I thought Harold Evans’ last column was quite good.

It’s no shocking revelation that I’m not a native English speaker. In fact, my mother tongue is Slovenian; a fairly difficult language to master even for willing. Although my (mis)use of it leaves much to be desired, I’d like to think I have a better grasp of it than of English.

Still, every now and then I happen to get into trouble because of a misunderstanding that is sometimes caused by as little as a subtly different perception of a word. Usually such problems can be easily spotted and rectified since nuances are much clearer to me in a language I’ve used for more than three decades.

However, I was less lucky when dealing with different cultures using English. One such occasion was using word hate improperly, as you might use it in Slovenian by implying a stronger disliking of something, but not an actual hate. I try not to transplant use of a word or a phrase between languages, but I’m sure I still make mistakes like this.

I also lost international friendships through years. Most of them probably because of my cultural ignorance and sometimes it seems the language we used came between us. I came to believe there’s a risk in knowing language well enough for people to assume you know what you’re talking about and not well enough to actually do.

So, does anybody have any personal language related horror stories to share?