Language Mishaps

A few more language blunders for your enjoyment :)

A little over a month ago I was trying to distinguish between two different past tense ways of saying "I wanted" to figure out which was correct for the sentence that I was trying to say.  So I asked someone across from me how to say "I wanted" and he replied "Queria" to which I replied "Ok, well, what does 'Quis' mean?" That word sounds an awful lot like the word 'Kiss' (Beijo) and with me switching from English to Portuguese he didn't realize that I had switched to Portuguese and told me that "Quis" meant "Beijo."  We all laughed for a while because I had essentially just told him that "I wanted a kiss."

The next story needs a little bit of explanation.  Whenever we are taken off guard, surprised, or just trying to talk too fast we sometimes switch into English mode.  This results in us saying "thank you," "sorry," or other random bursts of explanation at times.

So, last week, Annika was trying to order espetinho (delicious meat on a stick) from a street vendor, and she said "Queiro two" (I want two), but the word 'two' sounds like 'tu' which is another way for saying 'you'.  So pretty much, Annika told the street vendor "I want you."