Nein! es ist ein Kuchen!
A few years back, I had a fantastic new year's holiday in Berlin with some mates from my undergrad days. Most of them had done language degrees and as so often happens when we go away and meet up with their various well travelled friends, I'm the only one who speaks solely English (*). As most of them speak brilliant English and at least 2 or 3 other languages, it's never much of a problem, and they're happy to translate for me, the hapless monolinguist.

I was at a friend's apartment just after new year with a group of mainly German speakers. The conversation was flowing in a mixture of English and German and as a treat, one of the girls, Naddy, had made a delicious cake for us all to share. She'd put in on the armchair while taking her jacket off, had forgotten where she'd left it and went to sit down; seconds before her arse impacted on the cakey goodness, one of the girls screamed out in warning. Everyone cracked up laughing and my friend turned to me and said "They're laughing because Naddy nearly sat on the cake!"

"Yes," I responded patiently, "you don't have to translate the visual gags for me..."

Bless though, eh?

(*) I can get by in French and Spanish. This lot were discussing Middle Eastern Politics in a mixture of Russian, Portuguese and Hungarian.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 12:30, 1 reply)

Hungarian...
now that's just showing off.
( Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 13:17, closed)