Bored Panda works better on our iPhone app

Continue in app Continue in browser

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People

ADVERTISEMENT

Learning someone's language is one of the biggest compliments you can give them. It shows you value their culture enough to invest a lot of time and effort in order to connect with them on a deeper level. It's basically like saying, "Your world matters to me," but with actions, which makes the sentiment even more powerful. So if you make a few mistakes, nobody will mind. In fact, sometimes those oopsies can lead to hilarious moments, as seen in a recent Reddit thread where native English speakers shared some of the funniest and most inventive uses of the language by foreigners.

This post may include affiliate links.

#1

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People I worked in a kitchen with a lady from abroad. She couldn’t remember what chicken was in English and pointed to the eggs and said ‘Which fridge do we keep their mum?’.

CheeryBottom , Estudio Gourmet Report

24points

Ripley 1 hour ago

That's kinda adorable.

2points

#2

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My partner is greek and couldn't remember the word "infinity" so just told me that she loves me until the "snoozy 8".

KFlaps , Edward Eyer Report

23points

Groundcontroltomajortom 2 hours ago

Awww that's cute!

7points

View more comments

#3

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People Not spouse but my Croatian dida (grandad) never quite got the concept of 'telling someone off'. He took the phrase completely literally and if he saw someone doing something bad, like if some kids were vandalising something, he would run up to them and yell "Off! Off! Off!"

He literally thought saying the word "off" to someone was the same thing as *telling someone off*.

RIP Dida, you were the best.

_activated_ , Shannon Report

21points

Nea 2 hours ago

I am sure he achieved the objective each time.

4points

View more comments

#4

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People Not my partner but a lovely Polish lady I worked with called a broom a "sweepy" and it makes me smile every time I think about it.

animalwitch , cottonbro studio Report

21points

T'Mar of Vulcan 2 hours ago

A child I teach called the dust pan a "scooby". She meant scoop!

4points

View more comments

#5

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My French friend says “lonely child” instead of “only child”. Never corrected her.

augustlove112 , Vidal Balielo Jr. Report

20points

Corvus 2 hours ago

Well, it's not completely wrong.

10points

View more comments

#6

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People Hungárian girlfriend.

English extremely good except for rarely used phrases.....such as bedroom talk.

"I'm your dirty little slug.".

krypto-pscyho-chimp , Yan Krukau Report

20points

Groundcontroltomajortom 2 hours ago

Now I have some very weird role playing scenarios in my head.... 😳

8points

View more comments

ADVERTISEMENT

#7

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People I love it when my Japanese wife tries to say "hippopotamus" but doesn't know when to stop.

So we get "hippoppo... popo...pop...pop.......pop??".

apeliott , Vadim Lu Report

20points

Brittania Kelli 2 hours ago

They call me the hiphopopotamus Flows that glow like phosphorous Poppin' off the top of this esophagus Rockin' this metropolis I'm not a large water dwelling mammal Where did you get that preposterous hypothesis? Did Steve tell you that perchance? Steve.

6points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#8

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My Japanese husband once couldn't remember what fabric softener was called, so he called it "flavoured soap".

Edit: I can't believe I forgot my favourite! He was trying to remember the word for 'walkie-talkie' and cycled through so many different variations like talkie-walkie, walkie-wiccy, walkie-walkie, wiccy-wiccy.

purplefriiday , RDNE Stock project Report

19points

Ace 1 hour ago

In French they really are called "Talkie Walkie"

4points

View more comments

ADVERTISEMENT

#9

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People A very good Spanish friend of mine was practicing her idioms in English. She wanted to say something about my flatmate who always does the same things over and over no matter the negative consequences. She wanted to say “a leopard can’t change its spots” but she goes “you know what they say, you cannot remove the dots from the large cat!” We were dying over that lol.

fahhgedaboutit , KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA Report

19points

Bill 32 minutes ago

Yes mine hates it when I try and remove his dots

0points

#10

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My wife is Vietnamese and personal pronouns are treated differently so he and she are unisex and interchangeable. It keeps me guessing.

