Friday, September 11, 2009

Potty Train - And Other Language Misunderstandings

 

No matter how well you try to translate from one language to the next or to figure out what something means in a different language, there are bound to be misunderstandings.  Here are a couple of mine from my first week living in Hungary.  I went to the drug store to buy a few items: shampoo, body lotion, toilet paper  That evening I rubbed the “body lotion” on my legs and feet, thinking the consistency was a bit different.  The next morning, after my shower, I was putting lotion on my legs and hands when I noticed that there were tiny bubbles coming from the top of the container.  When I put my hands under the sink and ran water, I realized that I had been rubbing liquid soap into my skin instead of lotion.  OH, well.   Another great one was when I went to a restaurant here and the menu had a list of Spaghetti dishes.  I looked down the list and ordered what I thought would be a spaghetti dish that had an oil and garlic based sauce.  I wound up with a huge plate of plain spaghetti for dinner.  Yes, it did have oil and garlic on it – but not anything else.  It was probably meant to be a side dish (garnish it’s called here) to go with some type of meat dish.

Lest you think this goes only one way – here is a cute one.  I met some very nice people at a local People to People Meeting the day after I arrived.  They are planning to host a group of Croatian high school students in a couple of weeks.  They had a list of the planned activities that looks like a lot of fun.  On the list was a guided tour of Pecs via the “Potty Train.”   Hum, I asked how did the train get that name.  It seemed that one translation of Potty was little – so this is a miniature train or a toy train.  I said that in English “potty” was not used as a word for little, but was a word for toilet that was often used with a child, hence potty training.   I hope I did not embarrass anyone.  I thought it was funny.  Here is a short video of the “Potty” train – taking a group of young people sightseeing through the town. 

 

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