Just fine
When I was teaching German, one of my pupils wrote to her penfriend who couldn't fathom out a part of the letter. On taking it to her teacher there was great mirth and it was sent on to me where it caused similar hilarity in our staffroom: The letter read Wie geht's deiner Familie? Wir sind Geldstrafe. The dear child had looked up the word 'fine' in the dictionary. Not noticing the far more similar German word fein, the penfriend went for Geldstrafe instead.
Sent by: Heather
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Lol! Geldstrafe is the type of fine you get when you break the law and receive it from a police officer or someone else like a prosecuter for example. Your penfriend should've chosen ²õ³¦³óö²Ô, elegant, fein, heiter, ³óü²ú²õ³¦³ó, vornehm, gut, zart, »åü²Ô²Ô, zierlich, or edel. One of the above words would've been okay.
When I was working as a holiday rep in Austria I heard a guest ask for Schnabel, he wanted the bill for his meal and had looked in the dictionary and found a word that unfortuately is the sort of bill that a duck has.
Nice one. :) This reminds me of a comic from my English textbook in school - somebody had parked in a no-parking zone. When a police officer pointed out that he wasn't allowed to park there, he replied: Why not? The sign over there says it's 'fine' for parking ...
Sundiata, while those words would have been better, as all of them are adjectives, they are not okay - ²õ³¦³óö²Ô and ³óü²ú²õ³¦³ó mean beautiful, heiter - serene, vornehm, edel - nobel; zart, »åü²Ô²Ô, zierlich - fragile. Elegant is the same as in English. So, fein is okay. Better would have been: Uns geht's gut. (Not: Wir sind gut, which would mean We are good people.)
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