I have a list of mistakes in my mind from Taiwan. I have found that with the Chinese language I have an incredible ability to change really run of the mill words into profanity, sexual slurs, and flat-out insults. In comparison my Korean mistakes seems really mild.
First real mistake: "BBQ meat ate me for lunch." (proudly said to the Korean language teacher)
Second real mistake: changed the word for "shoes" into the f-word. Again, I was showing off all of the clothing words I had learned that day.
Other mistakes have been changing the word "magnification" into the term for a snack food ( I thought they were talking about dinner....). Misheard "someone who can listen well" into "a Filipino person." Most of my mistakes make people chuckle... or make them hungry.
Now being afraid of saying the word "shoes," I have stumbled across a few more issues. The word for "color,"used everytime you mention a color (yellow color house, red color car) sounds like the same word for "baby animal" which is spelled the same as a curse word. I had a, dare I say colorful conversation with several teachers over the usage and pronunciation of these words ^^ I have the same grace here that I did in Taiwan; "he's a foreigner, he doesn't know what he's doing."
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