Worst misunderstandings in Turkish

Turkish is a language which has great regional variations, which sometimes can put us in very inconvenient and embarassing situations. I speak the Rumelian dialect of Turkish, which is somewhat different than the official Turkish language. My aunt, who moved to Turkey many years ago, had discovered those differences in the difficult way.

When she was asked about her profession in Bulgaria, she replied: "Ben Bulgaristan'da paviliyon'da calistim ve kocamin haremi vardi"
Which in Rumelian simply means,

In Bulgraia, I worked in a small grocery shop, and my husbdan had a little garden.

But in formal Turkish this could be interpreted, as

In Bulgaria, I was a prostitute, and my husband had a harem with many wives.

My aunt said people did not look very kindly on her when she said this.
 
Have you also been in such an embarrassing situation due to variations in the language you speak?


Edited by bg_turk - 17-Aug-2006 at 03:03

im also Rumelian Turk and i have funny stories with my relatives who visit Turkey.I want to tell a funny story that is told often in our community.Once a turkish girl from Bulgaria went  to a cafe in the city where i live.The waiter asked her "what do you like to drink?" an she answered "bana bi sok lutfen" "sok" means "juice" in Bulgarian.But in turkish when you found a sentence like that it means  in slang "f.ck me once please".

Edited by osmanlija - 17-Aug-2006 at 11:16

In standard Turkish silah is gun or weapon.

The word Korhona or karhane is in fact the persian word "kar khane" (work house) and means fabric

I want to add something here:

My friend - turk told me, that in Turkey the name Reyhan is only a female name. But in Bulgaria it is also a male name. So when some bulgarian Reyhan goes to Turkey, the other turks asked him: "What, what, what `s your name? Are you sure? Are you male, or what?!"

And i know one turk from Turkey, who is a student in Bulgaria. In the end of the semester, before his return to Turkey for the summer-vacation, he told in bulgarian to his favorite bulgarian teacher: "I`ll tell to my friends in Turkey, that you are my favorite teacher and that you have a very nice character, and i like it." But he forgot the bulgarian word for "character", and used the turkish word - "huyu".
So he said: "I`ll tell to my friends in Turkey, that you are my favorite teacher and that you have a very nice huyu, and i like it."
But in bulgarian, there is a word which sounds very very similar with "huyu", and means "dick/cock" (vulgar form for "penis").
I`ll never forget the face of his teacher, when he heard: "I`ll tell to my friends in Turkey, that you are my favorite teacher and that you have a very nice cock, and i like it."




Edited by The Chargemaster - 21-Aug-2006 at 16:53

Originally posted by Savdogar In uzbek   yarak --in uzbek means "needed" however it can be weapon when "qurol-yaroq" silah is old word. bardak is russian origin tepelemek - does not mean f**king, there is "beautiful" word - sikmoq tepelemek - means kick, beat.   ALSO in UZBEK, KORHONA means office, firm, company. i guess in turkish it is BAD word.   what about "matras" in Turkish?was it prostitude or i am mistaken?

Dirty thinking, I guess... 
Btw, keep posting such examples! They're just great! "You have a very nice huyu and I like it"...
Thank goodness that I haven't had similar accidents with the Bulgarian dialects! Maybe because some of them (like the Rhodopean dialect) are almost undecipherable for me...

Originally posted by Maziar Ok people a funny question, how comes that the most missunderstanding themes between turks and bulgars are "below the belt" ?

It is not only restricted to us. There exist similar misunderstandings between Spaniards and Latin Americans.

For example, in Spain "coger"means to catch, seize, whereas in Latin America it means to f**k.


Edited by bg_turk - 24-Aug-2006 at 01:32

Originally posted by The Chargemaster So he said: "I`ll tell to my friends in Turkey, that you are my favorite teacher and that you have a very nice huyu, and i like it." But in bulgarian, there is a word which sounds very very similar with "huyu", and means "dick/cock" (vulgar form for "penis"). I`ll never forget the face of his teacher, when he heard: "I`ll tell to my friends in Turkey, that you are my favorite teacher and that you have a very nice cock, and i like it."

"HUY" in Turkish means habbit. Due to the bad connotations it carries in the Bulgarian language I personally avoid to use it, but for people who are less familiar with the Bulgarian language, such gaffes are unavoidable.  In Karjali some people use a mixed form of TurkoBulgarian or BulgaroTurkish depending on how you look at it. When you are bilingual it is simply unavoidable to use a word from the other language, when you cant think of that word in your language.

But this of course is quite a bad habbit, not only because it makes what you speak not understandable to native Turks or Bulgarians who are unfamilar with the other language, but because it can lead you to bad and potentially dangerous situations such as those described by yourself.

"Gospodine, imate prekrasen huy."
Meaning "Sir, you have a great dick." rather than the intended "Sir, you have a great habbit"

or

"Bana bir sok lutfen."
Meaning "f**k me, please" rather than the indented "For me a juice, please."




Edited by bg_turk - 24-Aug-2006 at 01:44