Gross Britain

[gingerjedi]

Not the world's greatest comedian, but what he says is spot on.

"In Britain you like to be owned by a house... I mean you like to own your house"

[bobhope]

I've finally got to the level where I can make wordplay jokes in my German lessons.

Describing a married couple, I managed to mix up foltern (to torture) and fordern (to demand/ask). Oh how we laughed :-)

As you can see, I'm still a way off from doing a Ronnie Corbett routine yet.

[darmstadt]

I remeber a mate going to buy a mattress here some years back. Thinking that the word would be similar in German he ent into the shop asking for a 'zwei meter Matrose' which just happens to mean a 'two meter sailor.' Oh how the shop assistants laughed.

I recall asking the missus where I could buy a pouffe here to rest my feet on and she was very confused as that also means brothel here.

[VectraMan]

Actually, many people say that we Germans have nicht sense of humour!

keine, surely.

Stupid language.

[Paddy]

Send 'body mist' back as a 'gift'. Make sure you write that on the outside.

It reminded me of a German watching the BBC weather forecast with mist written all over the UK. “Is that for farming?”

[NotAllThere]

Schwul, schwül. I tend to use "feucht".

I was once discussing the snow conditions with my German colleagues. I said the snow had been a bit mushy. They didn't know the word, so I looked it up in my dictionary - "weichlich".

My (female) client manager burst out laughing. A little later, a male colleague told me that, at least locally, it means "wet", as in turned on lady...

otoh, my wife had a lot of fun telling an American (male) to look up smegma in the dictionary, after he'd watch his first episode of Red Dwarf... he was so embarrassed - repressed git.

[RichardCranium]

I once caused confusion and giggles with "Du bist wilkommen".

[AlfredJPruffock]

I recall a German Engineering company that had some memorable employee names eg -a certain Christian Brothel and another Herr Killler - whose job was a manager - sounds like a formidable chap.