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During my German O level oral (many years ago) I told the examiner Ich bin eine Jungfrau thinking this meant "I am a young woman". His eyebrows shot up and he corrected me with ²Ñä»å³¦³ó±ð²Ô Only much later did I realise that I had used the word for virgin!
Sent by: Trish
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I made this mistake the other way round. When I was 15 years old I went to a summer school in England. Our teacher asked us about our star signs. I'm a "Jungfrau", virgo, so I proudly answered: I'm a virgin. Our teacher replied: I should hope so.
My German teacher attempted to explain the difference between ich bin warm and Mir ist warm, and when I asked "so what does ich bin sehr warm mean", she replied: "well, it means you're very gay".
My boyfriend (Northern Irish) and I (German) visited my family during summer. My boyfriend's German was poor at the time. We were sitting outside having a barbecue with my grandmother who was 80 at the time when my boyfriend tried to exlain that he was warm enough and said Ich bin warm. My grandmother couldn't stop laughing!
I made a similar blunder in my high school days. During a party for the German exchange students, I slipped away on a romantic moonlit stroll in the park with a Mr Varnie from Munich, whereupon we got rather flirtatious and ended up smooching in the shadows. As it was quite a cool evening, I shivered and murmured Ich bin kalt. He was quite the gentleman: he chuckled a little into my hair then held me close (perhaps many a smitten foreign gal had said this before?)
I was spending nine months in Potsdam and had gone to church one Sunday. I was quite warm and must have been quite flushed because one of the older ladies asked me if I was sick. I told her Ich bin heiß and she gave me an odd look. I didn't realize what I had said was wrong until a few months later.
I did the same ... just happened to be my first time in Germany, not knowing much, but yeah ich bin heisß.. sitting in a car journey which lasted three hours from Frankfurt airport with my exchange partner's 50yr old mother and a very embarrassed me and young male in the back ... i'll never forget that silence ... Mir ist warm! Never forget it Leute :)
Oops! I was in Germany on a school trip just before Christmas and I was getting into the festive spirit and making new friends and I said du bist heiß! to several very nice German guys, but it was ok they were still very friendly and great fun :) Germany rocks so hard xx
I'm afraid I did the same thing, fortunately with good-natured German speakers around! My family was visiting my brother's exchange host family in Jena, enjoying an evening on the patio when our hostess offered me a jacket, as the sun was setting and the air was cool. Meaning to say, "no thank you; I'm warm enough," I said Nein, danke. Ich bin warm. My brother (who is fluent in German) quickly hissed in my ear Mir ist warm! Mir ist warm! Horrified (having suddenly realised my mistake), I mustered every apologetic word in my German vocabulary and received a gracious Macht nichts - doesn’t matter - from our host. Whew!
I lived in Saarbrücken near the French border for some years. In the Saarland, people speak a particular dialect I have never fully gotten used to, being from the north of Germany myself. Helping out in a bilingual kindergarten, I found myself wondering if the children were using the literal translation of French or the local dialect when they said Ich habe warm/kalt. - To this day, I still don't know..
I do that all the time in class. it's really confusing and i often get an embarassed correction from the teacher...oops! don't worry though. germans can usually tell if you're a 'foreigner' so they'll understand. they're nice people
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