Misunderstandings from a foreign language can be full of humor, especially if you can laugh at yourself. "Faux amis," the French call them, false friends; they fool you and lead you astray.

Many years ago my family spent a summer in Venezuela in a rented home, and I was the only one there one day when a serviceman come to restock the bar. He asked me if we needed any beer (cerveza). The most I could make of it was that he wanted a tip - for "service," or something, I guessed. (After asking three times and getting nowhere he ignored me, checked the supply himself. We didn't.)

But then, this was the same smattering-of-high-school-French-speaking Norteamericano who saw on a hill by the road leaving the airport a sign that read "fume fortuna," and thought how extraordinarily considerate of their tourist guests these people were: they even pointed out the volcanos for them...it's an advertising billboard, and it means "smoke fortuna cigarettes"!