Travelling can sometimes mean encountering a different language, culture and set behaviours that we have to navigate through. However, this can be a bigger challenge than expected especially if we don’t know the nuances within the locally spoken language. It can lead to some awkward encounters and some serious misunderstandings.
Here are a few examples:
1. Fart – In Danish, Norwegian and Swedish it actually means ‘speed’ or a measurement of how fast you are travelling.
2. Pet – In France, this means ‘fart’ so you have to be careful when talking about your ‘pets’ and how much you love them.
3. Brat – Next time you call your brother a brat, tell him that in Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Croation and Serbian this means ‘Brother’.
4. No – In Polish and Czech, this actually means yes. Really it does.
5. Gift – In German, this translates to ‘poison’ but in Swedish it means ‘married’.
6. Me – In Hebrew, it means ‘who’ and ‘who’ means ‘he’, ‘he’ means ‘she’ and ‘dog’ translates to ‘fish’.