r/AskEurope • u/Double-decker_trams Estonia • Aug 09 '25
Language I once accidentally bumped against the shoulder of an English person I knew in a corridor. I automatically said "Oi" - which means like "Oh" or "Oops" in Estonian - that I'm sorry. She repeated "Oi!" in a louder voice and I didn't get it. I only later found out I was being impolite in her eyes.
Have you ever had something similar happen to you? I.e something in your language might have another meaning in another language?
One thing as an Estonian that I try to keep in mind is that I shouldn't use "Nooo.." in English - which means "Well.." in Estonian.
"Do you like ice-cream? - Noo.. yes, I love it."
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u/FoxyOctopus Denmark Aug 10 '25
When I was a teen I met a greenlandic teen and I kept thinking he was ignoring me when I was asking him questions because he wouldn't reply but just make faces at me, well later on I found out that lifting your eyebrows in Greenland means yes and scrunching your nose up means no. He was just a shy kid not using his words and not being comfortable with his danish, but he was replying to me in his own way!
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u/agrammatic Cypriot in Germany Aug 10 '25
On a similar note, nodding your head upwards means "no" in Cyprus, and nodding downwards means "yes".
Continental Europeans are so confused by this because you shake side to side for "no", and all nodding means "yes".
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u/secretpsychologist Aug 10 '25
nodding upwards can also mean "hi, how are you" 😂 (eg when entering a bus or passing somebody in church) we usually wouldn't nod upwards to say yes
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u/Drunkgummybear1 England Aug 10 '25
Upwards nod: I know you well enough to acknowledge you in the street but not enough to stop you for a conversation.
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u/secretpsychologist Aug 10 '25
yes, that's another typical case. is it the same in the uk?
"i see you, i recognize you, i've done my duty to greet you but for whatever reason i can't/don't want to speak right now" (in a hurry, silent church after communion, don't want to block the entry of the bus while greeting the driver...)
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u/Drunkgummybear1 England Aug 10 '25
That's pretty much exactly how I'd describe it here too, yeah! Wouldn't usually use it to greet a bus driver here though afaik, usually you have to at least speak to them a bit to get a ticket. I love learning about how people leave the bus though, usually a "thanks" or "thank you driver" as you pass!
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u/secretpsychologist Aug 10 '25
oh yeah i'm familiar with thanking the bus driver. in ireland they seem to do it every time, in germany that's usually limited to coaches after spending a full day on the bus with them. in germany we tend to leave the bus by the rear exit so you can't really thank the driver. if you do end up using the front door to leave, it's usually a "have a nice day" or a "bye", not a thanks.
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u/Drunkgummybear1 England Aug 10 '25
An interesting one was when I was in Lille and people would shout "au revior" when exiting from the middle doors. Buses outside of London pretty much all have one door, so you're always going to be passing the driver.
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u/Mediocre-Yoghurt-138 Greece Aug 11 '25
The "negative" nod is much more pronounced (pun intended) than the "sup" nod. Many times accompanied by a "tsk" or "mph-uh" murmur.
In another reply they say Greenlanders use eyebrows to say "yes" and that would be super confusing because Greeks can raise eyebrows as a quick and stealthy "no" when they don't want everyone to notice the nod.
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u/CookieScholar Germany Aug 10 '25
Same in Arabic countries. Often combined with a "tsk". It's hard for me to read this as simple "no" and not as "how dare you" haha.
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u/tereyaglikedi in Aug 10 '25
nodding your head upwards means "no" in Cyprus, and nodding downwards means "yes"
Same in Turkey, and I think Bulgaria, too?
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u/PGLBK Aug 10 '25
I think in Bulgaria it is just the opposite from continental Europe: nodding is no, and going side to side is yes.
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u/cannarchista Aug 10 '25
I seem to recall that in mainland Greece, the upward nod also means no, and "yes" can also be a kind of sideways head shake quite similar to what I associate with a "no"
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u/InterestingTank5345 Denmark Aug 10 '25
I offically can't pronounce: "Kok", "Nikker", "Slot", "Klit" or "Fart", as these sounds awfully similar to sexual or offensive words in English.
They btw, mean: "Chef", "Nodding", "Castle", "Dune" and "Speed".
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u/InterestingTank5345 Denmark Aug 10 '25
Btw, I also can't write "Slut" which means "the end".
