Thiago's Translations

So, I work with this Brazillian guy. His English is pretty good, but he still tends to mess up American sayings that he's only heard once or twice before. Whenever I tell him a new little saying he always says he's going to test it out by finding a way to use it in conversation with his wife. He rarely gets the saying correct and sometimes even pisses her off because he mangles it so much. I try to feed him new sayings everytime I can, hoping he'll try to use it. The results are usually hilarious. I started writing them down to tell my friends, and I figured I'd post it here for them to check up on. It'll always be called "Thiago's Translations".

Here are a few I remember from the past:


Thiago likes his wife's skin. He kept telling her that he loves her "pale skin", and he said she kept giving him this look when he told her that. I told him that the word "pale" wasn't really flattering and usually has a negative connotation associated with it. I told him to try telling her, "I love your fair skin." Three days later he came back and said that she was even more irritated than before. Surprised, I asked what he told her. He said, "I told her "Your skin is very unfair."


A few months ago, a song came over the speakers at work. It was "Maneater" by Hall and Oats - an old 80's song. Thiago perked up and said he remembered that song. It was played a lot in Brazil when he was young. He always wanted to see the video though to see what a woman fighter looked like. Puzzled, I asked him what the heck a woman fighter had to do with that song, and he immediately started singing the chorus of "Whoa-oh here she comes. Whatch out boy, she'll beat you up. Whoa-oh here she comes. She's a bag beater!" After I stopped laughing, he explained that he thought it was about a woman boxer who beat up men, and she was called "bag beater" because she practiced on the heavy bag a lot.

And the last one for this post is a short saying I told him the other day. We were talking about something and I said "He kicked her to the curb". He started laughing and said that didn't make any sense to him, so I explained it. He then said he'd try to work that into a conversation with his wife in the next few days. The next day he said that his wife had never heard of that saying before. I told him that she HAD to of heard of it - it was very common. When he told me what he said to her I understood why she had no clue. He told her that he was going to "Beat her into the curb". I almost laughed until I cried.

Oh, one last one that I just remembered. One day he was running around doing some strange dance while saying "Meet me at the donut shop! Meet me at the donut shop!". Finally, I asked him what song he was singing. After hours of asking him about different songs I finally narrowed it down to The Humpty Dance by Digital Underground. The line he was mangling was "I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom." How on earth he changed that into "Meet me at the donut shop!" is beyond me.

That's my Brazillian buddy, Thiago.