Comical Mistakes When Speaking a Foreign Language

[Sancho Panther]

Here's mine....

Soon after I started to learn Spanish I went in a shoe shop and asked the teenage assistant for a pair I liked in a size forty three. She got them from the window and said they were all they had - a forty two, but she insisted that I should try them anyway.

I was in my beach togs so I took off my flip-flops and sqeezed my feet into them - far too small. Eager to make a sale she said they might stretch after a week or two's wear. I said < No, son muy pequeños>, then I was going to say that besides I wasn't wearing socks, but I forgot the word.

After a few seconds it came to me (or so I thought), so I added <además no llevo calzoncillos>, she supressed a smile, then went behind the curtain to ask her mother for another size (she said) and I heard them both laughing.

When I left it occurred to me that I'd made a mistake, but it wasn't until I referred to my dictionary that I realized that calzoncillos were underpants, and the word I should have said was calcetines!