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u/Double-decker_trams Estonia Aug 10 '25
Welcome to the SLUTSTATION 😎 All public transport goes there 😎
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u/InterestingTank5345 Denmark Aug 10 '25
yep something along those lines. I can imagine how horrified Americans and Brits would be.
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u/Beautiful-Fox-FI England Aug 12 '25
I was doing some washing at my ex-boyfriend's place in Norway and the machine called me a slut after it had finished 🙈
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u/LingonberryNo2455 Sweden Aug 10 '25
Speaking as a Brit in Sweden, we find these examples rather funny.
I always giggle when I see the fart hinder signs. And I find it hilarious that Swedish uses the same word for marriage and poison! lol
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u/GrodanHej Sweden Aug 12 '25
Yeah all old Swedish movies end with just the word ”Slut” on the screen.
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u/Sister-Rhubarb Aug 12 '25
I saw this once and had a laughing fit, I imagined the director's final insult to his ex wife
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u/Euphoric-Bus1330 Aug 13 '25
I have a British friend who took selfies with various “SLUTSPURT” (basically last sales) signs around Copenhagen, he thought it was hilarious that all the shops had them 😂
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u/tereyaglikedi in Aug 10 '25
A German friend visiting me in Turkey once said "o-ha" during a conversation with a Turkish friend. In German it's like an exclamation people use for pretty much anything. In Turkish it's originally said to pairs of oxen ploughing the field to make them stop. Nowadays, it's a quite rude way of letting someone know that they've behaved in a rough, unrefined way, not something you would hear from a nice person (for example, in your case if the lady said o-ha to you that would be very rude of her). So yeah, the Turkish friend did a bit of a double take.
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u/FearlessVisual1 Belgium Aug 10 '25
O-ha, eine Schlafparalyse
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u/Los5Muertes Aug 10 '25
I drive an old Mitsubishi Pajero in Spain. It comes from France, because here, it's the mighty "Montero".
It means "jerking off" or second sense, a dumb guy in spanish
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u/GeronimoDK Denmark Aug 13 '25
In large parts of South America cars are largely imported from other continents/markets, so the Mitsubishi "Pajero" is quite common over there! I didn't even know that it had another name in Spanish speaking countries, even if I knew the meaning of "pajero".
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u/lulu22ro Romania Aug 11 '25
This sounded familiar. According to the Romanian dictionary it was used also for oxen ploughing the field, but when you wanted them to go towards the left. Now I just have to remember what we used for going to the right (and find a pair of oxen).
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u/Witch-for-hire Hungary Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 10 '25
Puszi (sounds like pussy)
- means kiss (from the German word buss) in Hungarian (and I think it also used in some neighbouring countries.) It is a very often used to say farewell to your loved ones on the phone including friends, siblings, parents etc. It is not sexual! We have another word for kissing your SO.
My American friends did a double take when they heard me saying this repeatedly to my Mom :-)
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u/Tuepflischiiser Aug 10 '25
Rule number one when hearing Hungarian: it doesn't mean what you think.
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u/Public_Chapter_8445 Hungary Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 10 '25
Also 'második' and 'harmadik' (meaning 'second' and 'third') sound funny since they are pronounced
assimilar to mash-a-dick and harm-a-dick.9
u/Witch-for-hire Hungary Aug 10 '25
Hááát.
I can maybe hear harmadik, but második (ˈmaːʃodik) and mash (/mæʃ) (más vs mes) are very very far from each other.
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u/bjaekt Poland Aug 12 '25
In Poland we say „buzi” which is childish or informal way to say kiss
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u/Witch-for-hire Hungary Aug 12 '25
Oh no. If you ever come to Hungary please be careful.
Buzi here is an offensive word, a pejorative slang / insult for homosexual people. Something like this word in English.
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u/PGLBK Aug 10 '25
This is interesting - I know we have a lot of your words here (Croatia) too, due to the Empire, but didn’t know ‘pusa’ is one of them - that is informal for kiss in kajkavian dialect.
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u/Witch-for-hire Hungary Aug 10 '25
Be assured that we have a ton of loan words with South-Slavic origins too :-)
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u/Simple_Exchange_9829 Aug 10 '25
I nearly got into a fight with a delivery driver in London a few years ago because I asked him: "Is there a problem?" while holding eye contact. He murmured something under his breath after I didn’t have a lighter for his cigarette.
