# WellIm sure that was embarrassing



## Xue Sheng (Mar 5, 2013)

Also could be don&#8217;t send things to people you can&#8217;t read

A guy in my office (who works for me) today decided to be a wise guy and send me some Chinese characters, he found on the internet, to call me a punk&#8230;.. he messed up big time&#8230;. and I cannot translate what it actually said here it would be against MT rules and blocked&#8230;well I can translate the part that was &#8220;perverted&#8221; but the rest&#8230;no&#8230;. I told him I knew he was trying to be funny but he should not dabble in things he can&#8217;t read&#8230; do that with a guy I know (my sanda sifu) and it would get him a rather bad beating&#8230;if he was lucky&#8230; do that with another (much higher level) supervisor in another office (from China)&#8230;it would likely get him brought up on charges and/or suspended or fired.

Moral of the story...don't trust what you find on the internet....

But I have to tell you... the look on his face....was priceless :lol:


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## celtic_crippler (Mar 5, 2013)

Is minic a bhris béal duine a shrón.

Translation? Often a man's mouth broke his nose. 

Oh, that's not Chinese... it's Gaelic. But still applicable LOL


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## granfire (Mar 5, 2013)

he who lives by the mouth gets punched in it....M*A*S*H


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## Xue Sheng (Mar 6, 2013)

My original translation was incorrect, no english profanity, I was close but not dead on, but it is still not good and still does not mean punk what he sent was &#27969;&#27667; (liúmáng)

Direct translations It means a male who forces himself on womenregionally in Beijing...it means rapist...could be that elsewhere too that I am not sure of


And I have been torturing him with this all day :EG:


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## Carol (Mar 6, 2013)

XueSchool!!  Love it :lol2:

Reminds me of this unfortunate fellow from the UK, who thought he was getting "Love, Honor, Obey" tattooed on his arm.  Instead, he got "At the end of the day, this is an ugly boy" :rofl:

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/essays/tattoos.htm


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## ballen0351 (Mar 6, 2013)

That's why I don't have anything embroidered on my GI I'm sure buying from a reputable company would be OK but you never known when someone decides he's quitting today and puts something really bad on there.  If I can't personally read it I don't trust anyone else.


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## oftheherd1 (Mar 6, 2013)

Xue Sheng said:


> My original translation was incorrect, no english profanity, I was close but not dead on, but it is still not good and still does not mean punk what he sent was &#27969;&#27667; (liúmáng)
> 
> Direct translations It means a male who forces himself on women&#8230;regionally in Beijing...it means rapist...could be that elsewhere too&#8230; that I am not sure of
> 
> ...



His motives were bad, and he should suffer for it.  However, I would hate to tell you all the stupid things I have said in Spanish and Vietnamese while sincerely trying to learn those languages.  I was once trying to tell a lady how I liked sushi and told her, "A mi me gusta mucho los pescadores crudos."  When she could stop laughing, she told me my mistake.


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## Xue Sheng (Mar 6, 2013)

Carol said:


> XueSchool!! Love it :lol2:
> 
> Reminds me of this unfortunate fellow from the UK, who thought he was getting "Love, Honor, Obey" tattooed on his arm. Instead, he got "At the end of the day, this is an ugly boy" :rofl:
> 
> http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/essays/tattoos.htm



That's funny

And Oh..we're not done...school is still in session :EG:

A woman I knew many years ago bought a t-shirt because she liked "the Chinese Characters" She went to a Chinese restaurants where she said that she first thought the waiter was staring at her chest and was about to say something when he said. "Do you know what that means?" she said no. He said "it says you like to get into fights".


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## Carol (Mar 6, 2013)

oftheherd1 said:


> His motives were bad, and he should suffer for it.  However, I would hate to tell you all the stupid things I have said in Spanish and Vietnamese while sincerely trying to learn those languages.  I was once trying to tell a lady how I liked sushi and told her, "A mi me gusta mucho los pescadores crudos."  When she could stop laughing, she told me my mistake.



Oh my goodness, you told her you liked fishermen, raw!  :lol2:  

Something that has always cracked me up about Spanish _machísmo_ is that when someone has (ahem) a pair, they are often referred to as _huevos_.

Now, _huevos _is the word for "eggs".  And -- biologically speaking -- eggs perhaps the least masculine thing that pair can be!  :rofl:


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## oaktree (Mar 6, 2013)

i thought liumang meant like bad guy or gangster. Maybe different meaning in Beijing or older generation.
I thought gangsta meant cool like "yo that shirt looks gangsta."


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## crushing (Mar 6, 2013)

oftheherd1 said:


> His motives were bad, and he should suffer for it.  However, I would hate to tell you all the stupid things I have said in Spanish and Vietnamese while sincerely trying to learn those languages.  I was once trying to tell a lady how I liked sushi and told her, "A mi me gusta mucho los pescadores crudos."  When she could stop laughing, she told me my mistake.



