h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You might do the difference between "berate" and "beraten", my coworker just made that mistake in a rather important interview "Berate" means to tell someone off, to punish verbally, while the German "Beraten" is just "to advise"


*a little PS: it's spelt "sensibel" in German, not sensible*

O gosh - yes. Thank you.

No problem I like the article, it's useful for showing someone the pitfalls of the business quickly when they claim translating isn't work!

I've added them to the unedited version - it's a bit of a hassle to have edited entries updated and added to. Although they've changed that a bit.

A498675

You will see I've added you to the researcher list.

I am honoured! Shall I tell you if I come up with more?

Surprised this one hasn't come up - it still trips me up!

Scheissen / Schiessen, where one means "to shoot" as of rifles and one means (demotic) "to excrete". Don't ask me which is which... but the classic account is of prisoners in Colditz, winding up their guards by singing a version of the German national anthem with "Deutchland unter alles" ("unter" replacing the "uber"), which then went on to enumerate just how many European countries Germany was going to end up underneath... ("unter Polen, unter France!"). At this point the pi$$ed-off camp guards started shooting, and a worried British voice called back at them with a German phrase sounding like "Don't $hit!"

Something of a misunderstanding there...

And the two British fans who lost their car during the World Cup... they went to German police to explain they'd very carefully parked it under a street sign so they would know where to find it again. But how the heck many streets have you GOT in this town which all have the same name?

>what was the name of the street, please?
>EingangStrasse, or something like that.
>I see. You are obviously not aware that EingangStrasse is the German for "One Way Street"?

well, it made me laugh...

Thanks for the suggestions, AgProv. Actually they don't quite fit into the category listed here. I'm trying to avoid including words which just sound similar or are spelt similarly, as that would make the list endless.