The recent post in The Economist by their columnist using the psuedonym, "Johnson' brought a chuckle. The author relates an amusing anecdote in which she, as a native of Ireland now living in Brazil, has learned to speak Portuguese with a decidedly unique accent to the native Cariocas. Her visit to a school in Sao Paolo prompts amusement by the students who have difficulty understanding her pronunciation of their language.
She concludes the article by asking her readers for their own 'depressing moments' on their own road of language study. Although I didn't reply on the article itself, I immediately recalled one embarrasing moment from a trip to Berlin I undertook a few years ago. I had just left one of that city's fabulous museums, and was riding the Strassenbahn on a cold January afternoon when I suddenly realized that I couldn't find the scarf I had earlier in the day. "Mein Schaf...", I muttered to myself,under my breath, but loud enough to be heard by other riders. "Wo ist mein Schaf ?" I quickly became aware of some snickering by the riders within earshot. I couldn't figure out what was so funny, but it wasn't hard to determine that it was me at whom they were laughing. Finally, a woman across the aisle leaned over to me and said in English, "Did you lose something?" "Yes, my scarf", I replied. "Oh, she said. That's unfortunate, because it'll be much harder to find that than the sheep you said you couldn't find". Yes folks. Schaf = sheep. Schal = scarf. Lesson learned.
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