So effing rude!

[PabloAriel]

Another one :
First month living in Argentina, not speaking a word of spanish. I go to a supermarket to buy eggs but couldn't find them. So I asked a clerk for "oeufs ?", then "eggs ?"... Well I tried and tried but the guy couldn't understand then I imitated the chicken even using sounds (cot cot codet !) and mimicking an egg coming out of my -oh well, you get it-.
I got my eggs !

Hahaha it made me remember a scene from "Un argentino en Nueva York". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q4aCGST9vQ&feature=related

 

[nikad]

Please tell me that DH stands for something other than "dumb husband" (hahah).

(I hope it's dear, devoted, or darling.)

Heheh the later 3 do it

 

[starlucia]

Once I went to buy styrofoam plates from a small shop run by an old & young man (likely father & son). I asked for the price then I said "Vendido !" like for saying "Sold !".

The two guys looked at me with such a face, they were not smiling at all and looked at each other, then looked at me again.

So I repeated, quite seriously "Vendido !". The shop was then very silent and I could guess something was going wrong.

After 90 seconds that semt an eternity, I repeated "Vendido" but explaining that I'm satisfied with the price, hence I would buy the product, which is why I said it's sold.

Then I realized that from the start, they thought I was saying "Bandido !"

lol...

Another one :
First month living in Argentina, not speaking a word of spanish. I go to a supermarket to buy eggs but couldn't find them. So I asked a clerk for "oeufs ?", then "eggs ?"... Well I tried and tried but the guy couldn't understand then I imitated the chicken even using sounds (cot cot codet !) and mimicking an egg coming out of my -oh well, you get it-.
I got my eggs !

My first few months in Argentina, I accidentally went around asking everyone -- little old ladies, burly construction men, young mothers -- if they enjoyed anal sex (when I first arrived, a woman in Farmacity had asked me, "Haces cola?" So from then on, whenever I wanted to know if a person was standing in line at the grocery store, bus stop, etc, I repeated that, but as, "Haces la cola?") My accent is good, so I always wondered why I got so many startled looks, especially since no one ever bothered to correct me!

 

[French jurist]

Laid one,too.

After that performance you could eat the eggs alone and still have a "ham and eggs" breakfast.

If I start imitating a chicken for the eggs then a pork for the ham, some cool guys dressed in white might take me to the Borda hospital

Hopefully, I didn't have to ask for condoms or an antidiarrheic

 

[French jurist]

I don't know about english spoken chickens, but here chickens don't go cot cot codet

Actually French chicken go "cot cot codet"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE8oYz__9mw

And English vs French chicken's sounds were seriously debated here :
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=937226

 

[steveinbsas]

Sure? How come it's a failing on THEIR part don't speaking YOUR FOREIGN language?
I would agree with you if it was a goverment office receptionist like the one stated on the first post, but not on the example you gave.

Unless something has changed recently, the most astonishing example of government employees who don't speak foreign languages are the ladies who are in charge of the prorrogas de permencia at migraciones.

If it isn't important for them to speak (or at least understand) foreign languages, then why should any other government employees bother to do so either?

Those in a position to extract "fees" from foreigners are the obvious exception.

 

[steveinbsas]

If I start imitating a chicken for the eggs then a pork for the ham, some cool guys dressed in white might take me to the Borda hospital

Hopefully, I didn't have to ask for condoms or an antidiarrheic

I was implying that YOU were the HAM for putting on the chicken act.

So just how do you ask for condoms?

 

[RichardP]

My mom is German, and after some 45 years in the US, still gets the same reaction from some people that they don't understand her English. It doesn't phase her as she is used to it.
Some people just don't want to make an effort to understand, or are incapable of doing so. This can even happen when people speak regional dialects within the same country.

 

[French jurist]

I was implying that YOU were the HAM for putting on the chicken act.

So just how do you ask for condoms?

I just ask for "bolsas de residuos", adding "para consorcios"

More seriously, this reminds me of a story about my aunt & my grandparents.

They have been living for a few years in Pennsylvania in the early 1950s and they went to a zoo in NY.
My aunt, who was a little girl at that time, saw some seals and kept repeating loudly "oh maman, regarde les phoques !" (phoques is the French word for seals and when pronunciated it's quite close to the f word). My grandmother was quite embarassed.

 

[Johnny]

I remember being confused about the meaning of the word "fundillo" years ago and thought that it meant "back" rather than, uh, "asshole". I thought I would show off my new spanish skills one day to my secretary from Honduras by announcing to she and her six year old daughter that I had a really big pain in my fundillo. I'll never forget the look on that little girl's face.