On the flip side, she laughs every time I try to order beetroot juice in Vietnamese (we live there now). Because of the tonal language I manage to pronounce "beetroot juice" as "black penis".

ninja-wharrier , Lisa Fotios Report

17points

Corvus 2 hours ago

Tell her not to kinkshame you :P

9points

View more comments

ADVERTISEMENT

#11

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People One of my best friends is born and bred Spanish and still lives out there but her English is fluent. When we first met she would use the word ‘genre’ instead of ‘gender’ asking things like “what genre are they?” “Idk, sci-fi thriller?”.

secretchuWOWa1 , Liza Summer Report

16points

DetriMentaL (It/That) 2 hours ago

No no... They may have a point here.. I vote we drop the gender thing and describe people as thrillers, horrors, dramas and mysteries

16points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#12

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My wife is Indonesian. She picked up the word "bollocks", but she uses it as an insult in the singular form.

I.e. You b*****k

It's now become my favourite insult.

NasalSexx , RDNE Stock project Report

15points

Kirsten Kerkhof 2 hours ago

As if you aren't even worthy of a couple of bollocks.

5points

View more comments

#13

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People A Spanish friend years ago forgot the word for garage and said “ the place where you take your car for a drink”. I still think it’s great like 20 years later.

PamVanDam , Brandi Alexandra Report

15points

Ace 1 hour ago

Meaning a petrol (gas) station, rather than a parking place.

6points

#14

Hearing the French president of our company pronounce "focus" with a strong accent that made it sound like he was saying "f**k us", and hearing him give a dry run of a speech where he was emphatically insisting "I need you to f**k us, we need them to f**k us, we need EVERYONE TO F**K US!"

Some poor sod had to go and tell him he needs to stop asking everyone to f**k us, and instead to f-ohh-cus.

littleIdiotUK Report

15points

Sofia 2 hours ago

this is why you don't remember renzi (italian former premier) speaking english

1point

ADVERTISEMENT

#15

My girlfriend is Romanian. On our third date, she invited me to her house. We were talking about shopping when she announced that she had "Chicken tights"

I looked confused. She repeated " I have chicken tights" whilst rubbing her legs. I was trying to imagine what this article of clothing looked like, and said "That doesn't help!". She then opened the fridge and showed me the chicken thighs. It became our first in-joke.

Many other things she says that I don't correct because they are cute, are just mispronounced or slightly wrong words.

I love the way she says "Daffodiles" (rhymes with crocodiles), "Bubbles" (bulbs), "Casserole" (any tupperware type container), "Jardiniere" (any flowerpot), "SAL-mon" (with the L), "Sheddle" (schedule), and many others.

She also does the he/she gender mixing, but only usually when she is talking excitedly about something, or is tired.

Conversely, I have been trying to learn Romanian for 3 years, and she laughs hysterically at me every time I try to start a conversation. I believe I sound like the Allo Allo policeman.

15points

Carries 1 hour ago

My boyfriend is Bulgarian and he calls it chicken things. He knows the correct word by now, it's just become a joke between us xD

0points

#16

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My wife is Danish and once wrote an email to colleagues inviting them for "drinks and nipples".

Verochio , Helena Lopes Report

14points

Daniel Baca 1 hour ago

I'd come

4points

View more comments

ADVERTISEMENT

#17

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My grandma was from another country and used to ask if her outfit was alright as she didn’t want to look like “mutton dressed as chicken”.

Ginevra_F , Askar Abayev Report

13points

Nea 2 hours ago

I am guessing its a literal translation of a saying in her mother tongue.

3points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#18

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People >Alice on the Wonderwall

Today is gonna be the day that I'm fallin' down a rabbit hole...

DorisWildthyme , Walt Disney Pictures Report

13points

Ritchat 2 hours ago (edited)

And by now, she should've somehow realised she's gonna fall...

5points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#19

My Czech sister in-law calls Silence of The Lambs, 'Don't Speaking of Small Sheep'.

Onepen99 Report

13points

#20

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People Not got a foreign spouse, apologies for jumping in.

But used to work with an Israeli lady, she pronounced cucumber as cockumber.

Being young(ish) it used to make us laugh.

