#funnyfails

Shared by Teacher during class:

There was this person who doesn't speak Chinese. Let's call him A. He went to visit this Chinese couple with a friend who speaks Chinese. Let's call this friend T.

At the door, the Chinese couple greeted A and T. Being the polite person A is, he told the Chinese man (let's call this guy M), "Your wife is very pretty." T proceeds to help with interpretating.

T: 你的太太很漂亮。

M smiles at A: 哪里哪里。

T turns to A: Where? Where?

A blinks: ... Everywhere! From head to toe.

兄 and 哥

In English, the word "brother" can mean either an elder brother, or the younger brother.

In Chinese, elder brother is "哥哥", while younger brother is "弟弟".

In Japanese, elder brother is "兄", while younger brother is "弟".


So teacher was sharing an incident in her other class where she teaches Chinese.

One of her students, a Japanese, was asked to write "elder brother" in Chinese. Because Chinese and Japanese had words to differentiate the elder from the younger brother, unlike English, the student had no problems understanding what was needed. The thing she couldn't do was remembering the words for "elder brother" in Chinese.

And so in the end she wrote... "兄兄".

Interlingual and Intersemiotic Translation

A picture of interlingual translation and intersemiotic translation together.

Lucky it does not come with a real cockroach pic.

肮脏 vs 脏

During lesson one day, teacher (from China) was sharing with us some "language shocks" she had when she first came to Singapore.

One of them was hearing how locals use the words "肮脏". Singaporeans use "肮脏" to describe something as being dirty, like, "This table is very dirty." A very normal situation in life, no biggies.

To them though, in China, "肮脏" is used to describe a person's character. It's a very very negative description. It has this meaning: "比喻卑鄙、丑恶;道义上应受指责". One definitely does not want to be described as "肮脏".

Imagine her shock when she heard us say, "这个桌子很肮脏。"

She went on to ask a fellow classmate who's from China how she felt when she first heard that sentence.

And the classmate's reply was, "我觉得那个桌子好可怜。" LOL

So how do they say a table's dirty in China? Just "脏" will do, like, "这个桌子很脏。"

False Friends - 祭

For people who know Chinese, you'll know the word 祭 is related to rites, rituals, sacrifices. It has not so positive connotations.

For people who know Japanese, you'll know the word 祭 is related to festivals. It has very positive connotations.

So if your colleague goes to Japan, buys back a banner with the word 祭 to hang as decoration in the office cubicle in an office with more Chinese than Japanese, maybe it's good to advice said colleague to take it down. XD