A Funny Mistake

A teacher’s life is not easy at all. Sometimes the teachers do nothing wrong , but received attacks from the students’ mistakes.

One day , a foreign student who was learning Chinese came over to her female Chinese teacher and said in Chinese:” Lao Shi, Ni Mei You Xiong.” This female teacher was so aware of it and felt soo embarrassed, when she heard this. Because this sentence in Chinese meant:” Teacher,you don’t have the breasts.” :)

Fortunately, this teacher was smart enough and acted quickly . She asked her foreign student to explain it in English. The student told her in English that “ Teacher , you are so nice . You have never been angry with us.” On hearing this ,the teacher was really feeling a sense of relief. Finally , she understood that the student wanted to say “not angry”——”Bu Xiong(不凶） “in Chinese,but not “have angry”——”You Xiong（有胸）” in Chinese。

So here the two words “Xiong” sounds the same in Chinese. But the first “Xiong（凶）“ means angry,and the second “Xiong” means breasts. When you combine the verbs with the words having the same pronunciation, they will occur the completely different meanings.

How fun and how interesting the Chinese is!

Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story in a different language can make all the difference. Let languages make our days, let dialogues change the world.