I said 触っていいですか？ To a group of exchange students in University, it was when i started learning japanese so I didnt know ehat i was saying, English wasn't their strength either. They didn't correct me nor did they laugh, but I'm still embarrassed by it.
by Negative_Relief_64
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I did two classic blunders: a friend’s mother was a hairdresser who did special arrangements for new years. She had just finished with a young neighbour and wanted to show off her mom’s work. I wanted to say something special so I uttered: “*kowai!*” [kawaii]
Also at new years. My landlord’s friend had come by to do an *ikebana* arrangement in the guest house *tokonoma*. He also wanted to show off his friend’s skill, to which I admiringly remarked: “*Kirai!*” [*kirei*]
The expressions all around were priceless!
先生におそわれています
Instead of
先生におそわっています
I was at a semi-formal international event in Tokyo. I was talking to some business leaders, when an old german colleague and his wife from the netherlands tapped me on the shoulder. I introduced him as my german friend and his wife as his dutch wife.
In hindsight this sounds utterly insane, but I was 17 at the time so judge me kindly.
In high school in 2000 myself and some Japanese language study classmates were exchange students at a Catholic high school in Japan and we had had a couple of days in country with our host families before the first day of school where we had to introduce ourselves to the entire student body in an assembly. My host family had a good sense of humor and were kind of goofy and many of the kids that I was there on exchange with were also kind of jokesters, so they hyped me up to do a sort of ridiculous self introduction. They didn’t know what I was planning, but they all sort of convinced me that it might be a funny idea to do something innocuous but kooky.
Part of our introduction was that we were to say our name do the whole introduction bit and write our name on a large chalkboard behind us in katakana. I got the wild idea that I would write 俺はブライアンだ！！！ yeah cringe I know.
Anyway it gets worse. In my nervousness I actually wrote 竜はブライアンだ！！！ and when I realized my mistake my soul just about left my body.
I somehow was able to pull myself back together and do an incredibly theatrical deep bow and a 申し訳ありません like I was some disgraced general in a space opera anime. I’m not sure the teachers were super impressed with me at that point, but it definitely endeared me to the students which I think was my goal anyway.
If they didn’t correct you, how do you know you made the mistake. Sounds like a fake story for karma.
The only one I remember was in jp class, form the first time in virtual class, I said 聞けますか？ instead of 聞こえますか？ and the teacher used me as an example for 10 minutes XD
A couple of weeks ago I was ordering a top box for my motorcycle at a motorcycle goods store. At the end, I was trying to ask if I needed to pay for the box now, or when it arrives. So I said:
箱は今私に入りますか。
He was confused and I asked again, and when that also confused him, I used Google. I was on the drive home when I realized what I was asking. Had a good laugh about it with my friends in class.
The day after seeing Asian Kung-fu Generation at a fes, I was boarding the shinkansen back to Tokyo and in front of me were three of the members. I’m pretty sure I mixed up 昨日 and 今日 and told them “今日最高でした” (which *is* better than using 明日, the word my brain first grabbed for).
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