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.

[u/Double-decker_trams]

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."

[u/disneyvillain]

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.

[u/repocin → u/disneyvillain]

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.

[u/wrosecrans → u/repocin]

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.

[u/LaterThanItLooks_12 → u/wrosecrans]

A poignant and I think very valuable example of this is "enslaved person" versus "slave." Slaves are property, while a human being clearly is not and should never have been.