Communication blunders: when speaking one language is not enough

It was a warm day and Spanish Raquel, on holiday in England with friends, commented: “I'm hot!”, translating directly from the Spanish “Tengo calor”. She immediately caught the attention of her male mates. Luckily, someone was kind enough to tell her that next time she should rather say “it's really hot in here”. Weather seems to be a tough subject for Spaniards. Marco was not feeling very well. He headed to a pharmacy and said “I'm constipated”. He was pretty confident that the literal translation of the Spanish constipado, which means “I have a cold” would have worked, but understood there was something wrong when he was offered a purge.

Herman, from the Netherlands, was dining in a Restaurant in France and asked for some fish, but instead of saying the correct French term poisson, he asked for some poison. Easy to imagine why the waiter looked at him terrified. Even more embarrassing is what happened when Louise, who was visiting from America, was out on a romantic dinner in Paris. When the waiter asked if the couple wanted to order the dessert, she replied, using her bilingual dictionary “non merci, je suis plein”, not knowing she was saying “No thanks, I'm pregnant”. Plein literally means full, but is mostly used in the figurative sense of being pregnant. Hence the confusion.

Galician journalist Rosa, while travelling to Portugal for work, was invited to a barbecue of fresh fish. After devouring sardines and other delicacies of the Atlantic Ocean, she was asked if she had enjoyed the food. She replied enthusiastically: “Exquisito!” wanting to give a more than positive feedback. Only problem: in Portuguese exquisito means disgusting. All the present were speechless.

A holiday in Greece means sun, sea, beach and of course souvenirs. Marjan, from Croatia, wanted to buy some presents in a typical gift shop in Crete. When she asked if the souvenir was for sale, the shop owner replied “Ne”. Marjan was very surprised, not knowing that ne in Greek means “yes”!

Our last tip comes from the Polish team at HolidayCheck. If you take a cab in Poland, be sure to wait before saying “thank you”. If you say dziÄ™kujÄ™ (pronounced Jen KOO yeh) before the taxi driver gives your change back, he or she will feel entitled to keep the tip for themselves... even if it's a 100 euro banknote!