Brains, Not Braun
As everyone knows, when you’re learning a language they teach you generally useless phrases. Anyone who has ever taken Spanish in high school knows what ¿Dónde está la Biblioteca? means.
Today at lunch (every Friday I take my team out for hot pot) we were talking about the difficulties in learning Chinese and English—subject/verb agreement, present and past tense, masculine and feminine, and so on. Someone remarked that the words and sentences I teach them are much more fun and useful. I said, “Yeah, in our Chinese class they teach us useless phrases too, like Wo yao liang ping niu nau.” Everyone started laughing, and I asked why. I thought I had said “I want two bottles of cow’s milk.” What I actually said was “I want two bottles of cow’s brains.” The correct phrase is Wo yao liang ping niu nai. Nai means milk, nau means brains.
I could just see myself in a supermarket, thinking I’m all cool and hip because I know a little Chinese, going up to a clerk and asking where the milk is, and having her plop down a big sack of brains in front of me.
