I am finally approaching that endearing level or proficiency with a second language where you know just enough to say everything wrong. Recently, in my French class, I was given an assignment to write a love story, une histoire d’amour of 150 words, so more of an abbreviated lettre d’amour.
One of the phrases in my grand tale of daring deeds, unrequited love, a boy and his dog, and so on was a bit about watching seagulls diving which I masterfully translated to:
regardait les muettes qui plongeaient
When my assignment was returned to me, this phrase was underlined with a giant question mark above. It all seemed on the level to me, so I asked my professeure what wasn’t correct about it. She gave me this crazy look, as if to say that she had finally figured out what it is that was wrong about me, and said that she didn’t understand it. I said it means “was watching the seagulls diving”. Well, she started laughing hysterically and in between convulsions explained that I was missing the “o” in mouette. It should have read:
regardait les mouettes qui plongeaient
We had a good laugh and after she left I looked up muette in my dictionary, which of course means a female mute.
hehe, the perils of learning a foreign language
I am learning Thai right now, and there are a lot of fine distinctions where the same word can mean different things depending upon tonality – so instead of “beautiful”, it might mean “unlucky”. Which of course can lead to a lot of misunderstanding…