To honor my new PMA I'll share some more arabic mistakes from class."hammam" (bathroom) vs. "hamaam" (pigeon). I shudder to think how many times I've asked where the pigeon was rather then the bathroom. Thankfully, I've yet to be handed a pigeon. I have eaten it though, and it made me spend a lot of time in the hammam.
"ana ba'ara" (I am a cow) vs. "ana baqra" (I read). You normally drop the q in Egpytian arabic, so my teacher made sure to take the time to point this mistake out. But hey, now I can say "ana mish khwaga, ana amerikkiyya ba'ara" ( I am not a stupid foriegner, I am an American cow).
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Somehow I got it in my brain today that I was saying the word "address"--地址 in Chinese wrong. It's a two-syllable word, each syllable has a different tone. I thought it was pronounced di(4)zhi(3), then had a revalation that it was REALLY pronounced di(4)zhi(1). (Those numbers are the tones). Anyway, so I get in the taxi and ask, "Do you know this address?" The driver just stares at me. Something clicks, and he nods a yes. Tonight I went home and decided to look up the word; di(4)zhi(1) just wasn't sounding right. Wanna know what it means? Nothing too exciting, just one of those definitions that makes you go "huh?" My dictionary says that my wrong pronounciation means: "earthly branches."
It made me think of you. I haven't called myself an American cow yet, but I can come up with some pretty ridiculous stuff. 哎呀！！！
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