lost in translation – Adventurings

stories of miscommunication from about two and a half years living in the czech republic. to be honest, i’m just great this is all that’s happened… of the things i haven’t already repressed, that is.

kombucha cappucino
there is this fantastic vegetarian buffet restaurant in budejovice. only problem is, it’s not a self-serve buffet; you have to tell the well-meaning woman behind the counter what you want. this can’t even be easy for czechs, because as a vegetarian restaurant, it’s often hard to tell what something is made of or has in it just by looking. basically, an unlearned foreigner’s nightmare. i have gone twice and both times i have stumbled and tripped through an interaction to somehow get something that is satisfying. but the most recent time was scarring– i asked for kombucha, as i saw it behind the counter and was totally stoked about it. i sat down, and a few minutes later, the waitress came with a cappuccino. “nee, promin”, i said, because when you’re in the mood for an icy cold kombucha, a warm coffee drink just isn’t going to cut it. she looked cross and marched away.
i walked up to the counter and re-clarified my order for a kombucha. “čaj?” i asked, hoping to clear the situation. “ohhhhhhhhh, kom-bookh-ah,” she said as she rolled her eyes and poured some for me. it didn’t occur to me that kombucha, a clearly foreign word, would still follow strict czech pronunciation standards. whoops.

does anyone speak english?!?!
it was my first week living in prague. my task: to buy a monthly metro pass. but this wasn’t so easy because open hearing that humans twenty-six and under qualify for reduced prices, i was hell-bent on convincing whatever lady that i deserved to qualify for these, even though i was twenty-six and a half at the time. i was one of the first people in the queue on a weekday during rush hour. when i got to the counter at the vysočanska metro station, i realized this woman didn’t know a lick of english… a sensation i was completely unfamiliar with at the time. (welcome to prague!) i tried pantomiming and writing down some things to help clear the situation, but the woman was firm on her stance not to sell me a reduced-price metro pass. as the queue had grown significantly longer behind me, i decided to survey these people with a, “does anyone speak english?!?” not one person stepped up to help. i stepped out of line, and decided today was not the day i was getting that metro pass.

(i have since learned that czechs are extremely humble about their english knowledge, and often say “no” or “only a little” even when they are at a proficient level of speaking! i had also learned that at twenty six and a half, i totally did not qualify for that metro discount. phooey!)

we don’t want to speak czech
you might be familiar with my most recent language blunder, writing my hotel that “we don’t want to speak czech” instead of “we don’t speak czech”. that was unfortunate and face-palmingly embarrassing, but i think the guy had a pretty good humor about the whole thing.

october first or fourth?
i’ve been helping some students of mine plan a washington state trip this winter, and they told me they want to end up in vancouver, b.c. no later than october first. however, with their pronunciation it came across as “fourth” to me (not sure how) and i ended up planning less for them then they wished. just goes to show that pronunciation really, actually matters!

peach vodka?
if you are a newcomer to the czech republic, chances are you probably won’t say becherovka, the famed herbal digestive liquor, correctly on the first, second, or third try. one of the first times i ordered it, i ended up with peach vodka, undoubtedly because i was still pronouncing the czech ch sound incorrectly. see: kombucha incident. (photo via)

panic at the supermarket
not so much a blunder, but i’ve recently written a post about my total communication shutdown i had one day while checking out at the supermarket during a normal customer/cashier interaction. some days, languages just aren’t your friend and the words do not come out of your mouth, nor do they process properly in the head. moral learned from this story: if you don’t speak the official language, at least learn the second most common language!