Language: Your Barrier to Communication
Today we present another segment on language. We all use language as a tool for communicating ideas from one person to the other, ideas like, "I like soup" or "I hate tomatoes". These are very important ideas that must be communicated eloquently to other people - if not we would all either die of starvation or, even worse, end up eating terrible nasty things like tomatoes or olives once in a while. And the absolute most wonderful thing about language, is that if one uses it improperly, especially while learning it, language can be an awesome wonderful source of humor to yourself and others, just like in these wonderful small stories below.
English Version
A couple of missionaries, Elder Bell and Elder Gibbons, in Miami had just met a lady, (Quick sidenote: bienvenido means 'welcome' in Spanish), and they said to her, "What's your name?" (Of course they asked her this in Spanish. For the full spanish version go to the paragraph immediately below.)So they said to her, "What's your name?" "Bienvenida" "Gracias. Now - what's your name?" "Bienvenida" "Gracias, and...what's your name?" "Bienvenida" "Gracias..." And after a while she explained to them that her name was "Bienvenida".
Spanish Version
Dos misioneros, Elder Bell y Elder Gibbons, acaban de conocer a una señora, y le preguntaran a ella su nombre. Ella les dijo a ellos, "Bienvenida" "Gracias, y como te llamas?" "Bienvenida" "Gracias - y como te llamas?" "Bienvenida" "Gracias..." Y despues de un rato ella les explicó a ellos que su nombre era 'Bienvenida'.
One of my roommates, Rao, was from India, and he asked me & my roommate Greg, "Can you give me a ride to compoosa?" "Compoosa?" "Yes, they sell computers." "I've never heard of that before." "Nope - me neither," said Greg. "Here is an ad," said Rao and he handed us an ad for CompUSA.
There was a sister missionary, still new to Spanish, and she was listening to a long story that a lady was telling them. At the end of the story she said, "Oh, que bueno!" (How wonderful!) And her companion turned to her and said, "It is NOT wonderful that her house burned down."
Another sister missionary had no clue whatsoever how to speak Spanish at this point in her mission, and so she got in the habit of just nodding her head and saying 'Sí' to make them feel like she understood. So she got in this really long conversation by herself at church, and then Elder George came over to her and said, "You just offered to cook their family dinner."
English Version
A couple of missionaries, Elder Bell and Elder Gibbons, in Miami had just met a lady, (Quick sidenote: bienvenido means 'welcome' in Spanish), and they said to her, "What's your name?" (Of course they asked her this in Spanish. For the full spanish version go to the paragraph immediately below.)So they said to her, "What's your name?" "Bienvenida" "Gracias. Now - what's your name?" "Bienvenida" "Gracias, and...what's your name?" "Bienvenida" "Gracias..." And after a while she explained to them that her name was "Bienvenida".
Spanish Version
Dos misioneros, Elder Bell y Elder Gibbons, acaban de conocer a una señora, y le preguntaran a ella su nombre. Ella les dijo a ellos, "Bienvenida" "Gracias, y como te llamas?" "Bienvenida" "Gracias - y como te llamas?" "Bienvenida" "Gracias..." Y despues de un rato ella les explicó a ellos que su nombre era 'Bienvenida'.
One of my roommates, Rao, was from India, and he asked me & my roommate Greg, "Can you give me a ride to compoosa?" "Compoosa?" "Yes, they sell computers." "I've never heard of that before." "Nope - me neither," said Greg. "Here is an ad," said Rao and he handed us an ad for CompUSA.
There was a sister missionary, still new to Spanish, and she was listening to a long story that a lady was telling them. At the end of the story she said, "Oh, que bueno!" (How wonderful!) And her companion turned to her and said, "It is NOT wonderful that her house burned down."
Another sister missionary had no clue whatsoever how to speak Spanish at this point in her mission, and so she got in the habit of just nodding her head and saying 'Sí' to make them feel like she understood. So she got in this really long conversation by herself at church, and then Elder George came over to her and said, "You just offered to cook their family dinner."
posted by CT at 11:58 AM
5 Comments:
This reminds me of the time I was in the MTC doing a TRC and I asked the "investigator" who his favorite propeht was.
He said: Pedro, porque fue un pescador y me encanta pescar.
Which means: Peter, because he was a fisher and I love to fish.
What I heard was: Pedro, porque fue un pecador y me encanta pecar.
Which means: Peter because he was a sinner and I love to sin.
Needless to say, the discussion just went downhill from there.
Well, that's why I like Peter. Who cares about fishing.
Cook there family dinner? Looks like Elder George needs to review grammar usage before speaking.
Meh - pardon my tiredness and MY mistake.
Me agree. Me theenk langwage be bearier two. Me no like to tawk. When me open mouth, peeple run or bang pots in me face. My dad trie tawk wonce to man with orange vest. My dad no alive more. Me due like two ete prayerie dawgs and throw me feses on cars from bridge above hieway 9.
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