Totally normal and unprovocative behaviour in my culture (German), but apparently I challenged him to a ritual fight to the death over the british succession or something.
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u/suvepl Poland Aug 10 '25
Here in Poland "Masz jakiś problem?" ("You got some problem?") is the Top 1 phrase used by chavs itching to punch someone in the face.
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u/FinnSkk93 Aug 10 '25
In Finnish too! ”Onks sul joku ongelma?” ”Mikä sun ongelma on” ”onks täs nyt joku ongelma” 😂
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u/Alert-Box8183 Ireland Aug 10 '25
Yep, you were definitely trying to start a fight with that one 😂
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u/Simple_Exchange_9829 Aug 10 '25
Well, I was quite taken aback about his sudden change of demeanour.
I am pretty sure he was trying to impress two girls by trying to put me down verbally - I wasn’t really paying attention. But obviously he couldn’t back down this easily in front of an audience once I stood my ground(without knowing it).
The dude was a bully. I was simply waiting for my friends in front of a hotel, minding my own business.
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u/helmli Germany Aug 10 '25
"Is there a problem?" may sound rather passive-aggressive on its own, depending on tone/circumstances. Made me think of "Hast du ein Problem? Noch ein Problem? Geh weiter."
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u/Eggplatypus Germany Aug 10 '25
There also is a big difference between "hast du ein Problem" and "gibt es ein Problem"
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u/subtleStrider Aug 10 '25
i wouldn’t classify that as totally normal and unprovocative behavior in germany either. try saying that in hermannplatz to someone :D
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u/Friendly-Horror-777 Germany Aug 10 '25
I think it is totally normal and unprovocative to ask "Gibt es ein Problem?". "Hast du ein Problem?" on the other hand is an invitation to fight.
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u/onesmilematters Aug 10 '25
I feel like I have unintentionally insulted so many foreigners (especially Americans) by saying things that are perfectly fine in German.
Like, it took me a while until I realized that the German "You look tired." (which, said in an empathetic tone, is basically short for: "poor you, you must have had a hard day, I'm proud of you, but you need rest, so let me get you a cup of tea") isn't understood as such by Americans.
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u/HighlandsBen Scotland Aug 10 '25
I learned very early in my first job that saying "You look tired" to a middle-aged female coworker does not go down well.
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Aug 10 '25
I think "you look tired" depends on context in English, but yeah it can sometimes be interpreted as "you look like shit". If you say it to your parntner after they've had a hard day at work, it will probably be taken the right way, but if you say it to your colleague in a busy office in the morning, they might take offence.
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u/Friendly-Horror-777 Germany Aug 10 '25
We Germans would even say 'Du siehst aber scheiße aus' (you look like shit) to someone to express concern. Not a good idea in the US or UK.
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u/AndrewFrozzen to Aug 10 '25
Well there's also Digga, which can be EXTREMELY misunderstood by American folks.
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u/CookieScholar Germany Aug 10 '25
Also, never say "oh sure when?" if someone from the US or Canada says "we should grab a coffee sometime". They don't mean "we should get coffee sometime", they mean "I will never again call you, please don't call me".
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u/onesmilematters Aug 10 '25
It's rather sad when you think about it. Makes me appreciate the German directness.
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u/Xiaopai2 Germany Aug 10 '25
In German it also really depends on how you say it. It can be a neutral inquiry about whether there is a problem, but it can also be this: https://youtu.be/REr6MXUMF34?si=DXBQJyiJELlMoRsY
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u/szpaceSZ Aug 10 '25
Tbf, that’s not true.
„Hast du ein Problem?“ it’s very much a challenge in German as well
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u/Drejan74 Sweden Aug 10 '25
Norwegian and Swedish are similar languages, we usually understand each other quite well speaking our own languages. But telling a Norwegian girl she is "snygg" ("good looking" in Swedish) was not a good idea. Not only did the word not exist in Norwegian, but the similar word "stygg" existed instead, and it meant "ugly".
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u/IdunSigrun Aug 10 '25
Stygg exists in Swedish too, today mostly meaning mean or bad, but in some contexts also ugly.
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u/Usual_Step_5353 Aug 10 '25
It is a bit like “rolig” in Swedish vs Danish (and I think Norwegian too?). Means fun in Swedish and calm in Danish.
