Bilingual Household Mix-Ups

In households where English and Spanish are both spoken, there's daily potential for funny mix-ups, misunderstandings and tongue-tied talk. Here are 10 hilarious real life bilingual blunders people shared with us. What's your funniest bilingual mix-up?

Silvia Martinez shares that her funniest mix-up happened at her wedding. The priest asked her soon-to-be husband, "Le amas?"—to which the groom replied with his name. This happened a few times until the priest repeated his question in English, "But, do you love her?"

"Oh yes!" the groom answered. It turns out he thought the priest had been asking "¿Cómo te llamas?"

It's one of the most frequently misused false cognates in the Spanish language by English speakers, and one of the most shocking when used unintentionally —"embarazada." It means “pregnant,” but is sometimes confused with “avergonzado/a,” which means embarrassed.

"My sister once said she was 'embarazada' when she meant she was 'embarrassed'," says Ericka Sanchez.

We can only imagine what happened afterward!

When friends asked Dariela Cruz how she was feeling as she recovered from a cold she once responded, "I feel better now, just constipated," which caused some unexpected responses.

"My friends suggested that I drink coffee and I didn't understand why," Dariela said. She later realized she had meant to use the word "congested," not "constipated."

"Since I went to a British school to learn English, I was unfamiliar with the popular American phrase,'What's up?'” shares Claudia Mayorga-Del Cid. “So, when someone greeted me this way for the first time, what did I do? I looked to the clouds and humbly answered, ‘The sky, I guess!’”

"One time a guy called out to me, 'Oye linda, ¿cómo estas?'” says Cynthia Martinez. “I was confused for a second because I was thinking, 'Why does he think my name is Linda?'"

"I sent Saul, (my now husband; then fiance) to buy tamales. Soon after he left, he called to ask if I wanted 'weird shampoo,'” shares Maricela Joshelyn. “I was obviously confused since I had sent him for tamales, not shampoo! Then he repeated, 'Do you want weird shampoo?… Champú raro?' And it hit me that he meant 'champurrado.' He seriously thought it was called 'weird shampoo' in Spanish."

"The first time I got asked 'Wanna go out with me?' I said, 'Sure! Where are we going?'" shares Judy Gaitan. “Granted, I was in the fourth grade and fresh out of ESL."

"I said to my husband, 'give me a queso,' meaning to say 'give me a kiss,'” says Melanie Edwards. “But I accidentally mixed 'beso' and 'kiss' together."

Leslie Limón tells us that at her home in Mexico, they speak mostly Spanish. So, when her kids were younger the family followed an "English only" rule on Saturdays to ensure they grew up bilingual.

"We have two cats," Leslie says, "and when we sit down to eat lunch, we let the cats out on the back patio. While I was serving lunch, my oldest daughter remembered that someone had to let the cats out and yelled to her older brother what sounded like 'Suck the cat!'"

Confused and stunned, Leslie asked her daughter why she had said that. It turns out her daughter couldn't remember how to translate "Saca el gato," so she did what popular Mexican TV character "Chavo del Ocho" would do and she just shortened the verb "sacar" to "sac."

My native Spanish-speaker husband, Carlos, asked where the city of Topeka was located. When I answered "Kansas," Carlos wasn't satisfied.

"But which one?" he asked.

"What do you mean which one?" I said, thoroughly confused. "Kansas, the state."

__"__But is it in Kansas or Ar-Kansas?" he asked, pronouncing Arkansas the way it's pronounced in Spanish.