Purple Pigs and Prezidentski Izbori
Because you have been good but also, because I need to clean my apartment and would do anything to postpone THAT, you get to hear not one but TWO stories tonight:
STORY No.1:
A couple of weeks ago I saw a pair of men's leather gloves that I thought I really liked. A few days ago, I decided to go back to the store and get the Professor an early Christmas present. It was all good until I saw the gloves again. The leather was not even close to black (i.e. the color I had thought they were). They were PURPLE. No way in hell am I buying my man purple gloves!
I must have been obviously disappointed because the sales person came by and asked if there was anything she could do to help me. I tell her, well, not really. I simply can't buy a pair of PURPLE gloves. At which point she proceeds to explain to me how the gloves are actually very nice and they are made of GENUINE leather and see how soft it is. That's when I look up at her like she's out of her mind and with all my seriousness ask: Who do you think you're fooling telling me this is genuine leather?! Have you ever seen a PURPLE PIG?!?!?!?!!? And, of course, stomp out of the store.
I tell the story to Professor and he says, babe, you know that they actually dye leather before they make shoes or clothing out of it, right?!
What??!?!!!!
I guess I could have figured it out on my own if I had thought about it. But, come on, how often does one think about this kind of stuff! Yes, thank you.
STORY No.2:
Prof. Grady and I are talking about the second round of the presidential election in Bulgaria (that was last weekend, for those of you who don't go by the Bulgarian political calander).
Professor: So, are you voting for Izbori?
Me: What?!
Professor: Who are you voting for? Izbori?
Me: Babe, what are you talking about?
Professor: I thought you said that you might need to vote for the incumbant?
This goes back and forth for quite some time, but eventually we figure out that Prof. Grady thought that Presidentski meant President and that Izbori was the name of our president. In other words, he thought he had been asking whether I would be voting for President + Name (and assumed that Izbori was our president's last name). What he was actually saying was "Are you voting for the Presidential Election."
As someone who's relatively new to the wonder of the Bulgarian language, Prof. Grady is doing pretty well. However, he already is starting to build a history of confusing nouns with adjectives. On his second day in Bulgaria, he was approached by a guy on the street. Not knowing what to say, he responded with:
Изнивете. Американски съм.
***
As I finish up, I keep thinking that I should maybe go back and change the title of this entry to 'Dumb and Dumber'. Prof. Grady would play Dumb and I would definitely be Dumber.
STORY No.1:
A couple of weeks ago I saw a pair of men's leather gloves that I thought I really liked. A few days ago, I decided to go back to the store and get the Professor an early Christmas present. It was all good until I saw the gloves again. The leather was not even close to black (i.e. the color I had thought they were). They were PURPLE. No way in hell am I buying my man purple gloves!
I must have been obviously disappointed because the sales person came by and asked if there was anything she could do to help me. I tell her, well, not really. I simply can't buy a pair of PURPLE gloves. At which point she proceeds to explain to me how the gloves are actually very nice and they are made of GENUINE leather and see how soft it is. That's when I look up at her like she's out of her mind and with all my seriousness ask: Who do you think you're fooling telling me this is genuine leather?! Have you ever seen a PURPLE PIG?!?!?!?!!? And, of course, stomp out of the store.
I tell the story to Professor and he says, babe, you know that they actually dye leather before they make shoes or clothing out of it, right?!
What??!?!!!!
I guess I could have figured it out on my own if I had thought about it. But, come on, how often does one think about this kind of stuff! Yes, thank you.
STORY No.2:
Prof. Grady and I are talking about the second round of the presidential election in Bulgaria (that was last weekend, for those of you who don't go by the Bulgarian political calander).
Professor: So, are you voting for Izbori?
Me: What?!
Professor: Who are you voting for? Izbori?
Me: Babe, what are you talking about?
Professor: I thought you said that you might need to vote for the incumbant?
This goes back and forth for quite some time, but eventually we figure out that Prof. Grady thought that Presidentski meant President and that Izbori was the name of our president. In other words, he thought he had been asking whether I would be voting for President + Name (and assumed that Izbori was our president's last name). What he was actually saying was "Are you voting for the Presidential Election."
