John Smith wrote: ↑1 month ago
Similar experience whilst living in Japan - coworker's wife's name was Mina... when he calls her name its normally Mina-san...so we were separated in a market one day and as he called out "Mina-San!" everyone turned and looked (it means everyone in Japan like you are about to make an announcement.)
Other fun times is botched languages, when I first was learning to speak to people in Japan, I wanted to know what time it was - So i figured I'd be clever and ask the cashier. IN Japan like some other places, you ask what hour is it - "Nan Ji Desuka?" well...I thought it was ok to say "Ji Desuka?" because I figured the "nan," to be inferred, like what perhaps. Well, luckily I was pointing to my wrist in the universal sign of "what time is it?" Because what I was said was "Ji Desuka?" and was really asking is if she had hemorrhoids!
She giggled, but told me the time - so....success!
Side tracking again : )
I think most of us older folks remember the elegant actor Ricardo Montalban, famous for his car commercials, as the charactor of Khan, in Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan, and even the younger ones here might recall him if they saw reruns of Fantasy Island.
He was on a talk show one time and told a funny story about when he was younger, still learning English (he was from Mexico) and had a conversation with a beautiful girl at a bus stop.
He said at that point, his English was pretty good, but there were still some words that confused him, and he confused two words one day while at a bus stop.
His sinuses were still stuffy from a head cold he had the week before. There was a beautiful woman at the bus stop, and as they waited, they talked a little bit. He had a heavier accent at that point in his life, and was worried that given that and his plugged sinuses, if she understood his English ok.
So he said:
"I hope you can understand my English, given my accent. But perhaps my English sounds even worse today because I had a cold last week, and my nose is still constipated."
She broke out laughing, and told him that "Hopefully he wasn't That full of s#!t -- and that his nose was just congested".
If I recall, he said they ended up on a few dates, and he worked even harder to understand more words in English.
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Stormy