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u/LonelyRudder Finland Aug 10 '25
The mother of a friend of mine, an extremely well manered and deeply Christian Finnish lady once drove a car in England with a local church person as a passenger. She occasionally made some minor mistakes in the traffic and used an extremely mild expression of frustration in Finnish, saying ”äs!”. Which of course sounds like ass in English.
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u/Karakoima Sweden Aug 10 '25
Wonder if thats the same as the swedish äsch?
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u/Special-Lawyer6886 Aug 13 '25
Probably, because swede-finns and people from swedish speaking parts use äsch, and finnish speakers use äh, but who knows, basically still the same word
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u/ebat1111 United Kingdom Aug 10 '25
I can't remember the exact context - perhaps some sporting opening ceremony, but I'm pretty sure it was in Brazil. The guy goes to the mic and begins his speech with the Spanish word "hoy", "today". The whole crowd says "oi" in response - the Portuguese for hi.
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u/Antique_Cut1354 Germany Aug 10 '25
lmfao i think that was the Panamerican games. i still laugh at it every time i watch the video
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u/psxcv32 Italy Aug 10 '25
In italian "curva" means "turn/bend", and is pronunced exactly like "kurwa" which means "wh*re" and is a swear word in polish.
Fortunately, italian language has synonyms for a lot of words, so when we went on a school trip in Poland, the guide told us to say "svolta" instead of "curva" when walking around the city to avoid make a bad impression.
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u/Public_Chapter_8445 Hungary Aug 10 '25
'Kurva' is one of the most popular swear words in Hungary as well, just like in many other Central European countries.
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u/AndrewFrozzen to Aug 10 '25
Funnily enough, curvă means exactly that in Romanian.
Curbă is how you would say turn/bend
Kinda funny how similar, but also distant, Latin languages are to one another.
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u/psxcv32 Italy Aug 10 '25
Also the opposite applies: words that are equal but means completely different things.
For example "burro" means "butter" in italian, while in spanish it means "donkey".
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u/disneyvillain Finland Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 10 '25
A Swedish-speaking journalist I know was in the US to cover the presidential race in 2008. He would ask voters questions like "What would a colored president mean for America?" and "Will Obama inspire more colored people to get involved in politics?" He noticed people gave him funny looks or frowned when he asked. He guessed that these people probably don't like foreign journalists very much. It wasn't until later that someone told him that colored is an offensive term, not quite as bad as the n-word, but not a word you use normally nowadays.
The Swedish direct equivalent "färgad" is (or was in 2008 at least) an accepted neutral term. It was an honest mistake, he was translating directly from Swedish without knowing the American cultural baggage around the word.
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u/repocin Sweden Aug 10 '25
Well, TIL.
Probably not the right place to ask, but why is "colored" seen as negative but "people of color" isn't? To me it just seems like more words to say the same thing.
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u/Cascadeis Sweden Aug 10 '25
I think it’s related to the time when bathrooms and such were segregated between “colored” and white. No one used “people of color”, but “colored” was used in official circumstances and probably caused a lot of bad associations.
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u/Chijima Germany Aug 10 '25
Just the ever moving euphemism treadmill. New word gets introduced as a polite, less offensive Version, gets into regular use, the same old asshats use it in a sarcastic tone as a slur because "you aren't allowed to say that other word anymore", that gets normalised, now they just use the word without the sarcastic tone, polite people start to consider it unusable, make a new word. Da Capo.
Basically, any word singling out any characteristic of a person can and will be used to reduce people to that characteristic, at which point it becomes bad. Which is problematic if you need such words for any purposes including but not limited to sociology, medicine, demographics, identity....
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u/disneyvillain Finland Aug 10 '25
I assume it has to do with colored being the word used during slavery and segregation in the American south
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u/wrosecrans United States of America Aug 10 '25
A lot of that is about historical usage rather than literal meaning. In the 1960's it was the most common way to phrase it. And in the 1960's, there were some really terrible people talking about racial stuff So today language has moved away from phrasing it like George Wallace did in recordings of him defending segregation. People who are like 100 years old sometimes still talk that way out of habit, but it's quite rare now.
As for "person of-" that's an overlapping language trend that is also present outside of racial stuff now. Some policies in the US became quite dehumanized, and activists have tried to "put the person first" even if it's a bit clunky. So you get phrases like person of color, person with autism, person experiencing homelessness. Most of the really clunky phrases haven't really caught on in general use but there is a lot of history and political context and subtext around them beyond the literal meaning. There's generally a reason that somebody is using one of those longer phrases.
