Korean student mistakes
I work for an ESL website based in Korea, where Korean students post their writing online and I correct all their mistakes. Over the last couple years I've saved all my favourite unintentional ones.

-"i can be a person who kills two births with one stone" (Obviously meant "two birds," but this metaphor works even better.)

-"There are foreshore. We caught small crap. My children played so hard. But there was not many crap." (about a trip to the beach, where you can see carp.)

-"Today was raining. I don't like rain so much.
Because I feel not so good about that day's humidity. My jeans are wet. My bag and pipe is wet, too." (Bag and pipe? I hope this person is a Scotsman.)

-"There is a small garden in their back side."
(Koreans live in apartments and are unfamiliar with the concept of a "backyard.")

-"I stole the chickennuggit from my roommate. While I fled from him I choked on chicken."
(This was a translation drill. The original phrase was, of course, "I choked on the chicken nugget.")

-"Ironically, the most expensive things in my car are my Methmatics books, which are not stolen. That thief may not be a budding Mathematician." (This was also a translation drill. I would imagine a methmatics book would be valuable. Oddly, the student didn't have any trouble spelling "mathematician.")

-"I work more than 40 hours a week, take an evening course. Meanwhile, my bone is growing." (I really can't explain this one.)

-"This is the incontinent truth that we don't even feel like thinking about." (Inconvenient truth?)

-"Sometime, some testes will be come to them." (The student was talking about tests. This is a very common Korean error.)

-"Today wasn't a very good day because I have 4 testes today." (I warned you, didn't I?)

-"In a computer game, you will have to manage a group of slacker employees at a reproduction shop." (This was a translation drill. The "reproduction shop" was supposed to be a copy shop, not some sort of sex venue.)

-"I have a dream. Actually serevral dreams.
Those are the followings. My dreams of 2008!! There are 4 goals. First, lose my weight about 7kg to be able to wear mini skirt. Second, enter the graduate shool for English translation. Third, meet my ideal half who make true and pure love with me." (I didn't think she could top the Martin Luther King quote, but that last line made it all worthwhile.)

I hope these were amusing enough for you.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Fri 13 Jun 2008, 10:46, 6 replies)

I'm going to hazard a wild guess
that "my bone is growing" is some sort of idiom in Korean, possibly something to do with ageing?
( Thinker, Fri 13 Jun 2008, 11:50, closed)

hehe
I used to teach in Korea and I used to try to chat about Korean language and culture etc. I tried to talk about the movie "my sassy girl" (this being a few years ago when it first came out) but I got the name wrong in Korean (they didnt know the english name). When I made my mistake all of the highschool girls in the class went bright red and started laughing.

I should have stopped there, but I kept on repeating the 'wrong' word in Korean and asked what it meant.

Eventually after much laughing I got my answer: "insert" but in probably not the right way (ooer).

I moved swiftly on.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Fri 13 Jun 2008, 12:02, closed)

I don't like this.
I love it! *CLICK*
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 13 Jun 2008, 12:37, closed)

perhaps...
bone=brain?

Clicky for teh engrish.
(pineappleunderthesea mortal enemy of the apple since, Fri 13 Jun 2008, 12:44, closed)

powervator
Yeah, I have tons of innuendo made by us foreigners in Korean too, but I doubt they'd be appreciated by anyone else.

One of my friends used to live in a neighbourhood called Ogeum-dong, and he wasn't so good at Korean so he pronounced it Ojoom-dong (ojoom=piss).

There's also the story about the Canadian who called his girlfriend "jagiya" (dear, honey, etc) but he made the same pronunciation mistake and said "jajiya" (dick) in a crowded airport.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Sat 14 Jun 2008, 3:31, closed)

This
Is very very funny indeed.
(ShitBitch, Wed 18 Jun 2008, 10:55, closed)