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most embarrassing moment while learning Chinese


wix

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I used to teach jazz and popular music at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music. Once, I referred to the hammers inside a piano as 榔头 in front of a classroom of students. Half of the class burst into laughter. The other half started to laugh, then suppressed the laughter so as not to embarrass me. I was mortified.

 

As I soon discovered, the correct word was 琴槌.

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  • 5 months later...
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Hard to pick out my worst/most embarrassing mistake as I have oh so many to choose from... but one particularly bad one was when I couldn't find my car in the airport car park and I asked one of the staff where Area B was - "B qu zai nar?" - let's just say you have to be very careful with your tones when you pronounce that first letter... Another one that made a colleague laugh was when I was parking the car (theme developing here) and the parking attendant helpfully suggested that I pull into a more convenient space, to which I responded "hao yisi" hao=good, yisi=idea, surely that must mean "good idea" - no, apparently "hao yisi" means "how very dare you!" The attendant gave me a very old-fashioned look and my colleague had to try to explain that it sounded less insulting in English!

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  • 2 weeks later...

During maybe the second or third month of studying Mandarin, my teacher asked me (in role play) if my friend (a girl, Casey) had coffee - just to check comprehension.

 

"Christian, Casey you kafei ma?"

"meiyou, danshi ta you le."

 

At the time, having recently been introduced to the fancy particle of 'le,' I assumed this would be a fantastic way to say that she didn't have coffee at the moment, but that she did have coffee (i.e. earlier).

 

It turns out the actual translation was "she doesn't (have any), but she's pregnant."

 

Oh dear.

 

 

 

I've got three words for you:

Hanyu Shuiping Kaoya.

 

This is my new favourite thing forever.

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The paper was written by 陈实等, which Roddy had incorrectly translated as a single person Chen Shideng, instead of multiple people Chen Shi, et al, because in that context 等 means et al and is not part of the author's name.
 

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  • 3 months later...

Sometimes I have an occasional word slip. Especially since a lot of chinese words have similar patterns and structures.

In Chinese Class we were talking about movies. I was saying something about low budget films and directors.

I then wanted to mention that "Fast & Furious 7 is a big hollywood film" = 速度与激情7是一部大片” but the last word that slipped out of my mouth was

"大便 dabian (poop)” instead of “大片 dapian (hollywood film)

 

So, I ended up saying "Fast & Furious 7 is shit"

Because we were excited about the topic I said the sentence very loud and energetically. The Chinese students and teacher got a quick laugh out of me, as I had to re-say the correct sentence. Word slips always get me or I sometimes forget which tone is correct and say something totally weird.

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  • 2 months later...
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When you first start having the confidence to speak in Mandarin and they reply in Mandarin.

The blank spare of confusion never ends. Then they give the look of frustration and say it again in English.

 

Once that happens, it's the language learner walk of shame.

 

ALWAYS AT RESTAURANTS

 

 我: 我想要。。

服务员: 要不要加。。。

 

I was in Singapore ordering and they kept asking me if I wanted to add shit. I didn't really understand at the time so I just kept nodding my head.

 

My bill was 7$.... +5$ additional. For two boiled eggs -_-

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