Perdida en la traducion

I was talking to one of the hostal staff today while he was watching a war movie, so I asked him if he had ever seen ¨Saving Private Ryan.¨ And because he couldn´t understand the title in English, I tried to translate it for him in Spanish...literally. And it came out, ¨Hey, have you seen the movie, ´Saving Ryan´s Private?´¨ Oye.

He gave me a really weird look and when I realized what I had said, I spent the next five minutes convincing him that I was not referring to porn, but rather ¨private¨ can also mean a soldier of certain ranking blah blah blah. Fortunately, we were able to figure out the movie title together. (For your reference so that you don´t make the same mistake, it translates to ¨Saving Soldier Ryan.¨) But, really, why do I even try to speak Spanish?