language

I used to believe…

When I was 7 years old, my French teacher would sometimes play her guitar and sing a song with French words to us. I always thought she was just making up words and that the song was just gibberish.

My French teacher would tell me that those are real French words, but I didn't believe her. I also thought that "Madame" was not a real word and was just part of her "made-up language". She would get upset a lot.

I used to believe…

As a little kid I used to think that gazebos were called "Azibos"(like the character Azibo from Panwapa).

I never saw the word "gazebo" spelled out so the first time i did, I thought it was pronounced "gayz bo" and that it was a separate word from "Azibo", until i tried to draw a picture of one and spell the word below it.

I first saw the word "Lisztomania" in a "grown-up"(a book that doesn't have many pictures) book I was reading at the library as a kid. I didn't know what it meant at the time, so I assumed it was a country or a type of dance or something like that...

I used to believe that "luft" was German for red, because of that song "99 Luftballons" being translated as "99 Red Balloons". I also believed that "rico" was Spanish for rice, so Puerto Rico was "Port of Rice" to me.

I used to believe that "pathetique" was a fancy way of saying "pathetic". When i said something is pathetic, i said in a fancy voice "Yes, that is soooo pathetique"

i used to think that schadenfreude was a "nazi word" and if you said it, you had to say heil hitler. my older sister loved messing with me, untilr my mom saied that nazi is bad

I had never seen a Play-Doh box, so I used to believe "Play-Doh" was spelled "plato".

I used to believe…

When I was 5 or 6, at my bedtime my German babysitter would play the acoustic guitar and sing a song with German lyrics.

I believed that she was just singing made up words since the only languages i knew were English and Spanish. I thought that one lyric "Schloff kindlein schloff"(not sure how to spell it) was "sloff killine sloff" and it just sounded like made up words.

When my mom was putting me to bed, I asked her if she could sing the "Slop killmine slop"(how i pronounced it) song and she was confused and had no idea what i was talking about! She thought i was just babbling nonsense!

I used to believe that Polish was just spitting noises and garbled words. I only saw it written down and it looked really hard to pronounce. My mom is of Polish descent and sometimes i would hear her speak Polish while talking on the phone with someone. I just thought she was speaking French and didn't think about it anymore.

I used to believe…

At one point, I though that "sorry" was a swear word. Whenever I was told to say it, I'd spell it out instead (S-O-R-R-Y), because I thought it would reduce the effect

I used to believe…

When my mom(who is of german decent) would rush me for something(like getting dressed for school), she would say something like "Hurry up, you're gonna be late for school! Schnell, schnell!!"(which means "quickly". I thought she was saying "smell", so everytime she said that, i would smell my arm. I didn't know what she was really saying until i was 10.

I used to confuse the words "dive" and "drown" for some reason. Once, me and my sister were swimming in a pool and I told my mom in a rather excited manner: Look, my sister is drowning!

I used to think that Americans spoke American and Australians spoke Australian
I thought It would be weird for them to say they speak English when they weren't in England

I'm from England

I used to believe…

When i was 3, my 10 year old cousin said she had piano lessons and couldn't play with me.

For some reason, i thought that piano was a type of a game you play on a table, like chess or checkers. My cousin was confused when i asked her where the "pinanno"(how i pronounced "piano") game was. Then when i told her she said she had "pinnano" lessons and couldn't come over, she laughed and told me what it really was. I felt stupid.

I never had a piano in my house, only a toy keyboard, so that's probably why i never knew what it was.

I used to think that heater was spelled "header"(which i didn't know was pronounced hedder)

I've been deaf all my life. When I was little, I used to feel sorry for people who couldn't speak sign language and had to communicate by moving their mouths into funny shapes. I thought there was something wrong with their hands.