I did a year of Italian at university before going to Japan, within about 6 months, every sentence I tried to utter in Italian ended with んだけど. Never got it back 
10 Likes
本音slipping…
9 Likes
And apparently homonyms meaning “rising smoke” or 黙々 (mute/silent/dumb)… ^,^ perhaps funnier to her if she thought of one of these.
2 Likes
I feel like there could be a whole separate thread on “pick up lines gone wrong in second languages.” I’m now curious how many times you tried this one before finding out the real meaning. ^,^
6 Likes
But in Japan I feel like they can be sort of synonyms… I’ve sometimes wondered about why these two words seem so similar — 事務所に行って、また来週会おうね。(^o^)/
3 Likes
There was one time when I meant to say:
生徒と英語で話さなかったら○○先生に叱られるよ!
(If I don’t speak in English to the students, Mr. ○○ will tell me off!)
I accidentally said:
生徒と英語で話さなかったら○○先生にシコられるよ!
(If I don’t speak in English to the students, Mr. ○○ will [something else] me off!)
I probably shouldn’t say the actual meaning here but I’ll leave the jisho link here…
Thank goodness the student in question didn’t hear me properly…
17 Likes
I anticipated this mistake as soon as I read the first sentence. 
I guess the student either didn’t hear, or heard and just wanted to confirm their horror hahah.
7 Likes
Nah, I had just arrived back in Japan after ages and so I probably wasn’t speaking very clearly. I’m pretty sure she didn’t understand. Also, Mr. ○○ didn’t say anything.
I won’t even begin on the story of my British friend whose Japanese girlfriend went to a fruit-themed fancy dress party dressed as a cute mango…
10 Likes
She knew what she was doing. She knew.
11 Likes
Ok-ok, here are a few:
I memorized cardboard box as “Dombledor” 段ボール… but then when I went to use the word again with my mother-in-law I ended up remembering the wrong wizard name and was saying ガンダルフ “Gandolf” repeatedly while pointing at a box… the eerie part is that my wife actually figured out what I was doing and was able to correct me!
And another お one — when I was asking my in-laws if we could get married, I said お大事にします (which is more like what you say when someone is sick — my wife and father-in-law are both doctors )… the normal phrase is 大事にします。
There are a ton more, but these top the list. ^,^
19 Likes
One time in class I proudly proclaimed 反対です！…except what I actually said was ヘンタイです！
The worst part is I didn’t realized it and couldn’t figure out why everyone was laughing.
16 Likes
A friend of mind had some very nasty students who used to ask if he liked Mango. He would of course say, yes I love mango, mango is amazing! Poor lad.
5 Likes
This made me think that I’m surprised I’ve never heard of anyone accidentally using しゃぶる instead of しゃべる.
5 Likes
Do I need to put a NSFW warning on the thread title??
11 Likes
Super small thing from way back when I was in Japan for the first time. I went to Kansai area for the first time. I had only learned hiragana and katakana and a few phrases at the time.
Anyway, all the restaurants and shops, etc I would enter, I’d enjoy myself and then when I was leaving they’d all call me huge! Or so I thought.
They were saying おおきに which all I knew from my limited Japanese of the time was that おおき meant big and に meant towards something. So I thought they were saying something like “over there is a big guy” in shorthand, and I was so confused for a while.
I finally got the courage to ask why everyone kept saying おおきに and a nice lady told me it means ありがとう. So I had a nice chuckle.
12 Likes
Seriously??? I should go to Kansai more often. My Kansai dialect comprehension is almost zero. I do have a friend from Osaka who always says わからへん（わからない）which rubbed off on me for a little while, but I’m a Kanto boy, so it just sounds strange if I say it.
6 Likes
I predicted it from this point, haha.
I’m in Kanto myself, but I’ve listened to enough music themed around Osaka to free me from おおきに shame (enka and kayokyoku love a good location-based tune, and so do idol groups).
4 Likes
Sorry didn’t occur to me because no one around me would have understood it.
2 Likes
It’s seemingly a shortening of おおきにありがとう
4 Likes
I’m totally not being serious haha
4 Likes