| One day when I came to America, I decided to make a cake. I stopped at Safeway to get the flour to bake it. I didn't speak any English. I couldn't read the label. I got salted flour. I made a salted cake. When my family served it, nothing was eaten because it needed to be sweet.--Antonija |
| One day during the first week I was in San Francisco, my friend and I were shopping in Safeway supermarket. We felt ravenous, so we bought some cookies to eat. We found so many cookies outside marked "5¢ off" or "25¢ off." We thought they were cheap, so both of us brought a lot to the counter. Then we paid the cashier. Finally we understood that we made a mistake. We thought the prices for the cookies were five cents and 25 cents.--Florence |
| One day while my friend walked in the shopping mall, he couldn't find where the toys were. So, he asked a salesclerk, "Can you tell me where the toys are?" The salesclerk said, "Sure. You go down the stairs, and then turn right. You can see it." My friend walked there, saw a women's room and a men's room and he said, "Oh my God." The clerk thought he wanted the toilet.--Victoria |
| I think many people get problems when they are old. Maybe only a little bit, or maybe more. For example, my grandmother got a little problem with her ear when she was 70 years old. She can't hear very well, but this problem makes us smile. For example, three months ago, I called her and asked her, "Grandmother, how is your body?" and she said, "Now it's very early for eating." I said again, "Grandmother, how is the weather over there?" She answered me, "I will cook later."--Jasmin |
| This story happened about two years ago. I started to go to school and my cousin brought his girlfriend to have lunch. I didn't speak English but I used to practice it. Then when we finished the lunch I asked her if she liked the lunch and she said , "Yes, it was very good." but I had problems with two words, "peach" and "beach." When she finished I asked her if she wanted a beach. My cousin started to laugh and explained the confusion to her. After that she started to laugh too.--Jaime |
| One day my friend and I went to the market, bought some canned tuna, and made tuna sandwiches. My sister looked at the can of tuna and then started to laugh. She said, "Why did you buy catfood tuna?"--Tiffany |
| When I was studying in the university, the number of the classrooms during the first days of the semester were very confusing. The computer made several mistakes. Some students went to the classroom printed in their programs and many times it was the wrong classroom. However, they sat in the class and said in the middle of the class, "This isn't math." The rest of the classmates laughed at them.--Desirée |
| When I came to the United States I went to school and my first friend was a guy from a little hometown in Central America. We became good friends. One day he invited me to have lunch in his house, and I went to his home. His mother served the lunch to us. I met his brother. They said, "Enjoy" and they started to eat and after five minutes they said, "Why don't you start to eat? Don't you like our food?" I said, "I like it but I need a spoon or a fork to eat." Then they said, "Sorry, usually we don't use spoons or forks." Finally, my friend brought me a spoon and I began to eat.--Felipe |
| My friend May visited San Francisco last month. She couldn't speak English very well. One day she took the bus to Chinatown. She pushed the button to get off the bus but the door didn't open, so she said, "Back door please." Then somebody told her, "Step down." She didn't understand what that meant. She got off the bus at the front door. |
| One day, I went to the outlet on Geary and bought a lot of things because there was an after Christmas sale. I went to the front counter to pay. I heard the clerk talk to me and it sounded like, "Do you need a bag?" I was not quite sure and a little nervous, so I said, "Pardon?" although I thought in my mind, "Of course I do." I usually say "No" when I don't catch what people are talking about. Then she said it again, but I still didn't understand what she meant. I decided to say, "Yes." Then I saw she put the receipt into a bag with what I bought. Finally I understood what she meant.--Emily |
| When I first came to San Francisco my English was bad. I didn't understand many words. One time I was going to buy cream. I was looking for cheap food. I bought a can of cream that was the cheapest. When I came home I looked in a dictionary and found out that I bought a fat-free cream that I didn't need.--David |
| I've made many mistakes in buying things at the supermarket. I like to buy French bread, but I didn't know what "sour" meant and when I tasted it sometimes I liked it and other times I didn't, and I didn't know why. Now I understand why.--Wendick |
| Well, I remember that one day in the gym I put hair spray on as deodorant in my armpit because both were near. And that same day I used shaving cream like conditioner and mouthwash like shampoo. It was a big mistake because I didn't know how to read English.--Jorge |
| One day when I was doing the laundry I forgot to read the instructions. They were fine sweaters. After I finished the laundry they had all shrunk. Since then I always read the instructions before I do the laundry.--Nam |
| One day, my friend and coworker came back from work. She was very tired and hungry, so she went straight to the kitchen counter and grabbed a can of food. She opened it and ate it. Early in the morning her mother woke up and looked for her cat food but she realized that she couldn't find it. Maybe her daughter might have eaten it. It's a true story. My friend ate the cat food without looking at the label.--Alice |
| When I just arrived in San Francisco, I was very shy about using my English. Although I had some English knowledge, I was very embarrassed when somebody began to speak with me. I liked to go walking in Golden Gate Park and very often people asked me about the way to somewhere. I made a mistake very often because I said, "Right" (meaning okay) and pointed straight ahead. The poor poor people who talked to me didn't know which way they had to choose.--Inna |
| My teacher told me this joke. She said, "One day a man wanted to park his car. He asked someone, "Can I park here?" The man listening thought he said, "Can I bark here?" because the man's pronunciation wasn't good. However, the man didn't know that, and he said, "This is a free country. You can do anything you want."--Li |
| This is what I heard from someone before. A Japanese student was on a "home stay" with an American family. One day, the mother called her, "Dinner is ready!" She answered immediately, "Thanks, I'm going." When she came downstairs to the kitchen, she saw that they were eating, but there was no dinner for her. So she was very surprised at that and felt like going back home. She should have said, "I'm coming down soon."--Keiko |
| "The Cookies" is a story about two friends who go to a foreign country, but one of them doesn't know the foreign language. The other one does. When they travel to a small town in Germany, they feel hungry and they want to eat something. So they go to buy cookies. First they want to buy the expensive cookies. Later they go to buy the cheap ones but to their surprise, they buy dog biscuits. They make a mistake by not knowing the foreign language. If we have time, we need to learn more languages to communicate more easily with other people.--May |
| I think they were laughing a lot on their way because they were very hungry and didn't have too much money to buy good food. Also, they misunderstood the language and that's why they ate the dog biscuits.--Julie |
| Around thirty years ago, Johnny Yoon came to America. Do you know his name? He is still a famous comedian in Korea and the USA. He can't speak English very well. He can not get a job in Hollywood. One day, he was hungry and didn't have enough money for dinner. He went to the supermarket to take a look at the shelves. He was happy there was so much cheap dogfood. He bought many cans. He ate the canned food in the street because he was starving. Later on, he needed to go to the bathroom, so he lifted up one leg like a dog. Do you know a lot of Asian people eat dog meat, but not me.--Yoon Saing |
| The Khayber Pass is very famous. Every year many tourists come to visit. One day a woman wanted to buy some vegetables. She saw kachaloo, a local vegetable. She asked a farmer, "What is this?" The farmer said, "Oh, you powerful lady. Do you know this is the brother of the potato." (The kachaloo looks like a potato.)--Muhammad |