Bilingual Bloopers

While visiting a church in  the USA, a missionary told of one occasion when he was preaching a sermon (possibly his first) in Japanese. “Sin will ruin your life; you must forsake your sin!” he cried, only to see bewilderment on the faces of the congregation. After the service, a kind Japanese man explained, “I think you meant to say sin; but the way you pronounced the word, it means wife!”

An American missionary was preaching in Romanian on the subject of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Vividly describing how the people shouted praises as Jesus rode into town, he failed to realize that he had mistaken the word Magyar (Hungarian) for măgar (donkey). The Romanians, of course, enjoyed a few laughs over the idea of Jesus being carried around on the back of a Hungarian.       —G. Sutek

Years ago a missionary in Indonesia wanted his worker to cut the grass. However, he kept telling the man to get a hair cut. (Rambut means hair, and rumput means grass.) After three hair cuts and a nearly bald head, the error was detected.

Another blooper from Indonesia is the frequent misuse of the words kalapa and kapala. Kalapa means coconut and kapala means head. Though it is quite okay to drink coconut juice, it is not good to request head juice at a restaurant!                 —Christine

Once in Oaxaca, Mexico, while teaching in a home Bible study about Sabbath observance, I meant to say “sabatistas” (those who worship on Saturday), but I said “sabanistas.” “Sabanas” are bed sheets. Someone said, “Yeah, sabanitas are the people that stay in bed on Sunday and worship God between the sheets!” My preaching may not have always been edifying, but it was entertaining!         —Rex

Today I sent my very first text message in Chinese characters (with the help of an English-Chinese dictionary). But I was still admittedly pretty proud of myself until I was double checking the last word… 谢谢 (xie xie-thank you) and realized it was the wrong characters… 腹泻. Although also pronounced xie xie, it has a totally different meaning (loose bowels or diarrhea).          —Julie

I wanted to tell my language helper that we were finished for the day. But instead of saying “ta so” (we are finished), I said “ta sio” (go away). Thankfully my helper had a sense of humor and informed me that my way of dismissing people was probably not the best if I want to have friends. At times, living and learning in the village is very frustrating, but God is very abundant in His grace.   —Cara

Yesterday, one of my fellow students said to me, “Tu es belle.” I responded, “Oui, c’est vrai,” because I thought he was saying the weather was beautiful.  He chuckled a little.  I replayed the short dialogue in my head because his chuckle seemed out of place, and it was an unusual way to remark about the weather.  As I thought about what he said, I realized he was telling me I was beautiful (I was dressed up for church).  My response was, “Yes, it’s true.” That was a bit humbling, especially when at that point I didn’t know what to say.Do I say, “Sorry, I thought you said something else,” or do I just let him think I’m conceited?          —Becky

I was helping to clean the kitchen after a meal in Peru and called for a rag—or so I thought. The co-laborer to whom I was speaking stopped, looked at me quizzically, and burst out laughing. Since I had asked for a “tropa” instead of a “trapo,” she thought I wanted a “troop” of soldiers to help us clean the kitchen!    —Cheri

Lungandan, a tribal language of Uganda, has many short affixes which give an utterance its meaning. These often string together to form long words which are difficult to read; and correct placing of word breaks is very important.  When reading a passage in church, a native who was a poor reader caused some laughter and irritation. He sounded out a few syllables, returning to the beginning and adding a bit more each time until he could read the entire phrase.  It came out: Awo Yesu which means “Then Jesus;” Awo yesuna— “Then he is pinching himself;” Awo Yesu n’abaga—”Then Jesus is chopping;” Awo Yesu n’abagamba— “Then Jesus saith unto them.” At one point, some in the congregation wondered aloud if Jesus were a butcher rather than a carpenter. What must they have thought about  why he would be pinching himself!

Just before attending BBTI, Tim was visiting western Ukraine. He had learned some Russian, and his friends there asked him what he planned to do when he returned to the US. Not knowing the word for “institute,” he used the word for “university.” He thought he was saying, “I am going to enroll in (pastupayu) a university,” but he actually said, “I am going to buy (pakupala) a university.” They were completely speechless as they processed this new information—they had a very rich American friend!

After church while we were waiting to eat, some church leaders asked me if we had corn in America. I said, “Yes, but it is not a staple food like it is here in Tanzania.” They then asked me what our staple food was. I answered that there are many different types but my favorite was shoes. They looked quite puzzled. One asked me how we cooked that. “We boil them in water until soft and then mash them with milk and butter,” I answered. (VIAYU . . . VIAZA) (shoes . . . potatoes) Their faces were blank so I added that my second favorite was lantern wicks. This time I actually used the right word because it is the same word as for spaghetti. But, because the villagers have never seen spaghetti, they had no reference but lantern wicks. Realizing their utter confusion, I corrected my mistakes. We all had a good laugh.   —Rodney

Many words in Bislama are duplicated English words. For example lukluk is look and fatfat is fat. It is easy to make the mistake of thinking this applies to the majority of words. A missionary trying hard to do things the Ni-vanuatu way told the visitors arriving at his hut to come sitsit. Unfortunately, the Bislama word for sit is sidaon; sitsit means (to put it politely) go to the bathroom. Not quite what the missionary intended!   —Vanuatu