language mistakes



I am going to give you a chance to see what a big fool I am able to make of myself - in this case specifically with language mistakes. Some of these were pretty funny to me right away, but others were embarrassing or frustrating at the time but I can laugh about it now.  I make some silly mistakes in language every day I'm sure (probably even in English) but these are the moments that stick out in my memory from the past few years.  Some of these might not seem as funny to you, it might be one of those "you had to be there" things.

Shortly after I moved to Mali (fall 2009) I asked the kindergarten teacher I was working with if the dog who lived in the school yard had a name.  She pointed at the dog and said yes.  Huh?  Well, what is it?  She pointed again and kind of tipped her head as if to look under the dog.  I was totally confused.  Is the dog's name written under him?  Seeing that I was still confused, she brought me closer to look under the dog.  Yes, she said, he is a man, see?!  I was a bit startled to understand what she was trying to have me look at, and still confused.  I said: Ok, but what is he called? 

She finally understood that I was asking about the dog's name ("nom") and not whether or not he was a man. ("homme")

I guess my pronunciation was not so good in this case, and it was also probably because I hadn't known the teacher long and she wasn't used to the way that I tried to speak French.  I never did learn that dog's name.

Another animal story:  We were going on a little trip and we hired a guard to watch our house at night while we were gone. The guard came over so that I could give him instructions.  After covering everything else I mentioned that our kitten would be there hanging out in the yard too.  (this was before we had a dog)  The guard looked at me funny.  The what?  The kitten, I said.  What is a "kitten"? he asked.  You know, I said as I scanned the yard to see if it was around so I could point it out.  The kitten wasn't in sight so I made a meowing sound and used my hands to show the size of our kitten.  The guard gave me a look and said:  We call those a "cat." 

French was not the guards first language, but the word for kitten ("chaton") is not very different from cat ("chat") so I would have thought he could have figured it out.

One time before we were married (when my French was still improving rapidly) JP and I were talking and I was being kind of romantic and poetic (ok, cheesy, I'll admit it.) and I said to him, "our love is like a fire."  JP looked at me with misunderstanding in his eyes (not the desired effect) and asked me to repeat myself.  I did, but it didn't help.  He asked me "our love is like a man that is mentally unstable? our love is crazy?"  Oh, he thought I said "fou" instead of "feu" (fire).   No, a "fire" like something that is burning hot, I explained.  Oh, he said, our love is like an oven, where you'd bake something?  Now he thought I said "four" (oven) and still hasn't understood fire. Sheesh.  Romantic moment totally ruined.  After another minute of effort he finally understood that I wanted to say "fire" and then he had me repeat the correct pronunciation a few times.

We were on a bus trip one time and I saw some vultures circling in the sky nearby.  "Look at the cars!" I said excitedly as I pointed out the birds to JP.  He started cracking up.  Cars in the sky?  I knew it wasn't right when it came out of my mouth, but vulture ("vautour") and car ("voiture") are pretty close.

At one of my first Bambara lessons my teacher was helping me learn greetings.  After learning the greetings he wanted to do a role play.  I came up to him and instead of saying "good evening" (I ni wula.)  I greeted him with "You and the dog!" (I ni wulu.)  The teacher got a kick out of that and said I really should make sure not to greet anyone else that way because he wasn't sure if they would take it well.

Recently I went to the outdoor market place and wanted to find a funnel (for filling water bottles.)  The problem was that I didn't know the word for funnel in French.  (in 3 1/2 years here this was the first time I'd needed the word, they're not a real hot topic of conversation) 

I wandered around and saw a black funnel sticking out of an oil can at a hardware shop.  I went over and pointed at it and asked if they sold those.  The young man said they didn't.  I decided to ask how to say the name of one of those.  "A black thing," the young man mumbled in response to my question.  "A black thing?!  Yeah right, I'm sure that if I go somewhere else and ask for 'a black thing' they're going to know exactly what I'm talking about!"  I was a bit irritated with the mumbling young man.  I left the shop and went home.  I looked up the word for funnel in French and realized that the young man had in fact told me the word for funnel ("entonnoir") and not said "a black thing" ("un truc noir") as I had misheard.  oops!