Burning Donkeys

I was perusing a book today about National Geographic's collection of Extremes.

I was on a page containing the most poisonous plant on earth, or something of that sort.

It was the Australischen Brennnessel.

(I got this from the internet)

It is a kind of plant, some subtypes of which are trees and some, shrubs.

Yesterday, my grandmother and I went to a Wald (Forest), to have a small walk and also to collect some Bärlauch (bear onions). Why they were named that way, I don't know.

I asked my grandmother that and she figured that maybe it's a kind of plant that bears used to eat a lot in earlier times.

Anyway, we were supposed to collect the Bärlauchs. They look like small tulip leaves by the way.

My grandmother started gathering them, and I followed suit, amidst the grass and weeds growing along side the Lauchs, everywhere.

Suddenly, I saw a curious-looking small weed and I touched it, at the same time I asked my oma what kind of weed that was. She answered me saying , Brennnessel. I yelled then, because my fingers were burning.

It turns out that Brennnessel is a kind of plant whose leaves have some kind of posion to defend themselves from people or creatures like me, who would try to pick and destroy them .

Today, I saw this plant again and I mentioned this to my Oma.

''Look Oma, it's that Brenn-Esel (prounounced  bren-eysel) from yesterday!''

,,Ein Was?  (a what)'' she asked, totally confused.

''Ein Bren-Eyysel'' I said.

Then she started laughing out hard. Hard that at first I still didnt realize what I did wrong.

She repeated ''bren-eyysel'' again, together with another roll of laughter, and then I got it and laughed hard together with her too.

This story may not seem to be so funny to any normal person, but it made oma's and my day therefore I would like to share it with you guys out there.

Brenn-Eyysel turned out to mean something completely different from the poisonous leaves to which I was pointing.

Brenn in German means ''burn or burning''

And Esel (Eysel) means ''donkey''

So yeah, my line might have sounded like, ''look oma, it's that burning donkey we saw yesterday!''

Hahaha. I still laugh, remembering this story.

I guess the lesson is, we make mistakes all the time.

Most of the time we get embarassed by making them, but sometimes, they do cling themselves to us as really funny and memorable experiences.

In a language like Deutsch, where beginners are bound to make mistakes with every other sentence,

Patience, and humor, are powerfully needed.

Till the next case of burning donkeys everyone!


(from http://www.picturesdepot.com/animals/9176/donkey.html)