most embarrassing moment while learning Chinese

[smartmandarin]

yes, in Taiwan 同志 means gay.

If you would like to say friend in Chinese, it's common to say 朋友（peng2 you3) in Taiwan.

 

Also the most common one is 小姐 （xiao 3 jie 3)

in Taiwan 小姐 means "Miss", which is a common and polite way adressing a woman.

But in China, 小姐 means "prostitute".

[sparrow]

@smartmandarin: 同志 means gay in Mainland China as well. I definitely made that mistake before. Luckily, I was talking to girls when I said it, so I didn't get punched by anyone.

 

 

Once, a few Chinese teachers, classmates, and I met up at night to get some Xinjiang grub in Beijing. We were walking to the place when one of my teachers asked my opinion on something. I wanted to reply with, "I'm not picky." What I said was, “我很随便“ , to which she choked and almost fell over laughing.

 

 

I watch her laugh with a look of suspicious bemusement on my face. After she gets a hold of her self, she explains that "某人很随便" translates as "so-and-so is easy—as in sexually easy". What I should have said was "我随便".

 

Yeah, I'm real smooth.

 

 

Also, there was this Chinese girl I dated, and we were texting back and forth. At one point, I sent her a text, joking that her name reminded me of tofu, so that's what I'd call her. She found it funny, so with that encouragement, my follow-up message was, "那好，因为我爱吃豆腐。” Man, did I feel stupid when she explained that one to me...

[sparrow]

My name in English can be either female or male.

 

When I first arrived in Beijing, our teachers had prepared our Chinese names based on the name roster, and so my Chinese name had the character 佳 in it, which means beautiful.

 

 

Perhaps it's okay for a guy to have that character in his name, but at the time I felt itchy about it. After several months, I changed my name to some cool pun of a Buddhist chengyu. Ah, to be a kid.

[Lu]

 

Also, there was this Chinese girl I dated, and we were texting back and forth. At one point, I sent her a text, joking that her name reminded me of tofu, so that's what I'd call her. She found it funny, so with that encouragement, my follow-up message was, "那好，因为我爱吃豆腐。” Man, did I feel stupid when she explained that one to me...

Actually sounds like that is the one possible scenario in which this mistake is not really a mistake :-)

[sparrow]

I'll never admit to it!

 

But seriously, can someone explain me the exact usage of that phrase, preferably with examples? Since then, I've variably heard it means rape, flirt, molest, feel-up, and so on. A very long time ago, a male teacher once tried to get me to ask a female teacher what it meant when I was a kid and I didn't because...he had the most evil grin on his face. 

 

Is it something I can say while flirting, or is it extremely inappropriate, akin to talking about rape? I haven't figured it out...

[muirm]

I've always thought of it as something akin to "take advantage of", and when it involves a female I think "sexually harass".

[imron]

@smartmandarin: 同志 means gay in Mainland China as well.

It's also used extensively not in a gay context at all.  Mostly tongue in cheek, poking fun at the way people spoke a few decades back.

 

and so my Chinese name had the character 佳 in it, which means beautiful.

I know guys with this character in their name.

[tysond]

Actually sounds like that is the one possible scenario in which this mistake is not really a mistake :-)

 

 

 

Many years ago I was lead into this mistake at a group dinner by a girl who tricked me by offering a bowl of her 豆腐 and leading me along to admit that I wanted to 吃她的豆腐。

In this particular situation it was seen as a great joke by all, as she was flirting with me all evening, and I clearly didn't know what I was saying. And then after dinner I discovered that it was not really a mistake :-)

 

So seems usable for flirtation, maybe a bit similar to saying "feel up" someone, which can be sexy fun if welcomed, and harassment if not.

[sparrow]

That anecdote was very helpful. Thank you.

[Lu]

I was thinking about a good translation, because as I understand the word, it's kind of 'taking advantage of someone but that someone is not necessarily adverse to being taken advantage of', and 'feel up' finally looks like the right translation.

[ScottS]

One day, when I was about to part ways with my Chinese instructor after an independent study meeting, my instructor said something along the lines of "I hope you make it on time."  I attempted to express the idea " It's okay, I'm on time," with "bie2 dan1 xin1 ba, wo3 hen3 zheng4 dian3 別擔心吧， 我很正點."  My teacher smiled playfully at me.  

 

"What do you think that means?" she asked.

 

I said, "shi4 bu shi4 'wo3 lai2 de ji2' de yisi? 是不是「我來得及」 的意思？"

 

She shook her head and explained that the phrase "(shei2) zheng4dian3" was known to her as a colloquial expression for

"somebody is hot (attractive)" so I had essentially answered her original question by saying "Don't worry, I'm pretty hot."  

 

 

[Demonic_Duck]

Just walked into a store and asked if they had 干饼. It never ceases to amaze me how often I manage to mess up words I should've 学会'd ages ago. (Don't worry though, my tones were perfect, so no jokes about wanting to make love to pancakes.)

 

As for 吃她的豆腐, I have a suspicion (and I may be way off here) that it started out as lesbian slang for cunnilingus. I'm sure I've heard that it originally started out as lesbian slang of some sort, and it just seems to make sense to me in an odd way. Again, I may be way off...

[roddy]

Sitting in the library near a reference section I noticed a big 巧 on the spine of a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style. That's odd, I think, walking over to pull it out and have a look. Ah, 15th edition...

[Pokarface]

One day I think I said, Wo(3) zuò ji(1). 

I was trying to say, I cook a chicken, but apparently I said I was a prostitute, haha.

[MPhillips]

...

[Bird in a Forest]

I asked a friend of mine about her dancing skills in Chinese. She replied “很差”。
I wasn't aware that 差 could mean poor at the time so I asked: “差是什么意思？” but my pronounciation was a bit off so I accidentally said chao4. She gave me a funny look until she realised I meant to say cha4. She told me to say cha4 but I kept on saying chao4 over and over again. This continued for at least ten times, so you can imagine how embarassed I was when she told me what chao4 meant. (Clue: It's a swear word). I now make sure to be very carefully not to let that a become ao when saying 差.

[Demonic_Duck]

The swear word's "cao4", though I don't think there are any commonly used syllables which are "chao4", and due to the c-ch merger that a lot of speakers have, it'd most likely get parsed as a mangled "cao4" rather than a mangled "cha4", mangled "chao1" etc.

[Coys1991]

I was doing a school project in front of the class that I traveled with to China for a semester. I accidentally said I am beautiful instead of saying this mountain is beautiful. Soon afterwards my Chinese teacher gave me the Chinese name as being confused.

[Zander]

When I first started learning Chinese I had learnt how to ask for the wi-fi password (密码是多少）, but once at a restaurant my wires got crossed and I repeatedly asked the waitress 你的号码是多少?, (what's your phone number) rather than asking for the password. This combined with the fact I was repeatedly pointing at my phone (I was trying to connect on that) led to her being rather taken aback at my forwardness!

[Demonic_Duck]

At least you didn't ask her “你的咪咪是多少号？”