How's That Again?

Communicating in another language is challenging. About a year ago, when I got up to preach, I meant to use the word "Muey-dong-theat" (they shorten this to ma-dong theat) which means "one more time". Instead I used "Muey-theat" which means "one other" or another. So, what I meant to say as we would study about Jesus "one more time" instead became we would study about "another" Jesus. My friend and translator Tawn just looked at me and said, "Are you sure? Who is this other Jesus?" Talk about a red face when I realized what I had said. Ma-dong theat or Muey-theat, so close but so far away.

Now, it's time for another (muey-theat) mess up. If you look at the words posted here, you can see they are very similar. The bottom word is the short and easy word for "kingdom". In teaching class, I wanted to use an example about a kingdom where I was the king and made the laws. I intended to write the "kingdom of Rich" on the board. They do have some very long and hard to spell words for kingdom, but I wisely chose not to use one of those. Because I was teaching and writing at the same time, I used "No-go" the shorter word for kingdom. I started to go on with my example, when I noticed several of the students were snickering. In looking back at what I had written, I had reversed the last two letters. I wrote "No-roc" the word you see at the top. What does that mean? It is one of the words for "hell". So, instead of the kingdom of Rich, I had written the hell of Rich. I don't want to say anything else about that.

Surely I learn from my mistakes. Nope, I did the exact same thing last week while teaching bible class at church. Teaching in another language sure keeps you humble.