Expat life and learning a second language means that “lost in translation” can be a nearly every day experience. Between us we have built up a pretty solid linguistic blooper collection and we thought you might get a laugh out of a few of them!
Hello! Goodbye!
Me and a fellow concierge, back in the day!
Before kids I used to work as a concierge in a resort. During the summer the resort was packed to the gills with Mexican families. Part of my job was to call each villa in the morning and check in. My first query was always “Como estan?” (How are you?) to which 9 times out of 10 the Mexican on the other end would reply “Muy bien, gracias, adios” (Very well, thank you, goodbye or was least that’s what I heard). Naturally I would apologize profusely for interrupting and hang up. A week into Mexican season a guest complained about their flighty concierge who didn’t stay on the phone long enough to take a reservation. That’s when I found out that they were actually saying “Gracias, a dios” (Thank God, not goodbye). I still haven’t lived it down.
The Sister Bowl
Photo by: 1stdibs.com
While on holiday in Spain and well before I had a clue about Spanish, a friend and I explored a local market. My friend spotted a painted bowl and wanted to know if the paint contained lead. In broken Spanish she asked the merchant if the bowl was microwavable. The merchant looked puzzled and to fill the gap of confused silence my friend began to praise the bowl. Trouble was, she confused hermosa (beautiful) with hermana (sister). She repeatedly told the merchant “What a sister bowl! Sister, sister, so many sister colours… Does the sister microwave??” Imagine our horror an hour later when, “sister bowl” in hand, we realized her mistake.
The “Sugar”
Photo: tbo.com
One night in my apartment with nothing better to do I decided to attempt homemade marinara sauce. I had bought all of the ingredients assuming that my boyfriend had simple necessities such as salt, pepper, etc. at home. I was so proud of myself for turning into such a housewife and making something from scratch. I decided that the sauce needed some sugar and found a bag that had a substance that looked like sugar. As I added it to the sauce it started to thicken. As I continued to taste it and add more water it was thickening even more and eventually took on the consistency of jello. When my boyfriend came home he was able to tell me that the bag of “sugar” was actually laxatives. The next few days I spent a lot of time in our bathroom.
Nice to meet you
Photo by: lifehack.org
I had a friend staying with me from back home and wanted her to meet all of my new friends and “Cancun family”. I told her that each time she meets someone she should say “mucho gusto” (nice to meet you). I was so proud of her until I realized that after seeing the same friends multiple times she was still saying “mucho gusto” to which they would look very confused since they had already met her. I decided to spare her the embarrassment and tell her what she had said after she got back home. Maybe I should have said it sooner but it was quite entertaining.
Stay tuned because we aren’t out of the woods yet! Nothing is for certain but I would say more “oops” moments like these are in our future. What are your lost in translation tales? Tell us in the comments!
meet me in cancun 