Do You Speak Czenglish?

One of the many things I find entertaining about hanging out with people with diverse backgrounds is learning about all the languages they can speak or they study. If you ever tried to communicate anything in a foreign language, I’m sure you’d agree that it can easily expose you to some silly or challenging situation. Improving takes dedication; making mistakes is inevitable and some of the screw-ups will be more hilarious than others.

Before I get to the examples of some of my screw-ups, let me explain why I think they are so worth it. Learning a foreign language opens up a whole new world of opportunities for us. Some of the main benefits I can see are: better understanding of other cultures, better understanding of our own culture and language, it’s easier to get around while traveling, it gives us independence when living in another country, it provides us with more job opportunities, enables us to connect with diverse people, allows us to enjoy the process of learning and it encourages us to get out of our comfort zone. Learning a foreign language means making idiots out of ourselves every single day. Let’s embrace it!

SCREW-UPS

Speaking about embracing things, why don’t we get straight to it? Are you familiar with the phrase “Brace yourself!”? Yeah, you are? I thought it went like this: “Embrace yourself!” And I encouraged people to do so. Until recently. I provocatively challenged a friend to “Embrace himself!” He wrapped his arms around him without hesitation and gave me a triumphant smile. He got the message across. Sometimes you just need that extra comfort and self-love.

I encourage people to do all sorts of things. When I was in university, I started to enjoy the night life for the very first time with a group of expats. One night I got curious, “Hey, how do you call it when you finish a whole drink at once?” The bar was loud but someone attempted to yell that the verb was “TO CHUG”. I thought it was a bit weird but I went for it; every time someone tried to down a beer I chanted passionately, “Choke! Choke! Choke!”.

I also find creative ways to insult people in foreign languages. Me and my friend were hanging out the other day, each of us spread out on either side of my couch, discussing what was new at work. She was describing some dick move her colleague made and I wanted to express my sympathy, “He’s a real ass-climber.” She bursted out laughing,“… Do you mean an ass-kisser?” She directly added the word “řiťolezec” in her Czech vocab. That’s what I call a win-win situation!*

We learn by making mistakes. If you try to get into Czech, you have my admiration and full support! it’s ok to make it Czenglish. Feel free to reach out if you need any help.

BONUS:

A lot of people inspired me when writing this post (special shout-out to my favorite Albanian crew). Thanks for sharing your stories, I need to put some of those out into the universe… such as the one starring my Czech friend speaking to someone in Croatia in full-frontal charade style, pretending to ride on a water-slide, before realizing the person spoke fluent Czech. Or, while google-translating to confirm an order, learning his colleagues in Norway were ordering 5 kilos of condoms for their Christmas party. Honourable mention also goes to chicken stripes (strips), hammercock (hammock), thinking loudly (out loud), your eyes September (září=shine) and putting a jacket on a hooker (a coat hook).

*My friend with the ass-kissing colleague proof-read this post. However in the original version, I forgot it was a “kisser” so I turned it up a notch and called him an ass-licker.

Life’s too short…
…to be grammatically correct.

Princess Unipony

Read about the hot spot in Prague for blowing-off some steam.