob W. — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 21:01:50 +0000

My old mission president had miserable German, anyway. He told the story on himself, that he really used the German-English cognates. He was asked how the voyage over was. He replied “Mist hier, Mist da!” Mist = manuer/shit. Obviously this was a LONG time ago.

My favorite was a friend in the unisex barber shop who was having his hair cut by a cute young girl. Making small talk, he turned to her to ask where he could get such a brush. He mixed up “Bruste” with “Beurste” which caused the poor girl to color deeply.

I guess Austrian slang for the F word was a cognate for foot. So when speaking about Amerikanisches Football…. I told this story to the mostly LDS book club, most were amused and it cemented my reputation.

I did not find this out ’till later. I am still not too sure. My online dictionaries do not cover much Austrian slang, I guess.

By: jose

jose — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 21:26:28 +0000

In Strasbourg, on the French border with Germany, a new missionary was asked to offer the prayer before the meal. Mixing his English with French, he said “Blesse les allemagnes.” instead of “Benisse les ailments”. What he said translated to “Hurt the Germans.” The French, not forgetting their history, responded to the prayer with an ardent “Amen!”

By: T-Bone

T-Bone — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 02:11:51 +0000

I was not a missionary, but when I lived in Japan the young missionaries would regularly confuse ‘kowaii’ (scary) for ‘kawaii’ (cute). You should tell somebody that their child is kawaii. But they would say, “Ah, kowaii!”

Another funny thing I noticed is that they spent a lot of time talking to high school students when tracting by train stations. High school girls would try to practice English with them, and they’d try to practie their Japanese with the high school girls. So when they actually learned the correct word for cute, they would sound like a high school girl, ‘kawai~~~~i.’ That got an even bigger laugh from the local members.

By: Texas_tyrant8

Texas_tyrant8 — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 05:38:27 +0000

Yet more evidence the Church must be true else the elders for sure would have ruined it long ago… or perhaps that is exactly what happened in our European missions. Are Europeans less forgiving of our language shortcomings than their South American counterparts? Our Mexican investigators and members were pretty easy-going about our linguistic faux-paus (and yes there were many).

By: AC

AC — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:01:50 +0000

It’s possible that he laughed so hard because maroni was actually a euphemism for testicles.

I’m dredging up some aging memories, but in Italian, marrone meant brown, but maroni (I think) was just such a euphemism. Imagine poor Elder Brown that tried to translate his name and didn’t trill the r for quite long enough.

Some others: Quanti anni hai? (How old are you) Quanti ani hai (How many anuses do you have)? I had an investigator/english class participant ask me to be sure to hold the “n” long enough.

A sister bore her testimony about the Book of Mormon saying that she knew it was true because she had bound (legato) it instead of read (letto) it.

I don’t know that I heard this one done, but there’s a one letter difference between “discouraged” and “farted” scoraggiato/scoreggiato. Imagine how poor “discouraged” Joseph Smith felt when he couldn’t find a church to join.

By: Tim J.

Tim J. — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 15:00:39 +0000

The other good Spanish mixup is saying I’m hot. Instead of “tengo calor” a greenie will often say “estoy caliente” which means he’s uh…well, ready for some lovin’.

By: Norbert

Norbert — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 14:48:07 +0000

In Dutch, I got angel (engel) and hedgehog (egel) mixed up, which makes the origins of the BoM even more perplexing.

By: Mathew

Mathew — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 14:45:48 +0000

Another classic moment in Russian: My Bulgarian companion and I were making small talk with a couple about food. I mentioned that the bread in American wasn’t tasty because it was full of preservatives. At four months I didn’t know “preservative” is the Russian word for condom.

By: mami

mami — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 01:06:36 +0000

I think all the Russian speakers are about to rival all the German speakers on the blogs.

By: Beijing

Beijing — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 23:57:35 +0000

A senior companion in my mission explained to a new elder that there are two kinds of bread in Russia: TOT xleb (“that bread”) which is soft and delicious like Wonder Bread, and ETot xleb (“this bread”) which is mostly crust and tastes like cardboard. The greenie went into the kiosk and asked the woman behind the counter for “that bread,” so she pointed to a loaf and says “this bread?” He said, Nyet, “that bread.” And so on.