Those of you who have ever seriously tackled another language will know that there are many hilarious missteps and inappropriate things said along the way. Occasionally we have the pleasure of doing the same thing in our very own language with another native speaker due to differing accents, lack of enunciation, bad hearing, etc. Consider the following conversation that I had with my Budapest host, who has served in many different countries, including Serbia:
Mike: "In Ukraine, do they use Borscht for birth control like they do in Serbia?" (Borscht is a Ukrainian beet soup)
Me(in utter disbelief): "What??! Are you serious? They use it as birth control? How do you know? Did someone tell you that??"
Mike: "It's a government statistic and the most common form of birth control there."
Me:"But how do you know? Do they actually talk about it??"
Mike: "Well, obviously, it's not a very effective method, because it keeps happening."
Me: No kidding! That's crazy. Well, I haven't heard of Ukrainians using that as birth control, but with all their superstitions, who knows?"
Mike:"Yes, it's unfortunate."
Me: "When I go back, I'm going to ask people. You'd think that with as much Borscht as Ukrainians eat, that I would have heard about it, if they were using it as a form of birth control!"
Mike:"Wait, what did you say?"
Me: "Well, maybe that's why Ukrainians eat so much Borscht and I just never knew!"
Mike: "Did you just say Borscht?"
Me: "Yes."
Mike(laughing uproariously):"I didn't say Borscht was the most common form of birth control in Serbia. I said Abortion."
Me(barely able to talk b/c I'm laughing so hard):"Oh, that makes a lot more sense than Borscht!!"
I think we all laughed without stopping for about 10 minutes and then the rest of the evening we kept breaking out into laughter. Borscht as birth control. sigh. I really do clean my ears out every day, I promise!
4 comments:
That is funny, but the sad thing is that Mike is probably right. I think many people here do the same thing. Are there Christian based Pregnancy Resource Centers there? I would love to visit one and see how they are run. Of course, there would be that "No speakie Russian" thing for me! Love you!
Mike is absolutely right and it's also true of Ukraine. It should have been a serious conversation. It just ended up being a hilarious one. I'm sure withthe size of Budapest and the number od missionaries(very, very high) that there is some kind of Pregnancy Resource ministry. There's nothing here in Odessa that I know of.
ha ha!that's too funny about the borscht!
Julie, Anne Sokol is the one to talk to about pregnancy resource centers in Ukraine. I think she mentioned something getting started in Odessa, but I can't remember for sure. I would really like for you and her to meet! It would probably be worth a stop in Kiev, just for that.
Anna, that's about the best language mistake I've ever heard, without even going into a second language! :-)
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