Duck59
Legendary Member
- Joined
- 23 Apr 2015
- Local time
- 4:05 AM
- Messages
- 3,149
- Location
- Fife, Scotland
- Website
- duckholiday.com
Sometimes it's easy enough. You can merely point at the item on a menu and it gets the job done. There are, however, times when we need to dust off our language skills and ask for something.
Mishaps? Thankfully, not too many. The best happened to someone else, a VSO volunteer colleague of mine who requested a lightbulb rather than the bill in a Tigrigna language slip up in Eritrea. As for me, nothing too serious. I was once a little embarrassed at Asmara airport (same VSO mission) when I got searched at security. I was carrying a bag of celery, a rarely-seen item in that country. Certainly, the young woman searching my bag had no idea what it was. I couldn't for the life of me remember what the Italian word was for celery (most vegetables are called by Italian names there) and pondered for a while before saying, "Salata." Well, it's a salad vegetable. It seemed to do the trick though.
Has anyone had a food-related language struggle?
Mishaps? Thankfully, not too many. The best happened to someone else, a VSO volunteer colleague of mine who requested a lightbulb rather than the bill in a Tigrigna language slip up in Eritrea. As for me, nothing too serious. I was once a little embarrassed at Asmara airport (same VSO mission) when I got searched at security. I was carrying a bag of celery, a rarely-seen item in that country. Certainly, the young woman searching my bag had no idea what it was. I couldn't for the life of me remember what the Italian word was for celery (most vegetables are called by Italian names there) and pondered for a while before saying, "Salata." Well, it's a salad vegetable. It seemed to do the trick though.
Has anyone had a food-related language struggle?