Foreign Language Screw Ups

Mambolicious

Honda caused a massive outbreak of dirty jokes in Norway a few years ago, when they decided that "Fitta" was a good name for a car.

In Norwegian that translates to "the cunt", and of course everyone started coming up with slogans like "Room enough for the whole family!". Oh, how we laughed.

It eventually got changed to "Jazz".

Talas

While visiting Texas with some friends a while ago (we are from Mexico), one of them mispronounced "Coke" as "cock" in a restaurant, and he was asking for a big one.

TorpedoFish

I once dedicated a paragraph of a Spanish essay exam to how, on a trip I'd taken that summer, my bottle of sopa leaked in my suitcase and all my clothes smelled like sopa for the entire week.

Unfortunately, sopa is soup. Jabón is soap. The only comment my teacher wrote was a great big question mark.

sewid

Walking around crowded night markets in Taiwan after getting a taste of my first giant chicken schnitzel I asked my girlfriend how to say chicken schnitzel in Mandarin which she told me was "gi pai"

Much to her amusement when I misheard her, thinking she said it "gi bai" i loudly proclaimed in Mandarin to all around that I loved "gi bai"

Which I found out shortly sort of means I love vagina.

Halah

When I was in high school we had an exchange student from Switzerland. Apparently, in German 'sa' is pronounced 'sha'. He told us that when learning phrases he had to try and avoid saying "God shave the Queen."