LOL.  I was in line for a water slide at a public swimming pool in Germany when a woman in line in front of me started talking to me in German.  I had only had the military's "head start" lessons in German, so I thought I would put that knowledge to good use.  In the best German I could muster I told her that SHE doesn't speak German.  What I had actually said didn't hit me right away until I started thinking about it later.  It kind of explained the strange look she gave me right before she stopped talking to me.


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## jks9199 (Mar 6, 2013)

oftheherd1 said:


> His motives were bad, and he should suffer for it.  However, I would hate to tell you all the stupid things I have said in Spanish and Vietnamese while sincerely trying to learn those languages.  I was once trying to tell a lady how I liked sushi and told her, "A mi me gusta mucho los pescadores crudos."  When she could stop laughing, she told me my mistake.



If you're sincerely trying, most folks are quite tolerant of mistakes, I find.  I know that I do unspeakable things to tenses and verbs in Spanish.  I'm sure that I don't always have proper agreement across a sentence...  But I find that people are quite willing to work with me because I'm trying.  But when someone's trying to be a smartass -- that's when it blows up in their face.


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## granfire (Mar 6, 2013)

crushing said:


> LOL.  I was in line for a water slide at a public swimming pool in Germany when a woman in line in front of me started talking to me in German.  I had only had the military's "head start" lessons in German, so I thought I would put that knowledge to good use.  In the best German I could muster I told her that SHE doesn't speak German.  What I had actually said didn't hit me right away until I started thinking about it later.  It kind of explained the strange look she gave me right before she stopped talking to me.



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

I am sure the accent alone explained it though! :lfao:


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## Xue Sheng (Mar 6, 2013)

oaktree said:


> i thought liumang meant like bad guy or gangster. Maybe different meaning in Beijing or older generation.
> I thought gangsta meant cool like "yo that shirt looks gangsta."




Liumeng translated to Man who forces himself on woman or a man who tried to force himself on woman...Beijing it means rapist

Beijing call a guy a turtle and you just said his wife is having an affair and he is hidding from it
Beijing call a guy's sister, wife or femal relation a chicken and you just called her a prostitute
Beijing directly call someone crazy and you are about to get a fist in the face.
Beijing (north China actually) call a CMA shifu Dashifu and you're Chinese and not a CMA guy or a close friend.....run...your about to get a beating

There is a lot of slang in Beijing


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## oftheherd1 (Mar 7, 2013)

Carol said:


> Oh my goodness, you told her you liked fishermen, raw! :lol2:
> 
> Something that has always cracked me up about Spanish _machísmo_ is that when someone has (ahem) a pair, they are often referred to as _huevos_.
> 
> Now, _huevos _is the word for "eggs". And -- biologically speaking -- eggs perhaps the least masculine thing that pair can be!  :rofl:



Yep, I sure did.  :uhyeah:  I was embarrassed, but had to laugh myself when I realized what I had said.

Once while driving, I looked off in the distance and saw thunderclouds building up.  I turned to the lady with me and thought I said it looks like it's going to rain.  When she asked who, I knew that wasn't right. so I mentally reviewed what I had said and changed llorar to llover.

In Vietnam I was talking to an attractive, but slightly overweight lady.  We were conversing in both English and Vietnamese.  To something she said, I replied "Yes M'am" in English, as she had spoken in English.  She became quite angry at me.  I asked her why and she replied that I knew what I said, and there was no more friendly chatting between us.  I had to wait until I got back to my room and looked for an explanation in my dictionaries.  It turned out that mam (with a huyen tone if I recall correctly) meant an overweight person, and wasn't too complimentary.  Who knew?


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## oftheherd1 (Mar 7, 2013)

jks9199 said:


> If you're sincerely trying, most folks are quite tolerant of mistakes, I find. I know that I do unspeakable things to tenses and verbs in Spanish. I'm sure that I don't always have proper agreement across a sentence... But I find that people are quite willing to work with me because I'm trying. But when someone's trying to be a smartass -- that's when it blows up in their face.



I have also found that to be so, and always try to return the favor when people for whom English is not their first language do not speak understandably.  Doing so is not only polite, it helps get understanding more quickly.

One of the strangest things I ever had happen was in Vietnam when investigating an alledged mistreatment of a prisoner.  We went into a small remote village.  RFPF were providing security.  

I talked with them briefly to introduce myself and explain why we were there.  They were quite fascinated to hear an American who could actually speak the language understandably.  I went to an old man to interview him and several of the RFPF followed to listen.  I spoke to the old man for probably 10 minutes.  He never in all that time answered me.  When I asked a question, he would sit there with an indulgent smile such as one would give to an official, so as not to imply disrespect in any way, but he didn't answer.  

At first I looked at the RFPF for an explanation.  They asked him why he didn't answer.  He replied matter of factly that he didn't speak English.  They told him I spoke their language and all he had to do was listen.  From then on, I would ask a question and he would sit there with that same smile until one of the RFPF repeated the question word for word.  He would then look at them and answer.  

From his demeanor, I really think he just tuned me out, and was not playing games or anything.  I have seen others do that in Vietnamese and Korean, even when they knew I could understand some, or even most words in those languages.  American soldiers speaking their language was just so uncommon, they seemed to forget sometimes.  Amazing what you could hear.


