The Bloggess is in Japan. Her Japanese is, apparently, lacking. My foreign language skills are mediocre, though je parle un peu Français and ich spreche ein bißchen Deutsch.
The only thing that my husband knows how to say in Italian is "your eyes are the color of my Ferrari" (which, if you think about it, is damning with faint praise, since a Ferrari is nearly always red). I can say "you're dog shit" in Chinese, but that's it.
And once upon a time, my sister got off an airplane in Brazil having memorized only one phrase out of her guidebook, from the going-to-the-doctor section, namely "please remove your trousers and underpants", which wasn't much use when she got pulled aside by Brazilian immigration because she didn't have a proper visa.
Please, tell me the odd phrases that you know, in your choice of language other than English.
03 November 2009
Foreign Phrases
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27 comments:
I can say Tu habeas os bovis ("You have the mouth of a cow") in Latin.
When I was first learning Norwegian, I was quizzed by some friend, and the first thing I rattled off was, "Jeg har ikke penger!" (I have no money.)
And I'm pretty sure I taught him the Ferrari line. I learned it in Italian 101.
And (again) I still remember the trousers and underpants line. Truth be told, it might have helped things along with the immigration police...
este queijo tem muito molde!
which is Portuguese for "This cheese has a lot of mold!"
"Have you anything cheaper?" in Swedish.
"oont" means camel in Hindi
All the spanish I currently know I learned from Dora (all the spanish I learned in college, I've forgotten). And I barely remember a syllable of the french I took in high school! I do know some of the French national anthem, though...
Pourqoui la cravate et elle dans the poche de Jean-Paul?
(Parse que, la cravate est l'idee de la mere de Jean-Paul, et la mere de Jean-Paul ne'est pas ici.)
I used to know how to say "prostitute" in several languages.
Pogue Mahone - spelled wrong. Essentially, Kiss My Ass in Gaelic
When we moved to Belgium I knew only one thing in Dutch and I taught it to the kids: Gouden Gids. That's Dutch for Yellow Pages - very useful.
I know a bit of run of the mill Spanish, but that is all!
I love this, Magpie! I could write a whole response post. Except that I'm supposed to be working. So I'll give you the abbreviated version.
I know quite an array of useless phrases in other languages, though I have no idea how to write most of them. I can say:
"Maybe I love you" in Polish
"You are a dickhead" in Italian
"I speak a little Russion" in Russian (though it's a lie)
"Marat said tabacconist yesterday" in Turkish
"red berries with cream" in Danish
"I eat a banana" in Farsi
I know how to say "The eggplant is angry in Japanese."
Do not ask why.
I recently went to Japan and OMG language shock....my husband had learned a few phrases...but still...OMG...I SO feel her pain.
I am french-canadian so I can offer a few French expressions!
"Vous êtes trops sympa!" - You are too kind
"On se lance au vin?" - Wanna get smashed drinking wine?
"Ou est la toilette?" - Where is the washroom?
"Mazel-dic a kishkah" Yiddish for: You are lucky you made it home in time for dinner, you yutz. Now sit down & eat while I inspect how well you chew.
"Tahton mansikkaa ja jaatelo." [I want strawberries and ice cream.]
Found this very useful every time I went there.
T.
"Dui Niu Tan Qin." (literally means 'playing piano to a cow') Which is used when you are talking to someone who has no feelings or whatsoever to whatever that you are saying. Or better phrased as 'talking to a dead person.'
Does semper ubi sub ubi count?
I can say in Lithuanian, "Work is not a penis. It waits."
Forgot to say....it's Finnish.
T.
I can say 'pillow' and 'egg' in five languages (English, French, German, Polish and Finnish). It doesn't really help with anything. I learned a bit of Berber in Morocco, but I've forgotten it (traumatic amnesia, probably).
I know crazy sentences from my Cambridge Latin Course:
novaculum habeo (I have a knife)
multus sanguis fluebat (much blood was flowing)
ancilla caecilium delectat (the slave girl pleased Caecilius)
I can swear like a sailor in Hungarian. My husband taught me.
On va a la plage? That may not be the right spelling, but it's "Are we going to the beach?" in French. I've also still got "Il pleut" (It's raining) and "Il neige" (It's snowing). I think that's it. From 2 years of French. Nice.
Can't remember much of my high school Latin. However, I do remember that someone had written in the front of my Latin book (in English, of course):
Latin is a dead language
Buried in the dust.
First it killed the Romans,
Now it's killing us.
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