ZookeepergameHead145 , Harshal S. Hirve Report

12points

Sofia 2 hours ago

multi purpose veggy

2points

View more comments

#21

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People They don’t do it anymore but they used to say ‘emotional backpack’ when referring to emotional baggage.

That was a treasure.

softersong , Helena Lopes Report

11points

Bill 18 minutes ago

Yes it got bigger. I have a set with wheels

1point

ADVERTISEMENT

#22

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People I have never let my French wife forget the time she called the cheese grater a cheese “raper” (pronounced rather unfortunately!)

The translation of ‘to grate’ being râper.

RedEastW , Klaus Nielsen Report

10points

Marianne 35 minutes ago

Classical false friend!

0points

View more comments

#23

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People One of my closest friends is Bulgarian and she says "you are cracking me" when she means "you cracking me up" and I'll never correct her, it's ridiculously sweet.

Woozlie , Savannah Dematteo Report

10points

Corvus 2 hours ago (edited)

Some Bulgarian phrases and idioms sound really weird when translated into English, e.g. "how do you drive her" (how is it going), or "everything is electricity and wires" (everything is going well), or "he butchers and hangs people around here" (he is in charge around here), or even "I'm eating the cuckoo waffles" (I am going nuts), and finally "the horse went into the river" (the situation got seriously messed up). There are others too, but I can't remember them right now.

11points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#24

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My wife initially saw Greggs and pronounced it Grejjs and I never corrected her for awhile until she went to 'Grejjs' with her work colleagues who corrected her then. That evening was hilarious as she had a go at me.

TheNotSpecialOne , Paul Robertson Report

10points

#25

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My Polish fiance says "taking A p**s" instead of "taking THE p**s".

GeorgiePorgie2319 , Tim Mossholder Report

9points

Sofia 2 hours ago

in my italian mind makes sense

1point

View More Replies...

View more comments

#26

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People I’m the foreign spouse. I’m from New Zealand and my wife is English. I went into a grocery store in Sheffield, England, and asked for eggs. They said what? I said “eggs”. They said what are they? I said, “you know they come from hens”. They laughed and said “oh you means eggs”. I was like WTF? It turns out that it sounded to them like I asked for “iggs”.

balrob , Boryslav Shoot Report

9points

Corvus 2 hours ago

"Iggs" is in Australian :D

2points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#27

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My Indonesian wife has great English and rarely makes a mistake. But when she does its hilarious. Such as substituting apostrophe with catastrophe. Personal favourite is when she told her office mates she was "fluffing" her husband this morning so she was later than usual, when she meant "faffing".

Samathos , cottonbro studio Report

9points

Nea 2 hours ago

I fluff my husband sometimes, its alright.

4points

View more comments

#28

My dad is Swedish and has lived in the U.K. for 20+ years now but still can’t say “totally” : he says “turtle-ly” which always makes me smile.

A few direct translations have also crept into our family vernacular: “adders” means something tastes disgusting (“smakar huggorm” literally “tastes like adders”) being one of my favourite examples.

9points

Ace 1 hour ago

Turtle-ly would also be pretty accurate as to how it would be pronounced in parts of Northern England, notably Lancs.

0points

#29

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People An Eastern European friend was telling me about how her dog got nervous about all the people when she took him to the supermarket. She started with the phrase "When I park him outside Tesco...." She's sort of accurate.

inspectorgadget9999 , Peter Plashkin Report

8points

Cee Cee 2 hours ago

Really annoys me to see dogs tied up outside supermarkets. Many cases of dog napping have occurred.

-1point

View More Replies...

View more comments

#30

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My Moroccan husband gets confused with ‘too many’ vs ‘a lot of’… mortifying if we see a large group of Asians or a large group of women!

MuchMenu2417 , Clem Onojeghuo Report

8points

Sofia 2 hours ago

me being socially awkard is always too many

2points

View more comments

#31

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My wife is Polish and despite speaking near fluent English has a couple of blindspots that she just can't seem to fix.

Tarmac == Tamrac

Menu == Meni

Seat/Sit - this results in "take a sit" and "we were seating".

BeardedBaldMan , Max Andrey Report

8points

See Also on Bored Panda

Dutch Swimmer Goes Viral For Super Revealing Trunks During 2024 Olympics: “Is This Legal?”

