English speakers often experience a privilege on vacation that no speakers of any other language does. That is, knowing that many people around the world will understand what you are saying.
English has spread farther than any other language, largely because the British Empire imposed it across vast territories and made it the default for official life—everything from courts and government to trade and finance.
Later, that reach was reinforced by the economic and cultural power of the United States. But relying on English abroad can backfire: some everyday words can sound like something crude, insulting, or just plain wrong in another language.
A quick way to grasp the problem is to think about how the German word for a trip, ‘die Fahrt’, can sound to English ears. In a similar way, travellers speaking English can accidentally say things that locals hear as rude or embarrassing—even when no offence is intended.
Language-learning platform Babbel has highlighted a set of common slip-ups that can catch English speakers out, especially when a familiar English term resembles a taboo word elsewhere.
One of the biggest to remember: be extremely careful asking for salsa in Korea.
Phonetically, “salsa” can resemble 설사, pronounced ‘seolsa’—which is the Korean word for ‘diarrhea’. That kind of mix-up can be mortifying in a restaurant, and it may not be received as a harmless mistake.
Babbel notes that these unfortunate overlaps have a label: ‘sordophones’, meaning ‘dirty sounding words’.
Portugal is another place where an innocent English word can land badly. If you’re in Lisbon, it’s worth thinking twice before chatting loudly about your payday.
That’s because “payday” can be heard as ‘peidei’ in Portuguese, which means ‘farted’. The same caution applies in Brazil as well, where Portuguese is spoken by more people than anywhere else.
Hungary has its own awkward near-match: if someone brings out sweets, telling them you like their cookie may not come across as you intend. In Hungarian it can sound like ‘kuki’, meaning ‘small penis’.
Even compliments can go wrong in Albania. Mentioning a “car” can be misread because ‘kar’ means ‘penis’. And this type of confusion isn’t limited to one region—it can show up across multiple languages.
French has a couple of famously risky sound-alikes. Saying you love God may be heard as ‘godes’ (a dildo), while saying you like something “a bit” can be taken as ‘bite’, which means ‘c*ck’.
Babbel also points to Dutch: telling someone they “haven’t made the cut” can echo ‘kut’, a term that corresponds to the c-word.
In China, casual insults can escalate fast if a phrase is interpreted as something harsher than you meant. Calling someone shabby can resemble 傻屄, or shÇŽ bī—Chinese for ‘stupid c*nt’.
Finally, two more everyday English words can cause trouble in specific places. Avoid “pitch” in Turkey, where piç means ‘b*stard’, and be careful with “mist” in Germany, where it translates to manure.