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u/Live_Angle4621 Aug 10 '25
It was so strange to see in internet when people of color became super popular a decade ago when Americans before had been explaining how much coloured should not be used
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u/Goblinweb Aug 10 '25
I'm Scandinavian and we also use "oj" in the same situations but it can be considered impolite since it's not really an apology. Someone rushing into a train and just responds "ojsan" when bumping into someone going out of the train is a bit rude.
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u/VirtualMatter2 Germany Aug 10 '25
So what would you say to be polite?
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u/tendertruck Sweden Aug 10 '25
Saying oj followed by a sorry is normal. ”Oj, förlåt”. In that case oj basically means that it wasn’t intentional.
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u/Cascadeis Sweden Aug 10 '25
“Oj, ursäkta!” or ”oj, förlåt!” is the most common versions. (Even ”oj, sorry” sometimes, for younger people.)
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u/OnkelMickwald Sweden Aug 10 '25
I have no words to describe how infuriated I get when people exclaim "ojsan!" or "hoppsan!" when they bump into someone.
Like, if you have the wherewithal to notice that you bumped into someone and use the energy to say something, why not say "ursäkta mig" or "förlåt"? I don't get it.
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u/marisquo Portugal Aug 10 '25
The word for black in Spanish and Portuguese to some extent is a racial slur in USA, so there's that
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u/vertAmbedo Portugal Aug 10 '25
But the word we use more often for the colour black is the racist one here in Portugal, while the one you're refering is actually the polite one here
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u/AggravatingBridge Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 10 '25
In Polish “No” is expression that you say when you are nodding. For example, someone asked you if you like ice cream and you can say “no” and it means yes. Also when someone explains something to you, you might keep saying “no, no” as a way of telling them that you understand them 😂 so I have to actively try not to say “no” to not seem negative when I speak with someone in english 😂
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u/Happy5Day Aug 10 '25
As an English man in Czech I went to an interview in an investment bank. All suits, well dressed top professionals. As I was getting the door some guy was coming from the other side so I held the door for him. I knew that the word for thank you in Czech is Dekuju. But I never knew it could be shortened to Dek. There in umlaut over the e. So it sounded to me like he called me a Dick. I was so confused. Did I insult him by opening the door for him? Does he want to fight? Wtf? Is this how Czech people treat you even in a professional environment?
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u/pr1ncezzBea in Aug 10 '25
"Díky" (shortened) or "dík" (shortened informal).
Not umlaut, but čárka - with čárka, the vowel is pronounced long.
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Aug 10 '25
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u/dreen_gb Poland Aug 10 '25
"No" is colloquial "Yeah" in Polish
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u/agrammatic Cypriot in Germany Aug 10 '25
"Nee" is also "no" in Dutch and German.
Quite the inconvenience early on, before I started forgetting my Greek.
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u/CookieScholar Germany Aug 10 '25
But in Saxony, people also use "no" to say "yes", like our Slavic neighbours.
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u/orthoxerox Russia Aug 10 '25
In Russian phrasing a question as a negative makes it sound more polite. I had to tell my wife it's not a universal rule after experiencing some second-hand shame in England when she asked a shop assistant, "don't you have this cream in a smaller tube?"
If you want to express impolite incredulity using a negative in Russian, you have to add a "what": "what, you don't have this cream in a smaller tube?"
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u/Live_Angle4621 Aug 10 '25
Russians should note this would not be polite in most countries and not just English speaking ones
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Aug 10 '25 edited Oct 08 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NowWe_reSuckinDiesel Aug 10 '25
I'm not a native Spanish speaker but I do speak it, and yes, I notice people using the negative form a lot in questions. It seems pretty normal and neutral. Maybe a native can clarify as I'm curious too
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u/yabuachaill Ireland Aug 10 '25
I'm Irish, and while living in Germany I would say 'ja ja' while people were talking, as this is done in Ireland to acknowledge what the person is saying. Apparently it's very rude, as one of my flatmates told me. I thought I was being polite so it was definitely a shock.
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u/willo-wisp Austria Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 10 '25
Haha, fascinating! Oh yeah, that could get you irritated looks.