As someone who's relatively new to the wonder of the Bulgarian language, Prof. Grady is doing pretty well. However, he already is starting to build a history of confusing nouns with adjectives. On his second day in Bulgaria, he was approached by a guy on the street. Not knowing what to say, he responded with:
Изнивете. Американски съм.
***
As I finish up, I keep thinking that I should maybe go back and change the title of this entry to 'Dumb and Dumber'. Prof. Grady would play Dumb and I would definitely be Dumber.
19 Comments:
Did he really say "Изнивете"? Or is this your typo? ;)
Mistakes of this type happen all the time when immersed in a foreign language environment with your language not up to speed. Some of them acquire legendary status and are passed down the generations. Two examples:
My German teacher in BG had married her husband (a BG engineer) and came to live there shortly before WW2. One day she went grocery shopping, and at the butchers asked: "Две кила телешки акъл, моля". (Translation for you Anglophones – she asked for two kilos of calf mind).
Another BG wife, this time Hungarian (grandmother of a friendly family), again pre-WW2, was visiting with her husband in another town. At the host’s house, she witnessed the maidservant running in a playful manner from a local youngster and hiding in the house (but she didn’t see what the maid was running from). She asked the girl, and that replied: “Един пич ма гони”. She asked "what is a pich", and the maid said – a boy. Good, she thought, another useful word to learn. Later, when they were gathered with their hosts for dinner, the daughter of the hosts came in and was introduced. Our wife told the hosts: "Каква хубава пичка имате!".
Petya, I am not translating this one ;).
Wait, you mean "изнивете" was a mistake too?! ;)
My friend Martin has a funny story. He was at a pub in the UK showing a group of Polish tourist around town. There is a guy playing a bagpipe in the pub. Suddenly one of the Polish girls asks Martin what the instrument the guy`s playing is called in English. Without any hesitation he replyes "Oh, it`s called scrotum", assuming that she would get the joke.
The next thing he sees however, is the girl rushing for the guy with the bagpipe, who has just stopped playing. She looks at him with her lovely Polish eyes and says: " I really like you scrotum! Can I squeeze it?"
elko:
LOVED the stories. so incredibly cute, definitely deserve the legendary status they've acquired.
yes, he did indeed say ИЗНИВЕТЕ. it was his second day in Bulgaria and he'd heard some words but had had no time to practice.
one of my personal mistakes learning english was learning the difference between 'toes' and 'fingers'. i would hold my hands up and say 'my toes are freezing'...
kyle:
one of these days you should give me the permission to tell the landlord story. ;)
dima:
AAAAAAAAND?! wish i could see the look on that guy's face!
Sometimes people play dumb, speaking one and the same language. I was told this one by a friend and I really loved it (and I hope it's not classified, but, well, let's try).
Just to know the context, we were discussing the American ambassador in BG, His Excellency JOHN BEYRLE - an interesting person of nice manners and pleasant looks, as opposed to his predecessor (Gosh, I really don't seem to like devoted republicans). Ambassador Beyrle also appears to be having a really brilliant diplomatic carreer and we were speaking of his options after returning to the States. So I supposed he could run for senator, to which my friend, opposed, stating that the US voters' attitude towards former diplomatic officers is not so pleasing. And to stress on how foreign the US people consider their foreign diplomatic officers to be, he told me this:
While working as an American diplomat in a Near Eastern country, he was back in the US on vacation and was stopped, speeding, by a California traffic policeman. So, the officer, while checking my friend's papers, asks him:
"What do you work, sir?"
"I am a foreign diplomatic officer."
"Where do you work?"
"Country X"
"Well then, sir, why do you have an American passport?!!!"
So, this is it, hope it's not boring and off-topic:)
unIDfied:
FUNNY. I think your story lays to rest the question: if professor Grady is dumb and petya is dumber, who then will play DUMBEST?!
I could rally for the position:) But this will result in telling some more embarrasing stories, with me ending as the most boring instead of dumbest:)
and yet, there is also option "B", with several well-known presidents and other political figures, notorious for their speeches and faults:)
well, kgrady wasn't that far off.
he was just applying the Russian construction "Ia Russkii" to Bulgarian.
After the Apple ad controversy a while ago, I decided that whenever possible I would tell you to "chill out" at completely inappropriate times (i.e., at moments when you either in no way un-chilled or on solid ground for being indignant). No perfect moment has come yet. But at last ...
