Thursday, October 29, 2020

Language Misunderstanding Results In Accidental Breakup


We love nothing more than a good old fashioned language translation fail. Languages can be wildly confusing, and sometimes that goes on to inspire absolutely hilarious misunderstandings between people that would otherwise be getting along just fine. In this case though, we learn that this particular misunderstanding was the straw that broke the camel's back, and apparently this guy was a dang "side guy." 

1.

Text - r/tifu u/ManicSheep• 8h Join 3 2 3 4 VOTED 1 VOT 1 TIFU by temporarily breaking up with my Dutch Girlfriend after declaring my love M This happened about 7 years ago. I am South African and was dating a Dutch girl at the time. For those of you who don't know my home language (Afrikaans) and Dutch are pretty similar. Linguistically speaking, we have about a 70% overlap in vocabulary (words) however the meaning of the same word in both languages sometimes mean something totally different.

2.

Text - I was dating this girl for around 9 months. She flew down to South Africa, and I took her to one of our national parks on one of the weekends. On the last evening of her visit, we were sitting next to a large open lake. As I looked at her, a sudden rush of emotions occurred. I took her hands in mine, looked her in the eyes... and said (in English): "I love you". This was the first time Ive said that. For a moment I thought I caught her off guard but she looks at me with a straight face an

3.

Text - The next morning we checked out and we drove to the airport. Upon arrival, I dropped her off departures gate and thanked her for a lovely time. Told her that things have become clearer to me over the course of the evening, and that I don't think we should see each other anymore. She (of course) burst into tears, took her bags, and left my car.

4.

Text - We didn't text for two days. On the third day she sends me a text asking why I broke up with her... I explained that it hit me really hard that declared my love for her and my feelings weren't reciprocated. Perplexed, she phones me... And the mature asshole that I am, I rejected the call. She sends me a voice note saying she doesn't understand... As when I said I loved her, she said it back. Long story short: Apparently the word "hou" (i.e. “Like" in Afrikaans) means "Love" in Dutch.

5.

Text - Man did I fuck up! In the end we could laugh about it, and decided never to speak in Dutch again :P (We only lasted another 8 months after this incident though for other reasons) TL;DR:I declared my love for my Dutch Girlfriend, and she responded in Dutch with "I like you". I broke up with her the next day, and was only later informed that the word "like" in Afrikaans means "love" in Dutch.

Submitted by:

No comments:

Post a Comment