Dutch Swimmer Goes Viral For Super Revealing Trunks During 2024 Olympics: “Is This Legal?”

Dutch Swimmer Goes Viral For Super Revealing Trunks During 2024 Olympics: “Is This Legal?”

Thrill-Seeking Diver Jumps Down Extreme Waterslide, Ignoring The Strict Ban For Women

Thrill-Seeking Diver Jumps Down Extreme Waterslide, Ignoring The Strict Ban For Women

Thrill-Seeking Diver Jumps Down Extreme Waterslide, Ignoring The Strict Ban For Women

#32

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My wife is American, so you wouldn't think this would be a problem. Her insistence on calling a friend of mine "Gram" when his name is "Graham" gets a little wearing.

ArmouredWankball , Askar Abayev Report

8points

T'Mar of Vulcan 2 hours ago

They even say it that way on TV. Must just be an American thing.

1point

View More Replies...

View more comments

#33

Spanish friend always misses out 'bit' when describing how she's feeling so will say 'i'm a wee confuse' instead of I'm a wee bit confused or 'i'm a wee sick' when she's unwell. It's very endearing.

AcademyCat1719 Report

8points

#34

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People My wife is spanish and really bad at remembering english celebrity names so she just makes them up, the other day she couldn't think of bruce willis so she called him "bolt bickerman".

TastyEar3568 , Twentieth Century Fox Report

7points

Sofia 2 hours ago

I dont' get it?

1point

#35

People Can’t Stop Laughing At These 43 Language Oopsies Made By Foreign People Played golf with my dad and my foreign SO. There was a hillock on the course and my SO made the point to my dad to "watch out for the mountain". She still gets them hills and mountains mixed up.

AlwaysGoForAusInRisk , Markus Spiske Report

7points

Pernille 1 hour ago

I wonder where the SO is from, to me even a small pile of dirt is a mountain, I'm danish.

0points

View more comments

#36

Many years ago I had a Spanish colleague who instead of saying “you’ve really opened a can of worms” used to say “you’ve really opened a tin of beans”. Love that!

JukeboxTears Report

6points

Ace 1 hour ago

I like to sometimes deliberately mix metaphors like that, such as "that's a whole different kettle of worms" just to see if people notice.

1point

#37

My wife’s Filipino. Always confuses he and she. I get confused who she is talking about half the time.

Gone_For_Lunch Report

6points

#38

My wife is from Taiwan. When she first heard ‘Jamming’ by Bob Marley she thought it was a song about chow mein. To this day we still sing “and I hope you like chow mein too!”.

PsychologicalDrone Report

6points

#39

My partner uses the phrase “less more than” instead of “less than”. I always find it funny and never correct her.

5points

#40

Had a Chinese friend/girl I was seeing who I was meeting in a city centre. Called her to ask where she was as I was on the right street but couldn't see her. She said she was outside "eeartess". I was thinking it was some restaurant or something I'd never heard of. Totally confused as I could see nothing like it.

Then I found her.

Outside Yate's.

4points

#41

My dad had a Chinese girlfriend when I was younger. I was about 11 when she would quiz me on words and how to spell them.

For about a week she kept asking me to spell "ent ra preeny us" which I never got right, until my dad read the word to me and laughed as he said "I think she means entrepreneurs".

solsticefaerie Report

4points

See Also on Bored Panda

Woman Put A Water Fountain With A Camera In Her Yard, Here Are 24 Photos Of Regular Visitors (New Pics)

Woman Put A Water Fountain With A Camera In Her Yard, Here Are 24 Photos Of Regular Visitors (New Pics)

Woman Put A Water Fountain With A Camera In Her Yard, Here Are 24 Photos Of Regular Visitors (New Pics)

“Ma’am I Live Here”: Woman Refuses To Back Out Of Driveway, Learns A Lesson The Hard Way

“Ma’am I Live Here”: Woman Refuses To Back Out Of Driveway, Learns A Lesson The Hard Way

“Ma’am I Live Here”: Woman Refuses To Back Out Of Driveway, Learns A Lesson The Hard Way

#42

My wife cannot for the life of her say "vegetable" or "vet" properly. She's Swiss and says "wegetable" and "wet", she's got better with time but when she's particularly excited it comes back again.

mrafinch Report

4points

Manana Man 1 hour ago

Switzerland has 4 official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh. I'm trying to figure out what here language must be. I only know it can't be German because in German you pronounce Ws as Vs, as Wagner the composer.

