Your funny experiences with learning Spanish?
¿Qué son tus experiencias graciosas de aprender español? ("de" o "con"?)
What are your funny experiences with learning Spanish?
Una cosa muy graciosa es que mi hijo y mi perra tienen lo mismo nombre en español: Paco. Paco es el diminutivo de Francisco, pero en polaco Paco tiene el diminutivo diferente - Franek. Lo supe cuando empezó aprender español.
10 Answers
I started to learn Spanish in South America. When I went to Spain, I heard that they spoke differently and I thought I ought to try to speak in the same way. I was in a restaurant and the waiter told me everything they had on the menu, I listened very carefully and there was only one thing that I could understand, because he was speaking so fast.
I said: Yo quiero la thopa de thebolla, por favor.
He looked at me in a funny way and immediately said in English
Theñor, Pleeth don't take the pith out of me!
I swear that this is true.
I tried to tell a couple of friends in Spanish that I was looking for a girlfriend with "curves." Instead of saying "curvas", I said "cuervas" (crows).
Maybe I wanted to date a scarecrow.
Some of my Mexican friends taught me a new word--res. Apparently they thought my name (Rex) was "res" (beef). I'm just glad they didn't serve me grass or hay at dinner.
Many cultures have a different coloquial term for something that costs a lot. Here in the US we say: "It cost me an arm and a leg."
In a Spanish course many years ago, I cracked up when I learned that the term in Spanish is: "Me costó un ojo de la cara." (or something similar). I don't know how many Spanish speaking countries use that term. Would be interesting to find out.
One of my many stupid mistakes, I was learning the tener + sed/hambre/miedo etc.. for I am thirsty/hungry/scared and I tried to practice it in a sentence so I said "tengo mierd@" thinking it was "I'm scared" . I was confused and accidently added an "r" and an "a" to the word miedo. I was quickly corrected as I did not indeed have feces...
The funnist story I have is asking a man in New Mexico why his hat had a point. It came out like "¿Por qué el sombrero tiene una puta?" The guy stared at me for a second. Then he kicked me in the "area" and walked off, me laying there. I didn't realise my mistake until a couple hours later, when I asked my aunt why he did that.
I do'nt know if the following anecdotes counts as a funny experience learnng Spanish. But I was with an Spanish speaking customer and I was speaking Spanish with him, so I was was at risk of learning a new word or what have you. I was showing a house that was for sale. I opened the back yard gate. A litle white dog came running towards me, barking, So I petted him,lifted him to my arms. And, the dog gone canine urinated on me-The happy ending was that the dog stopped barking and he was a conservatine uriner.
I was showing a house on a Sunday morning-one day- my customers were one american male and a lady from Uraguay. I knocked on the door no one answered, I used my key to let the couple into the house. I don't remember why but the male went up stairs and in a snap of a finger he came back downstairs,plenty red in the face and said there is a couple sleeping naked in the bedroom. My customers did not buy the house.
Disclaimer, I deeply and profundly apologize to Ms.Davis,Ms Griffith and Mrs Bourne, my elementary school English teachers for my action of turning verb into and adjective.
Another disclaimer,Actually Mrs. Bournes was not my English teacher, she was my home economics teacher but I was too embarrased to disclose that I took a home economis course. For those who might not know, home economics in the 1960, was a class were one learned how to make dresses and learned how to cook.
As soon, as I was able I transferred to a print shop class. But my first class was my last. I was thrown out of the class and the school because, the teacher there issue to me a new shiny type setting ruler and the boy next to me got a old,dull type stting ruler. He was taller that me but skinny. He took my shiny brand new ruler from me and I punch him in the stomach, I aimed to his jaw but was ony able to reach his stomach- I was too short-. He retaliated by spraying my book locker with cigarrete lighter fluid, and burning my books. He was send to a correction house for boys and I was send to an all black school. Discrimination was rampant during the ´60. I sometimes wonder what happened to him.
Disclaimer, I did not mean to ofend with my comment "he (the dog) was a conservative uriner." I did not and I am not calling any conservative person a urinator.
In Spain recently I asked the waitress, "do you have eggs?" She replied, "Servimos huevos revueltos." She went back and whispered someting to another waitress and they both started giggling. In retrospect, I think I should have been more specific. I can only imagine the double entendre.
In Spanish class, we were learning how to say our ages. My teacher was teaching us and the class clown's name was Cory. He liked to pronounce things wrong just to be silly. Well, Mrs. K. was talking and she told us the correct to thing to say was "Tengo _____ años. Well Cory of course wanted to be silly, so he said "Tengo catorce anos," without the ñ over the n. My teacher started giggling and we asked her what was so funny. She then explained that if you didn't put the ñ in años, that it meant anus, so Cory was really saying "I have 14 anuses!!! We all started cracking up and laughing at Cory, who was laughing really hard. We also came across this experience this year when we were reviewing años. We remembered what happened and started laughing and telling others who weren't in Mrs. K's class last year what happened. Corey got kicked out because we go to an advanced school and he made bad grades. It just goes to show that if you don't pronounce something right it could be taken the wrong way. Another funny thing is that I just saw him last night....still the same Cory he's always been, jeje!!! 
I had a really "fun" time trying to help my husband teach Dominican teens how to play American football. The trouble was, I do not understand football and he does not understand Spanish. He asked me to interpret his instructions to them, but he was hurling so much football terminology at me that I didn't understand. So I pretended and did the best I could. This is how bad it was...for "ready, set, hike" I used "listo, piso (so they would put their hands on the ground) and muttered the last word.
They seemed to have fun, and that is all that really matters...right?
