Reply To: Confessing to your Spanish speaking friend that you are actually cheese

You have to be careful about idioms. While JFK’s statement “Ich bin ein Berliner would not have been misunderstood in Berlin people from other parts of Germany listening would have understood him as saying that he was a jelly doughnut. For that matter, the English translation of Simcha Raz’ book about Rav Aryeh Levin mistakenly called a heater an over (both are called a תנור in Hebrew). A Sabra I knew wanted to use the word “closet”, He looked up ארון in a dictionary and came up with “casket”.