Blog about funny misunderstandings

Vorbeireden.de is a blog that collects funny misunderstandings from your holiday or everyday life – with the waiter or on the phone – anything that causes you to laugh afterwards. The three premises are: witty, funny and entertaining. There is no set topic and the selection is at random and never boring.

Two stories and a shared obstacle

I am originally from the USA and migrated to Germany more than 20 years ago. At the time, I did not speak any German. In order to get to know some neighboring countries I made a trip to the Netherlands. During the train journey a man started to talk to me in a foreign language. I immediately searched my dictionary for the right sentence and replied in German with a very strong American accent: “Ich spreche kein Deutsch (I don’t speak German).” The man answered in English:  “I don’t speak German either, but I do speak Dutch!”

A friend from France studied Portuguese for two semesters at university. When she got a new Portuguese colleague at work she wanted to prove that she could speak Portuguese. She greeted him with a vibrant “Olá!” The colleague was very happy and asked: “So you speak Spanish? – Me too!” and smiled.

Both stories show that pronunciation is an important aspect when it comes to languages and mutual understanding. A wrong pronunciation causes many funny misunderstandings from which you can learn a lot. A collection of such misunderstandings can be found on www.vorbeireden.de.