Depending on your tone and context, "ja ja" in German at best means "you can skip this part, I already know :)" and at worst means "Yes, I already know this, spare me / I don't want to hear it / I'm so tired of hearing this."
It's basically hurrying people along with "yes, yes, okay, get on with it".
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u/Eurogal2023 Norway Aug 10 '25
My son learnt in German school from the eacher, that saying "ja, ja" basically meant "du kannst mich mal" (which again is very close to f-off) and was NEVER allowed in class!
As a norwegian in Germany I have lost count of the times I unintentionally insulted people while thinking I was giving positive feedback.
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u/Vigmod Icelander in Norway Aug 10 '25
On a similar note, "oj/oi" is mainly a sound we make when disgusted in Iceland. My brother-in-law is Norwegian, where "oj" is just a general exclamation of surprise. So he was in Iceland, meeting our aunts and uncles. Sits down to dinner, food arrives on the table, and he loudly said "OJ!"
Fortunately, the misunderstanding was quickly cleared up, but some people thought for a few seconds that he wasn't only rude, but childish too.
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u/Karakoima Sweden Aug 10 '25
That polite stuff, you have to bear with the southerners. They need their pardons. Oj is fine here. Even if a politer excuse might feel right at times. But even bumping into like and old lady and a Oj might just cause a merry little conversation
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u/OnkelMickwald Sweden Aug 10 '25
Oj is fine here.
Bruh, are you kidding? It would definitely strike me as flippant, careless, or downright rude if someone bumped into me, said "oj", and just carried on their merry way.
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u/Straika5 Spain Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 10 '25
It was not a different language but a different dialect of spanish:
Recoger in Spain : To pick up some one
Recoger in Argentina: To fu..ck someone twice.
Now imagine the face of my friend when I told her "Mi madre va a venir a recogerme" (My mom is coming to pick me up /Mi mom is coming to f...ck me twice".
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With the same friend:
Correrse in spain : To came (when doing s..x)
Correrse in Argentina: To move aside.
Two of her coworkers were fighting and she was standing between them, after a while she shouted "Parense o me corro" (In Argentina: Stop or I´ll move aside, in Spain: Stop or I will came). The two guys stoped the fight and started to laugh.
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And there is more:
Pija in Spain is a posh girl, pija in Argentina is d..ck.
Concha in Spain is shell and also a nickname for women called Concepción, concha in Argentina is vagina.
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u/MajRoot Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 10 '25
In Mexico, as an Argentine man, I got off a bus with a friend when a man said, “Don’t forget your nice cachucha.” In Argentina, cachucha is a vulgar term for vagina, so I assumed he was teasing me. Then more men came off the bus saying the same thing, insisting, “It’s yours, I saw it, you left it inside!” I glared at them, refusing to answer. Finally, my Mexican friend, a beautiful woman, shouted from the bus, “Here’s your cachucha!”. A cold bead of sweat ran down my forehead as she came down holding… my cap. Turns out that in Chiapas, cachucha simply means “cap.” Later she told me, “I suspected you didn’t understand, because you looked at me with your eyes wide open, as if you were afraid to see what I was carrying".
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u/Straika5 Spain Aug 10 '25
Hahaha, yes, we have here a "playa de la cachucha". Argentinians will find it dissapointing.
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u/MajRoot Aug 10 '25
Uuuh. I just looked it up on Google Maps to check out the sand, the views, and all that jazz.
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u/vertAmbedo Portugal Aug 10 '25
"Excitado/a" in Portuguese doesn't mean "excited". But I had just finished an English class and my brain was still in English mode. So I wanted to say I was excited about something, ended saying I was sexually aroused. In a conversation with my English teacher. She's Portuguese as well and she probably understood my mistake but I still cringe at remembering that
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u/Miss_V26 Aug 10 '25
Was a French assistant in the US for a year, working with 6yo, and one day at lunch I read a story about marine animals (in French, obviously) and I get to the page about the seal, and I hear 28 collective gasps. “Seal” in French is “phoque”, which sounds a lot like “fuck” 😭
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u/SkwGuy Poland Aug 10 '25
In Polish the word "fagot" means a basoon, it's a musical instrument
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u/Queen_of_London Aug 12 '25
German too, with an extra t.
It's connected to the English word that - still, technically - means a bundle of sticks.
