Baffled in Barcelona
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I thought I would be clever and ask for something for my chapped lips in a Peruvian pharmacy.
'Tienes alguno para mis lobos secos' produced a howl of laughter from the assistant. She politely pointed out that the word for lips was 'labios' not 'lobos' which is Spanish for wolves.
Once watched a TV broadcast where the interviewee tried to say in Spanish that she was embarrassed... unfortunately she used the word Embarazada, which means pregnant! LOL
Locally we have a number of German doctors. Most of their signs say Doktor Arzt.
But one of them has his surgery next door to the crazy golf course.
His sign reads Artz Doktor and next door is a sign which says
Preice Ein Fahrt
I wonder why the English visitors laugh so much?
Spain has a delicious fast food called Churros. If you order Churros con chocolate don't try to drink the chocolate it has the consistency of thick custard.
At our local boot sale a young Spanish fellow had a stall selling Churros. Only the Spanish were buying but he noticed that many Germans were in the crowd.
The following week he couldn't understand why all the English walking by were falling about laughing.
The sign he had put up said Frische Krappen. Krapfen is a German word for doughnuts.
I was in the Dominican Republic in 1992. We went on a long journey to the capital Santo Domingo and on the way back at a truckstop I was trying to find the Gents. I boldly went in to a place where a few guys were playing pool to ask for directions but instead of saying, "Where's the Gents, please?", I said, "Can I have a man, please?" in Spanish. Needless to say, this caused a number of laughs.
Has he not seen the first episode of Fawlty Towers and its opening lines?
In one of the episodes of Fawlty Towers, Basil Fawlty tells the Spanish butler (he is from Barcelona!) there's too much 'burro' on the plate. Manuel, the spanish waiter answers that no, 'burro' is "ee-or, ee-or".
I lived in Germany for many years and the Australians and English who visited us would always crack up at the Fahrt signs along the autobahn.......
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