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## granfire (Mar 7, 2013)

oftheherd1 said:


> Yep, I sure did.  :uhyeah:  I was embarrassed, but had to laugh myself when I realized what I had said.
> 
> Once while driving, I looked off in the distance and saw thunderclouds building up.  I turned to the lady with me and thought I said it looks like it's going to rain.  When she asked who, I knew that wasn't right. so I mentally reviewed what I had said and changed llorar to llover.
> 
> In Vietnam I was talking to an attractive, but slightly overweight lady.  We were conversing in both English and Vietnamese.  To something she said, I replied "Yes M'am" in English, as she had spoken in English.  She became quite angry at me.  I asked her why and she replied that I knew what I said, and there was no more friendly chatting between us.  I had to wait until I got back to my room and looked for an explanation in my dictionaries.  It turned out that mam (with a huyen tone if I recall correctly) meant an overweight person, and wasn't too complimentary.  Who knew?



First time I heard being polite getting one into hot water!


Around here, we used to have a bug base, attracting a lot of military families to retire here.
There are still a lot of German speaking people here....so you are ill advised to just ramble on about how stupid the person in front of you is :lol:
One guy told us how his (German) mother was going on and on about this goofy guy in the store, calling him all kinds of pleasantries....then when he was done checking out he ever so politely told them Tschuss, bye in German....oh my! :lfao: 


(and for what it's worth, the German term for testies is egg, Eier, as well...it's the shape I guess...)


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## Carol (Mar 7, 2013)

oftheherd1 said:


> Yep, I sure did.  :uhyeah:  I was embarrassed, but had to laugh myself when I realized what I had said.in the distance and saw thunderclouds building up.  I turned to the lady with me and thought I said it looks like it's going to rain.  When she asked who, I knew that wasn't right.



The sky is, that's who


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## punisher73 (Mar 7, 2013)

I have heard many stories about people getting chinese characters or japanese kanji and it means anything BUT what they thought it meant, from foul words to food orders.

When working in the home improvement section of a retail store back when I was in high school, a japanese gentleman came up to me and asked if I had any cock.  I asked him to repeat because I knew I was probably mishearing him and he again asked me about "cock".  Luckily, he knew his english wasn't the best, and he had a paper pad with him and then wrote "caulk".  Why yes, we do sell that here! lol


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## jks9199 (Mar 7, 2013)

oftheherd1 said:


> I have also found that to be so, and always try to return the favor when people for whom English is not their first language do not speak understandably.  Doing so is not only polite, it helps get understanding more quickly.
> 
> One of the strangest things I ever had happen was in Vietnam when investigating an alledged mistreatment of a prisoner.  We went into a small remote village.  RFPF were providing security.
> 
> ...



I'd read that as a status game.  You, an American GI don't rate his attention, so he's not giving it to you.  The RFPF personnel did -- so he'd listen to them.  I've come across it in Vietnamese here in the US, not that I speak Vietnamese.  (Butchering Spanish, and knowing a few polite greetings in other languages as well as some danger words is my limit.)

I get a laugh out of two things I come across with Latinos, though...  The first is that, apparently, no matter how fluent you are, if you're not Latino -- you may need a drunk Latino to repeat what you just said in "drunk Spanish" word for word...  I've seen this with myself and with one of my partners who is generally more fluent than I am (he grew up with missionary parents in S. America).  The other is the guy who is insistently saying "I don't speak English" as I speak Spanish to them.

My best "playing dumb" story...  Had a warrant to serve on a woman, and knocked on the door.  Woman answers, but not close to the description.  I ask for my target... and hear one of the occupants warn my target, and say they'll cover for her.


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## oftheherd1 (Mar 8, 2013)

jks9199 said:


> I'd read that as a status game. You, an American GI don't rate his attention, so he's not giving it to you. The RFPF personnel did -- so he'd listen to them. I've come across it in Vietnamese here in the US, not that I speak Vietnamese. (Butchering Spanish, and knowing a few polite greetings in other languages as well as some danger words is my limit.)



Perhaps so, but I think it can be a little more subtle than that, where it isn't always a conscious decision, but a lapse into a norm of assuming foreigners simply can't understand the language so they are not part of anything in the native language.



jks9199 said:


> I get a laugh out of two things I come across with Latinos, though... The first is that, apparently, no matter how fluent you are, if you're not Latino -- you may need a drunk Latino to repeat what you just said in "drunk Spanish" word for word... I've seen this with myself and with one of my partners who is generally more fluent than I am (he grew up with missionary parents in S. America). The other is the guy who is insistently saying "I don't speak English" as I speak Spanish to them.



Yep, I think it is a learned defense mechanism.  Always leave open the door for a plea of not understanding due to a  language incompatibility.  Plus if someone is taking time to translate, it gives the person talked to more time to think of a 'right' answer.  



jks9199 said:


> My best "playing dumb" story... Had a warrant to serve on a woman, and knocked on the door. Woman answers, but not close to the description. I ask for my target... and hear one of the occupants warn my target, and say they'll cover for her.



That's a funny one!


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