Sunday, June 04, 2006

Fun times with my Czech Language

So, every week I have a Czech Language Conversation class where I go and I attempt to speak Czech. So, usually each week (either in my lesson or actually in the real world) I make some truly putrid mistakes which really makes me look like a big horse's bottom. Luckily, most the people understand that I don't really speak Czech, so they know to never really believe anything I say. So, two quick funny experiences for me in using Czech:

1. It was very hot one day and I walked into my Czech lesson and found my teacher to be just as hot as I was because of the heat, and, me being the smart Czech language student, started to speak Czech right off the bat. And, seeing that she was hot, I said "Jsi tepla?" But what I meant to say was " Je ti teplo". The literal translation of "Jsi tepla" to English is "Are you hot?" but in Czech, "Jsi tepla?" means something else. So, I walked in and said (right off the bat) "Are you gay?" So, instead, I must say "je ti teplo" which literally means "it is hot to you", but in Czech, it's the correct sentence that I wanted! Luckily, my Czech teacher was able to correct me and there were no feelings hurt!! But I sure felt like a big dork for a while.

2. So, this other time was a little worse, because it was in real life and not in practice conversation. So, there is a restaurant/pub that I go to fairly often for dinner or for a drink. I'm pretty tight with the owner and he's rockin, but he doesn't speak any english at all. So, sometimes I understand him, sometimes not so much. So, one evening I was there with some friends and I had to leave early cuz i had to get some work done for class tomorrow cuz it was getting kinda late. So, this mistake I made is just more of a stupid mistake, I just used the wrong person (instead of using third person, I used second person). So, I was going to give my money to my roommate and he was going to pay for me, so the waiter came up, and I'm sweet talkin him as usual and then I tell him "Hey, you are going to pay for my food and drinks!" He looks at me and (he's actually a little drunk) and is just confused. So I said it again, and then walked away. And I didn't realize it until the next day, that I meant to say that "He!!" my roommate, not "You" are paying for my food. Yea, so i felt like a stupid idiot, but everything's good. It's more funny now, but it makes me go a little easier on my students when they make those funny and stupid mistakes, because I probably make about a million more mistakes than they do. Wow, I'm sure there are about a million more funny stories out there, but i can't think of them right now. Hope you enjoy those stories for now. Ok, later.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Haha! I'll be heading there soon, too. Hopefully I can pick up the language without too much trouble.

12:40 AM  

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