Petya, you really need to chill out and stop your ideological attacks on the purple leather industry. Just because purple does not naturally appear on animals in nature and a pair of purple gloves would look wildly effeminate on Dr. Grady does not mean you have a right to critique it in the slightest. So, just relax yourself and give Prince a break.
HHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHA! everybody here gives me the giggles!
concerned:
Kyle would LOVE your interpretation of the incident. Actually, he was probably Russian in his previous life and has now come back to reunite with his Slavic brothers and sisters here in Bulgaria.
a diddy:
Your comment reminded me of a similar plan I had for my friend Julie's Julie's website. I thought I would periodically post comments to her blog to just tell her "You put your weed in it".
Also, if my comments have offended Prince in any way, I am SO willing to take all of it back and not only spend my entire paycheck on purple gloves but also MAKE Prof. Grady wear them. IN PUBLIC.
Seriously, I feel smarter already; now I know Bulgarian and Russian.
I took advanced Spanish in high school. My senior year, we were only allowed to speak in Spanish during class for everything. One girl was talking about something embarassing (I forget what), and she said, "Estoy embarazado."
"Embarazado" is a false cognate. It does not mean embarassed. It means pregnant. Our teacher burst out laughing, quirked her eyebrow and asked, "Oh, really?"
Another time, the same girl was talking about some male movie star. I can't remember who, this was a long time ago. She meant to say that he was hot, but she said, "Es caliente!" The teacher was once again amused because while "caliente" means hot in terms of temperature, when using it to refer to man, it means... um, "excited" if you know what I mean.
Fortunately, these mistakes were just in class and not out in the real world.
I have definately made the embarazado mistake before, even when I knew better. What happens sometimes is that you get into a conversation, and you're all, hey, I can speak Spanish, and you start talking really fast, and it's all going well, until you're telling someone that you are so pregnant that you are sweating so much because you are so turned on right now (when you mean to say, of course, you are so embarassed that you are sweating so much because of the heat).
hahahaha these are embarazado mistakes!!!
when i was learning english, i had a very difficult time remembering that people 'break UP'. i would always say 'break DOWN' and wonder why my Peace Corps volunteer would give me a perplexed look.
i am sure that Julie (whom I mentioned in an earlier comment and is a former Peace Corps volunteer here in Bulgaria) would have plenty of stories to tell...
Изнивете. Hilarious!
krady, Bulgarian and Russian are practically the same language, you know? You take Bulgarian, drop the -to /-ta/-at stuff, let the endings fluctuate freely and all over the place with no pattern, add an -i/-y to all adjectives and pronounce half the vowels as ъ - and you have Russian. Trust me. Just be careful. Maika is a tanktop/wifebeater, not a mother; and bulka is a loaf of bread, not a bride.
=)
On a sidenote, I was in a Kinko's some months ago, copying something, when a woman in her upper 50s or so approached me and asked me - in a horrible Russian accent - something to the effect of "Du yu nou khau zis mashyna meik kawpy?". The look on her face when I delivered her the answer in my mother tongue was very photo-worthy.
Later on, it turned out that we were both there to make some copies of our Naturalization/citizenship certificates. We pledged about half an hour apart. Funny, that.
heheheh, that's awesome.
my Bulgarian friend and i were walking past NYU, eating cherries and going on and on about how good the cherries were but couldn't compare to Bulgarian cherries AT ALL. when this girl walked by and without even blinking said "Ама направо!!!".
:)))))))))))
When my brother visited me in Bulgaria, he thought he'd practice a bit of the Bulgarian language he had learned in a few days. The first was when he commented on all the red-and-white "banitsas" hanging from a fruit tree branch. The second was when he held up his glass of beer and toasted: "dovishdonnay!" (Hmmm, what was in that beer? Farewell, sweet world!)
It's fun to be able to use those inside jokes here and have them be understood. Oh, and thanks for the link! :)
its funny when people make language mistakes... :D one of my classmates said "government erections" instead of "government elections" during a presentation. :D the professor just pretended she didnt notice what happened! :) hehhe
Julie:
I knew you would get a kick out of this story. The martenitsa/banitsa confusion is SO awesome! As far as the dovizhdane thing goes, I must admit that I find it fitting...;)
Ina:
Does the professor have a blog? If she did, she would have definitely blogged about this!!! :D
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