most embarrassing moment while learning Chinese

[LurvJenny]

LOL thanks so much abcdefg. My writing skills are very basic and I can only read the basics I hope everyone understands what I was trying to say

[Shi Tong]

I just thought of a pretty embarrasing moment when I was learning Chinese.

I was on a dock side in some fishing village when one of the locals saw me approach. He didn't just shout anything about laowai's or anything (which is surprising), and asked me if I spoke Chinese.

I answered that I did, and mostly when a foreigner tells you that they can speak your language, you tend to try to be careful and sometimes slower than usual, sometimes resorting to simpler language, expecting said person to not always understand you. He gave me the benefit of the doubt, and spoke fast and in depth about something that was happening "over there".. lets just say I didn't know what on earth he was talking about.

He looked at me, and I looked at him, and I think he twigged that I had understood very little. I said that I didn't get all of what he'd said, and he promptly gave up.

Shame really, I'd like to have known what he was so excited about, but it was a very embarrasing situation in the end!!!

[M.E.Townsend]

This is what my friend told me. He went to Chengdu for a short summer course. One day during the class, he raised his hand and said,

Lao3 shi1, wo3 ke2 yi3 wen2 ni3 ma?

While he is supposed to say,

Lao3 shi1, wo3 ke2 yi3 wen4 ni3 ma?

See if you could get the joke.

[Shi Tong]

The same reason why our teachers first lesson to us was "when you want to ask a question, please say "qing3wen4", not "qin1wen2" ;) Plus, you have the added advantage of the ma at the end.

[Suze]

I had a similar experience when I used the term "dalu mei" for the green vegetable in Taiwan, not realizing it was slightly offensive.

[Meng Lelan]

Lao3 shi1, wo3 ke2 yi3 wen2 ni3 ma?

Oh, dear.

That's also why I make my students say "Meng Laoshi, wo you wenti" instead of the above.

[jbradfor]

Sorry for my ignorance, but I just need to ask: what character is the "dangerous" wen2? I've been looking through the dictionary, and obviously my slang is not up to snuff....

[skylee]

I just need to ask: what character is the "dangerous" wen2?

supposedly it is 吻.

[aristotle1990]

Not 闻?

[skylee]

oh it could be. i just think 聞 is not very funny/embarrassing.

[aristotle1990]

I dunno, I think accidentally asking a teacher if you can smell her is pretty funny. :rolleyes:

[jbradfor]

Ah, OK.

Personally, I think 吻 is much more embarrassing than 聞. 聞 is just creepy.

OTOH, 吻 is third tone, not second, but I guess that just goes to show the importance of getting your tones correct.

[skylee]

jbradfor, how about tone sandhi before ni3?

[jbradfor]

Yes, you got me there, with tone sanghi 吻你 would be pronounced wen2ni3. [Although, strictly speaking, since tone sandhi is not indicated in pinyin, it would be written wen3ni3.] [Although, in the post in question, the poster did write "Lao3 shi1, wo3 ke2 yi3 wen2 ni3 ma?", indicating tone sandhi on the 可, so I guess it's quite ambiguous.]

[Murray]

I'm happy to see I'm not the only one who's made the 吻 mistake when trying to ask somebody a question! That was my first embarrassing Chinese moment and it happened when I'd only been studying for about three months.

I was in a Chinese restaurant and was trying to find a way to strike up a conversation with the waitress in Chinese because I was so desperate to communicate with native speakers outside of class. I noticed that the chopstick wrappers had characters on them that didn't say 筷子 so I thought if I asked the waitress, not only could I practice my Chinese but i could learn some new hanzi as well.

So when she walked back around, I called her over to the table stood up and said “小妹，对不起请问，我要吻你一下，好不好？” The look on her face was absolutely priceless! I realized something was wrong and quickly explained myself in English. That's when I realized how important tones were <_<

[daofeishi]

I remember my first truly embarrassing Chinese moment. My girlfriend had been in the unfortunate situation that she had to see a gynecologist, but we get along so well she didn't have any problems talking about it with me. We skyped about it, and it lead to me learning a lot of relevant vocab about women's "nether regions". I did as I always do and googled the words for example sentences. That led me to further trying to figure out how to say various obscene things involving those body parts, just because that is something I figured I needed to know for fluency. 插入 is a good example of a related verb that I learned, together with interesting expressions like 爆菊花 and nouns like 润滑油. I didn't spare any details, and learned how say things my grandfather would have slapped me over the head with a bible for. I duly wrote the sentences down on some scratch paper next to my computer, just to reinforce some of the new characters that I learned.

A couple of days later, one of my friends at college asked me if one of her male friends could stay in my room when he came to visit her. He was Chinese, studying for his masters in the US. I agreed to this. When he arrived the following weekend, I showed him around my room and he quickly saw that I was studying Chinese from various books lying around. He then caught a glimpse of my notebook with characters in it lying next to my laptop, and said something like "whoa, your handwriting is pretty good". He duly picked up my notebook and started reading what was in it. I have never seen anyone have such a quick change of expression before, and for some reason the conversation immediately turned to something completely unrelated. I didn't now what to say to vindicate myself, so I let it be at that.

[sujisol]

I have not been embarrassed. It seems it's too often the other way around. Or is it Chinese are too finicky about their language to take time listening to foreigners who are trying to express themselves in real life situations.

[Semper]

A few months after I first came to Taiwan I arranged a language exchange with a friend's sister. At our second or third meeting she brought along a friend. Trying to make polite conversation in my, what was at the time, quite limited Chinese I asked if her friend was her tongzhi (同 志). I had only been in Taiwan for a few months and most of the Chinese I knew was straight out of a textbook printed in Beijing. Of course I thought tongzhi was a perfectly fine word to describe a friend or comrade. I was quite surprised though by the strange response I got to my question. It was then explained to me that in Taiwan the word tongzhi is most commonly used to describe someone who is gay. Needless to say I was very embarrassed and to this day remain very aware of the double meaning of tongzhi.

you can say 美女 or 帅哥.

[xiaocai]

It is not always safe nowadays though. Sometimes I find it is not easy to tell whether the person standing right in front of you is a 帅哥 or a 美女...

[gougou]

Sometimes I find it is not easy to tell whether the person standing right in front of you is a 帅哥 or a 美女...

In which case you could try 同志 again...