An example of what I mean:
I, in China, told an English speaking Chinese friend I needed to stop off in the bathroom to “take a shit.”
He looked appalled and after I asked why he had that look, he asked what I was going to do with someone’s shit.
I had not laughed so hard in a while, and it totally makes sense.
I explained it was an expression for pooping, and he comes back with, “wouldn’t that be giving a shit?”
I then got to explain that to give a shit means you care and I realized how fucked some of our expressions are.
What misunderstandings made you laugh?
I’ve made this mistake and apparently others have as well: the words for lips (kuchibiru) and nipple (chikubi) got mixed up in my head leading to some awkwardness in Japanese.
But kuchi means mouth… seems not too hard to remind yourself that? Awkward nonetheless haha
My brain isn’t consciously thinking about the constituent parts of words as I’m saying them. I definitely don’t think “milk neck” when I think nipple, either.
Kubi means head or top in that case… milk head is a pretty good etymology for nipple ;)