0points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#43

My ex described a new shop that just opened. Apparently it was a “snake shop”. When questioned he elaborated “it sells drinks and snakes”. From then on, the local shop was referred to as “the snake shop”.

VixenRoss Report

4points

Rokas Laurinavičius

Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

Gabija Palšytė

Gabija is a photo editor at Bored Panda. Before joining the team, she achieved a Professional Bachelor degree in Photography and has been working as a freelance photographer since. She also has a special place in her heart for film photography, movies and nature.

Gabija is a photo editor at Bored Panda. Before joining the team, she achieved a Professional Bachelor degree in Photography and has been working as a freelance photographer since. She also has a special place in her heart for film photography, movies and nature.

What do you think ?

Brittania Kelli 2 hours ago (edited)

I have so many because I used to volunteer at a music charity for refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers. One Pakistani lady was told by her social worker 'not to put all her eggs in one basket' meaning not to put all her hopes on her court case, but she started keeping a couple eggs in the fridge, a couple eggs in the cupboard, a couple on counter, until we explained it to her. There was the time the Pakistani women thought our Scottish choir leader was trying to teach them a naughty song because it was in Gaelic and the first line was 'Fok A' Do'. One Chinese friend had her Chinese birthday (because of our different calendars) and we went to a traditional Chinese restaurant with our Turkish friend who hadn't understood why she would have a Chinese birthday and an English birthday so thought it was China's birthday and wished a happy birthday to every single Chinese waiter and server at the restaurant.

7points

Corvus 2 hours ago

I remember a case when an American Professor in Bulgaria tried to order a drink on his own at a restaurant. I don't know where and how he heard those words, and how they got mixed in his mind... but he ended up ordering "a big jerk off." I hear the waiter remained silent for a good 10 seconds before saying "Ummm, you want a what?!"

3points

troufaki13 1 hour ago

Not a foreign language mistake, but I find it cute and I thought I could share. My 7o nephew didn't know how to say "air-quotes" in greek (we don't really have a word for that) so he came up with his own phrase "ironic bunnies" 😂

2points

Load More Comments

Brittania Kelli 2 hours ago (edited)

I have so many because I used to volunteer at a music charity for refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers. One Pakistani lady was told by her social worker 'not to put all her eggs in one basket' meaning not to put all her hopes on her court case, but she started keeping a couple eggs in the fridge, a couple eggs in the cupboard, a couple on counter, until we explained it to her. There was the time the Pakistani women thought our Scottish choir leader was trying to teach them a naughty song because it was in Gaelic and the first line was 'Fok A' Do'. One Chinese friend had her Chinese birthday (because of our different calendars) and we went to a traditional Chinese restaurant with our Turkish friend who hadn't understood why she would have a Chinese birthday and an English birthday so thought it was China's birthday and wished a happy birthday to every single Chinese waiter and server at the restaurant.

7points

Corvus 2 hours ago

I remember a case when an American Professor in Bulgaria tried to order a drink on his own at a restaurant. I don't know where and how he heard those words, and how they got mixed in his mind... but he ended up ordering "a big jerk off." I hear the waiter remained silent for a good 10 seconds before saying "Ummm, you want a what?!"

3points

troufaki13 1 hour ago

Not a foreign language mistake, but I find it cute and I thought I could share. My 7o nephew didn't know how to say "air-quotes" in greek (we don't really have a word for that) so he came up with his own phrase "ironic bunnies" 😂

2points

Load More Comments

You May Like

30 Wonderfully Weird English Terms You Might Not Know

Saimonas Lukošius

148 English Teacher Jokes To Bring A Bit Of Fun To The Classroom

Eligijus Sinkunas

Back to Homepage

More about Funny

Related on Bored Panda

Related on Bored Panda

Editor's Choice

Trending on Bored Panda

Also on Bored Panda