When saying cheers (or responding to a sneeze) we say ‘egészségedre’ (=to your health, literally meaning to your wholesomeness). The weird cluster in the middle is sz+s, which is confusingly a s + sh sound. Someone learning the language once pronounced it more like egész seggedre, which means to your whole ass.

Then there are a bunch of words that sound like English words but they aren’t, such as our word for ravine, which is szakadék, but sounds a bit like suck a dick.

In Haitian Creole, the word for lawyer and avocado are the same. While we were living there, a friend got in an accident. He couldn’t figure out why the police kept asking him if he wanted an avocado. Police: eske ou vle yon avoka? Do you want a lawyer? Friend: Non. M pa grangou. No. I’m not hungry.

Since japanese kawaii/kowai is already taken, I’ll add chikubi (乳首) and kuchibiru (唇) are confused by some learners (including me at least twice). Nipples and lips respectively.

I also messed up the words for jealous/envious and selfish so told someone their vacation was selfish (or at least talking about it) instead of that I was envious.

So in most Spanish speaking countries the word papaya just means the fruit nothing crazy. Then you visit Cuba and suddenly the word means something vulgar about women’s genetalia. So instead they use the Taino phrase “fruta bomba” aka bomb fruit in English.

In Spain and some Caribbean countries the word for pound cake is “Bizcocho”, but in Mexico it means something similar to papaya in Cuba. There’s a whole lot of these and it’s always a fun time when I say them not knowing when I travel thinking I’m getting away with being seen as a native.

Japanese kawaii (cute) and kowai (scary) is pretty amusing

Not really a misunderstanding, but:

Me, entering into a room of Argentinian geophysicist coworkers, without knowing spanish: “Good morning senoras!”
Coworker: giggles. “Senores”
Me: “Why?”
Coworker: explains gendered nouns in Spanish.
Me: “Ah, OK, let me try that again; Good morning senoras!”
Coworker: “Oh, fuck you…”

Just typical banter between coworkers who had been working together for years.

In German, ‘schwül’ is a way to describe the weather when it’s muggy outside. On the other hand, ‘schwul’ is how you would describe a friend of Dorothy.

In Irish, the word for “rat” is: francach (fron-kokh) and the word for “Frenchman” is Francach (fron-koch).

So be sure to mind your capitalization when speaking to the French folk.

Answering my own post here, but some of the comments reminded me of this one.

This is honestly just a story I ran across while studying Japanese, not a story that happened to me personally. (I swear. Heh.)

But I remember reading a story about someone who wanted bread crumbs for breading things. They’re called “panko” in both Japanese and English, but in Japanese, the “a” makes a sound pretty much like the “a” and “all”.

The guy confused himself and asked folks working at the store to point him to where he could buy “manko”. The word “manko” is a very vulgar term for women’s genetalia. So he was trying to ask “where are the panko crumbs?”, but was actually asking basically “where’s the pussy?”.

Well, I know my American friend was a bit confused when a British man asked him if he wanted to go blow a fag.

When I was on my mission, my companion and I went over to a бабушка’s house one time to do some service of some kind (it’s been many years and I don’t remember what exactly we were helping her with). After we finished up, she said something like “thanks! I really appreciate it, maybe I’ll ask you to come help again sometime” or something to that effect. Being a millennial, I would always answer “thanks” with не за что, which means approximately “it’s nothing,” like “it’s no trouble at all” or “it’s my pleasure.” My companion was newer in country and didn’t speak Russian particularly well, and instead said ни за что, which in an American accent sounds almost exactly the same, except the stress is moved, which instead means something like “not for anything” or “under no circumstances.” Luckily, I caught what had happened pretty quickly and smoothed things over, because she positively blanched when he told her we’d never come back to help her again no matter how much she paid us.

edit: I’m pretty sure he was the same companion who said he was sterile (я холодной) when he meant he was cold (мне холодно).

The term you’re looking for is false friends. Eg:

• In Spanish, embarazado/a means pregnant, not embarrassed. Accidental mpreg is more likely than you think.
• In French, excité(e) is more likely to be interpreted as sexually aroused than excited. Draw your own conclusions.