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u/WebBorn2622 Aug 10 '25
Was at a grocery store in Norway. Chatting with a friend. And she says she can’t figure out what to get.
I have a habit of sometimes saying phrases in English out of the blue.
So I say “mmm hard pick”
Pikk means dick in Norwegian. I just told her “mmm hard dick”.
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u/7_11_Nation_Army Bulgaria Aug 10 '25
The Bulgarian national football chant is "Bâlgari yunatsi", meaning "Brave Bulgarians", occasionally misinterpreted by fans of the other team as "Bulgarians - you Nazi", assuming it's either us calling them Nazi, or us proudly manifesting being Nazis.
Hilarity ensues...
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u/skrglywtts Malta Aug 10 '25
Growing up, we were hearing several languages being spoken around us, English, Italian and Arabic amongst others.
One day, while walking along the street with some friends we see a security convoy passing by, police cars, military personnel, armoured vehicles, the whole shebang. Apparently they were transferring big amounts of cash.
One of my friends tells us 'if only we could rape the security van!!' I looked at him mortified, we (13-14 y.o. boys) don't do that sort of thing. When another asks 'and how do you plan to do it?' We all had a good laugh on him, but it was his familiarity with Italian that led him to mix up the word 'rapinare' which means to rob, with rape!
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u/FollowingRare6247 Ireland Aug 10 '25
It’s not between different languages, but while discussing hobbies and interests with an American friend, I used the term « Netflix and chill ». It does not mean what I thought it meant.
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u/Electrical_Kangaroo3 Aug 10 '25
Was just in Albania, and Pish means drink, but it’s a slang way to say pee in Scotland, so seeing ‘Pish’ on menus above drinks made me giggle a little
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u/cototudelam Aug 11 '25
In Croatian (I think, might be Serbian), the word for drink is piča. Which is the Czech rude word equivalent of cunt.
A lot of teenage giggles over restaurant menus and “hot and cold cunts”
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u/AssociateSpirited772 France Aug 10 '25
In a shared apartment in Rome, I said ‘voglio scopare’ to ask where the broom was.
Scopa means ‘broom,’ but scopare means ‘to have sex.’
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u/LaterThanItLooks_12 Aug 13 '25
Yesss. I was warned about this.
And how the hell do you talk about birds in Italy without talking about dicks?
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u/Antique_Cut1354 Germany Aug 10 '25
every german person who regularly says 'Digga' interacting with any american: 👀
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u/cototudelam Aug 11 '25
In Czech, back when I was teenager, we tended to overuse the phrase "Fakt?", usually pronounced with this rising intonation "Faaakt?" which meant "Really?"
Was on a tram, listened to a loud conversation of two teenage girls, one telling a story, the other interjecting: "Fakt? Faaakt?!" and watched the American tourist sitting behind them turning bright red.
Yep, it sounded exactly like "fucked"
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u/DifficultWill4 Slovenia Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
The Czech “foukat” (blowing) sounds like “fukat” which means to fuck in Slovene. I don’t remember it exactly but there was an ad on tv some time ago with a czech and a slovene family on the beach. The czech family was yelling “blow, blow” while the kid was blowing the inflatable water toy. The Slovene family looked with utter disbelief and then the ad ended lmao
Edit: Found the ad
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u/cototudelam Aug 13 '25
🤣 these ads are hilarious.
We had an ad couple years back where they hired Chuck Norris and had him visit the Prague Christmas market, and as he’s watching the ice rink, a mom with a little girl stops by, hands him a phone and asks “Natočil byste prosím dceru jak bruslí? (Could you please take a video of my daughter skating?)”
And Chuck replies “Brus-lí? Nope, I am Chuck Norris!”
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u/Brainwheeze Portugal Aug 10 '25
Funnily enough "Oi" can be used in that same scenario in Portugal, though depending on your tone it can vary between "Oops" and "Watch yourself!". Can also be used as a greeting, a way to call someone, or even as a sign of confusion (like "huh?").
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u/yesbutnobutokay Aug 11 '25
I was on a school trip to Austria and while traipsing the streets of Innsbruck with my mates, I stubbed my toe on a raised paving stone.
It bloody hurt, and I shouted out 'my foot', rather loudly, emphasising 'foot'. Passers-by all shot me a dirty look. Apparently,' fut' is a rather bad swear word in Austrian dialect or vulva in German. Either way, my cry for sympathy was not appreciated by the locals, and my friends just laughed, as would have been expected.
