132Kviews
50 Times Non-Native English Speakers Tried To Say Something And It Came Out In Funny And Sweet ‘Translations’
Interview With AuthorA TikToker shared a funny story of a non-native English speaker creating some beautiful, unintentional poetry when trying to discuss moths and it spawned a frenzy of similar stories, phrases, and wonderful expressions. We reached out to Chris Rory, who created the original TikTok, to hear more about his experience and see some other examples. So get comfortable, pick up a notebook, and get ready to write down some excellent expressions that you should include in your everyday vocabulary. Be sure to upvote your favorites and check out Chris’ TikTok account here.
More info: TikTok
Image credits: chris.rory
This post may include affiliate links.
Bored Panda reached out to Chris Rory, who created the original TikTok, to ask some more questions. First, we wanted to know if he had any other examples of “accidental poetry that he liked. ”Gosh, it’s hard to think of the beautiful ones, a lot of it is just in the phrasing, adding an extra word here or there that adds emphasis to a sentence that wouldn’t normally be there, but here are some ones I can think of: “Rather is better than better is rather!”
An Italian friend trying to explain something like “It’s better than nothing!” I enjoy that our phrase for remembering how to tighten screws (righty tighty - lefty loosey) has a Spanish equivalent “The Right oppresses, the Left liberates” which I think is wonderful.”
He was also kind enough to share examples he had heard from friends and acquaintances. “A Norwegian colleague once asked me what the English word for “the first piss of the day” was, which alerted me to the idea that we might not have one, but also, that other people do. My Polish mother-in-law often tells jokes but picks the wrong word for the punch line. “A man walks into the doctor totally naked but wrapped in cling film. The doctor says ‘I can clearly see your balls.’”
“I used to live in Japan and I found out while living in Japan that for quite a while, instead of saying ‘housewife’ I had been saying ‘prostitute.’ Turns out I had been mispronouncing either shufu or shoufu,” he added, a good reminder to all of us attempting a new language. Make sure to check if there are similar-sounding words. After all, ship, duck, and stitch are all one letter away from curses.
Chris gave some other examples from Japan.” A Japanese friend once got her hair cut and I tried to tell her it was beautiful and it didn’t get the reaction I expected. I later found out I had told her it looked scary or ugly. The Japanese word ‘chin’ means ‘penis’ so when I taught children things like ‘ears, eyes, chin” they were rolling in laughter and I had no idea why.”
“I guess language is flexible and is supposed to be expressive. Poetry is a way of pushing language by playing with syntax and pairing words in novel ways to create feeling and imagery. When people learn a language they do this naturally because they don’t yet know all of the ‘rules’ of the language, so they break them - the same way poetry does,” he added, when we asked about his thoughts on why these phrases sometimes seem so beautiful.
“I’m not a linguist and I only know scraps of other languages, not enough to speak, but I did use to live communally with about 15-20 people, many of which were non-native speakers, it made for some excellent late-night conversations.” You can find Chris’ TikTok here where he posts funny sketches and talks about his life experience. He also has an Instagram page, which you can find here as well as a studio photography page, which you can find here.
The first thing everyone should know about learning foreign languages is that no matter how good you know a language, if you don't speak it a lot, you won't remember words. So creatively describing stuff in your own words is a very usefull skill to keep the conversation going. These stories here aren't just funny anecdotes, but are testaments to human creativity and our unbreakable will to successfully communicate with each other.
One of the ways people are officially tested for different levels of language proficiency (European Board of language proficiency which starts from level A1- complete beginner to C2 (complete native speaker fluency) is just how creatively non-native speakers can use clever anecdotes or descriptions if they don’t know a specific term. One of the questions you are sometimes asked for c1 or c2 fluency is to teach someone how to tie teach a child how to tie their shoes which is actually a lot harder than you think.
Load More Replies...Because we Brits are so good at foreign words...I once tried to ask my French teaching assistant if I could call her "tu" by saying "puis-je tu toyer", but it came out as "tu tuer", which meant "can I kill you"?
when i was still learning english i once said “i want to utilize your toilet” and have never lived it down amongst my friends
Take some comfort in knowing that a friend of mine once described red, horn-shaped peppers as "horny peppers"😁🌶🌶🌶
Load More Replies...The first thing everyone should know about learning foreign languages is that no matter how good you know a language, if you don't speak it a lot, you won't remember words. So creatively describing stuff in your own words is a very usefull skill to keep the conversation going. These stories here aren't just funny anecdotes, but are testaments to human creativity and our unbreakable will to successfully communicate with each other.
One of the ways people are officially tested for different levels of language proficiency (European Board of language proficiency which starts from level A1- complete beginner to C2 (complete native speaker fluency) is just how creatively non-native speakers can use clever anecdotes or descriptions if they don’t know a specific term. One of the questions you are sometimes asked for c1 or c2 fluency is to teach someone how to tie teach a child how to tie their shoes which is actually a lot harder than you think.
Load More Replies...Because we Brits are so good at foreign words...I once tried to ask my French teaching assistant if I could call her "tu" by saying "puis-je tu toyer", but it came out as "tu tuer", which meant "can I kill you"?
when i was still learning english i once said “i want to utilize your toilet” and have never lived it down amongst my friends
Take some comfort in knowing that a friend of mine once described red, horn-shaped peppers as "horny peppers"😁🌶🌶🌶
Load More Replies...