The foreigner’s guide to what NOT to say / Jak se zarucene ztrapnit v anglickem jazyce

It’s  time to talk about the embarrassing stuff. How many of you, the non-native English speakers, have NOT had an embarrassing experience while you were in the process of learning English? I bet every one of you has a story. I personally can remember (and it would be impossible to forget) at least 2 moments when I faced the eternal embarrassment of all times : the first time I was talking to my boss, explaining to her that I had had a terrible stomach flu, where I had eaten too much popcorn and it had blown up in my testicles (instead of the word “intestines“) and that is why I had been throwing up the whole weekend. The other time, not long after this particular speech accident I was at a party where the host decided to introduce me to this magical thing called a Theracane (great stuff by the way!). It’s basically a simple plastic massaging stick but the way it is bent one can massage his own back with no problems. Anyway, as I was testing this instrument in front of her, I whispered with a satisfying tone in my voice: “It really gets my nuts” instead of “It really gets my knots“. Oblivious to what I just said, I did not catch the weird looks everyone had on their faces. Fortunately my good husband saved me and gently corrected my pronunciation. And then we all had a good laugh; and I also felt embarrassed for about 6 months after that. Actually I still get red when I think about it –  like right now.

Although my experiences are pretty uncomfortable, they are NOTHING compared to what my other Czech friend went through. She (let’s call her Kristyna), moved to the US in her early 20’s and also had to learn the language from the ground up, including the American slang. And you know  learning slang is like learning yet another foreign language so it takes a while to learn all that. Well, one day she was walking through the aisles of Marshall’s and this cute, black tank top caught her eye. She took a better look at it and besides the price being only $3, it also had a cool glittering sign across the chest saying “M.I.L.F.”.  “Oh, so that’s why it’s so cheap! They misspelled the word “MILK”!”, she thought to herself.  Since she was 9 months pregnant at the time, she thought it was quite an adorable and a fitting outfit for her. She was about to give birth to a baby and dealing with  milk 24/7.  Kristyna was quite excited about her new steal and it also became one of her most favorite things to wear.  Until that one “tragic” day, when her more worldly friend came for a visit, saw her wearing the shirt and immediately cracked up laughing: “Do you have any idea, what that shirt says??”. “Yeah, I got it at the discounted section at Marshalls, because they misspelled the word ‘milk’, could you believe it?? “. He then proceeded to explain to her the real meaning of those four letters and like me, she could not feel more embarrassed at that moment. Fortunately, the Czechs have a good sense of humor so like me, she managed to laugh it off  and it has become one of those funniest stories for life. (And by the way, for those of you who have been blessed with NOT knowing what it means, well, I hate to be the one who defiles you, but it means- ‘mom I’d like to f***’. TERRIBLE!!!)

CZ: Omlouvam se, ale nenasla jsem cas prelozit tuto prihodu do cestiny 🙁 To vite, s mou slovni zasobou by mi to trvalo tak 2 dny 😉  Snad se mi to podari nekdy v budoucnosti! Dekuji za pochopeni.