Lost in Translation

In the past six months I've made many, many language blunders as I'm getting my German up to speed. Most of the time my mispronunciations or word mix ups still get my point across, but they often also result in a few chuckles. A few recent laughs:

Baeren v. Beeren: I was working at Das Kleine Cafe describing a cake with baiser (meringue) and beeren (berries), except I pronounced beeren like baeren, telling the customer that the delicious dessert had bears in it. You know, like the kind you run away from in the woods. Careful now, this cake may bite. Grrr.

drucken vs. druecken: I'm at school in the computer lab and want to print something on special paper, so I kindly yell out to the other students something to the effect of: "excuse me, I'd like to drueck something on special paper using the color druecker. Is anyone druecking anything or can I go ahead and drueck? Except drueck (unlike druck) doesn't mean "to print" or "printer," but "to push, to crush, to squeeze." Um, yeah. People, I'd like to crush my paper now, got a problem with that?

punzen vs. brunzen: Typography has its own terminology and naturally I'm learning it all in German (thank goodness Johanna gave me a book about typography in English so I can cross-reference!). The empty shape/space a letter contains -- like the circle in an p, g, or o -- is called a punzen. While studying with my friend Jessie I called it a brunzen. This word means "to urinate." I was close. Quite close.

wiegen, wagen, wage, wiege: I had a doctor's appointment and the doctor asked me how much I weighed. Tangent: Going to the doctor here is great -- it's like meeting a medical expert in his living room, sitting down on the couch/chair, talking about your physical ailment, and then maybe he/she checks something with his stethoscope. No undressing. No gown. It's very comfortable. Anyway, so I was telling him that I had actually just stepped on the wiege that morning so could give him an accurate number. But, while the verb wiegen means "to weigh", the noun wiege means cradle. Wage is the noun for scale, and wagen the verb means "to risk." Apparently I'm not the first to make this mistake as there is a German joke about this mix up: An American goes into a pharmacy and tells the pharmacist: I'm looking for a wiege, I would like to wage something. Get it? :)