Your say - False friends 2q556j
Bordeaux ice-cream (German/French) 436j58
I normally speak German on a day-to-day basis, so I've become used to asking for ein Glas Rotwein in restaurants, which, rather handily, directly translates from the English 'a glass of red wine'. Now I have a smattering of French knowledge so do try and use it when in . One day I was trying to order my glass of red wine by the phrase un 'Glas' de vin rouge, completely forgetting that 'a glass' should be un verre and not une glace (same pronunciation as 'glass') which is 'ice' or 'ice-cream'. So my simple request ended up causing a great deal of confusion for the waitress, who assumed from my pronunciation that I was asking for red wine flavoured ice-cream. Naturally I pretended I was German after this embarassment!
Sent by: Chloé
Comments 682840
When I was a lot younger and hardly knew any French, my mother taught me to say je suis anglaise, I am English, if anybody spoke to me during our holiday in . When accosted by several French children, I quickly piped up je suis une glace, I am an ice cream or a mirror. Needless to say I was given some very odd looks before they all did a runner!
My French friend came to visit me in Australia recently and we went for a night out on the town.
Although his English is fantastic, he got confused in a club when he went to order me a drink: I asked for a rum and coke with no ice, and the poor woman behind the bar understandably couldn't meet his request when he kept asking for, "Rum and coke with no glass!" (glace)
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