Language can be hazardous and fraught with pitfalls--especially if you're still learning to speak the language. An Indonesian friend of mine posted a photo of herself and three female friends on Facebook, all smiling brightly and looking quite satisfied, and she attached a caption to the photo which read: Eat us again!
Well, hmmm ... Either she has misunderstood some basic rules of English, or she's a different sort of girl than I thought!
But, of course, she meant to say that they were hungry and were about to eat again. Things tend to be turned around backward in Indonesian, and so she had the verb in front of the pronoun, which of course causes the sentence to take on a whole nuther meaning. Moreover, as the reader will appreciate, the phrase she used can be heard in English as a euphemism indicating a certain sexual act.
Of course, I've done the same sort of thing in Indonesian. I mentioned in a previous post my misuse of the word kenyang, which in Java means full (having eaten) but in Bali means that you have an erection. Just recently, I misused the word menarik, which means, among other things, 'interesting'. Saya tidak menarik," I said. I am not interesting. Well, true enough, but one does not usually like to admit it straight out like that. But what I meant to say is that I was not interested, and therefore should have used the word tertarik. Big difference, you see, between interested and interesting.
I corrected my friend, and had a laugh. I doubt that she will make the same mistake in the future. Just so, I appreciate being corrected when I make a mistake, for it provides the sort of on-the-spot learning that really sinks in.
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