An example of what I mean:
I, in China, told an English speaking Chinese friend I needed to stop off in the bathroom to “take a shit.”
He looked appalled and after I asked why he had that look, he asked what I was going to do with someone’s shit.
I had not laughed so hard in a while, and it totally makes sense.
I explained it was an expression for pooping, and he comes back with, “wouldn’t that be giving a shit?”
I then got to explain that to give a shit means you care and I realized how fucked some of our expressions are.
What misunderstandings made you laugh?
When I was living in Japan (about 20 years ago now), I was dating a Filipino woman who spoke very good English. But I quickly learned that she didn’t understand colloquialisms.
There was one day when she kept calling me multiple times throughout the day. After the 5th or 6th call, I picked up the phone and said, “Jeez, you’re killing me!”
She immediately started crying and asked, “Why would you ever say that?! I would never kill you!” Which got a laugh out of me and just made her cry even harder.
I quickly realized she didn’t understand English expressions. I explained it to her, but she said she didn’t want me to ever say it again, because just hearing the accusation hurt her, even if I didn’t literally mean it.
While dating her, I became hyper vigilant to the amount of expressions we use in English. I had to continually rephrase everything I said because I caught myself using so many colloquialisms that she just didn’t understand. She took everything so literally!