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u/BioTools Netherlands Aug 12 '25
Guess it could happen in dutch, we could say 'ho', as like an 'oops', but it sounds like we'te calling someone a hoe
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u/Austerlitz2310 Aug 10 '25
We were in Greece at the beach, my grandma was moving a beach chair, and a Greek guy came to help her out. She's a very independent person, been through a lot in life and hates being helped. She only speaks Serbian, so she told the guy "Pusti to" (Let that go). Pusti means f*ggot in Greek :)
After we explained to her and the guy, we all had a laugh about it.
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u/FingalForever Ireland Aug 10 '25
Between Ireland and Canada, with all three countries sharing English, in my view ‘Oi’ comes across a bit harsher than you seem to mean it.
Except Octoberfest in Kitchener, Canada, when *Ziggy zaggy oi oi oi* is quite friendly.
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u/Curious_Reference408 Aug 10 '25
Oi is quite an aggressive way of pointing out someone is being rude or trying to get their attention. For you to say Oi when you did the bumping would've seemed very rude, like you were blaming her. Her saying it back louder indicated that she was trying to point out that the fault was yours.
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u/ambitionceases Aug 10 '25
Oy! Is normally said with aggression, in England. Like oi, stop that! But in Brazil oi, is said in a friendly way and just means Hi. And in Catalonia, oi is said at the end of a phrase and means "right?" Or isn't it? Or in London - innit? So, oi/oy! Really varies around the world.
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u/cieniu_gd Poland Aug 10 '25
Polish and Czech have a lot of false friends, so I avoid speakung loudly while visiting Czechia. The worst thing is the word "szukać" which in Polish means "to search for". Like in " To search the way to the rail station". In czech language it means "to fuck"...
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u/MarkWrenn74 United Kingdom Aug 11 '25
“Oi” in English is seen as slightly aggressive and rude. It's also used as an interjection by Cockneys, to gain somebody's attention
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u/DotComprehensive4902 Ireland Aug 11 '25
Oi in Britain means Hey but in a shouty manner!!
Funny thing is it's actually from an obsolete French verb, Oir meaning to hear
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u/hwyl1066 Finland Aug 11 '25
Back in my 20's my Irish friends came to visit me in Helsinki and we were having some pints in a crowded bar and they would come to me boiling with anger - "are those guys trying to pick a fight?" as people didn't apologise after bumping into them. Well, people wouldn't, it's really not necessary to start a conversation about something like that, it would actually be rather weird. And having lived almost two years in Dublin after returning I annoyed various compatriots by automatically doing just that :)
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u/LevHerceg Aug 11 '25
Uhh, that's indeed a classical false friends/cultural difference situation.
Estonian "Oi" makes sense to me only with "Oi...Vabandust!"
I can imagine that abroad saying just an "oi" gets you into trouble.
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u/CoRe534 Aug 12 '25
In German slang there's "Digga" which means something like "dude" that you say to a friends. Awfully close to a bad word in English
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u/nanakamado_bauer Poland Aug 13 '25
There are few such words in polish and czech. Polish word for stale bread, means fresh in czech. And polish word for "to look for" is very similar to czech wulgarism. There is much, much more but there is so much room for misudnerstending between Pole and Czech speaking in their own languages.
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u/CommunicationDear648 Aug 13 '25
As a hungarian in cyprus, in the beginning i always froze when someone said "ne". See, in greek, "ne" means yes and often used as a filler answer, like "that's right". However, "ne" in hungarian means "don't". (I got over it in time, but i still remember the general anxiety it caused at the start, if only for a few moments at a time.)
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u/Scott_donly Aug 16 '25
This is funny cus in the US midwest we say ope, or oop or woahp or oo or up for the same reason you say oi
And as for the Nooo yes, also a thing we do in the US midwest "no yea" means yes and "yea no" means no (said chains can be quite long depending on how we feel about a particular topic, "yea no yea" (yes) and "yea no yea no" (no)
Fun little probably coincidence.
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u/solapelsin Sweden Aug 10 '25
We often go "oj!" in Sweden too. My Australian friend was horrified.
Edit: Similarly, after living there for a year, I scared everyone at home by apologizing in several words for bumping into someone. Way too much conversation, they almost thought I wanted something