Lost in Translation

This afternoon when I walked into the first year MBA student lounge (which is basically a large study room with a study space for each student) one of my classmates was at his desk. He looked like he was studying pretty hard but I wanted to say hello so I asked him what he was working on he told me that he was studying "boki". Boki...boki? I kept saying it to myself but it wasn't ringing any bells and my classmate wasn't sure how to say it in English so I quickly pulled out my electronic dictionary to look it up. (Note: Having an electronic dictionary around here is like having a cell phone. If you don't have one, you are looked at as though you just stepped out of the dark ages. I carried a paper dictionary around with me for the first 4 months I was here until I could afford a good e-dictionary and I swear my classmates looked at me like I head 3 heads!)
I begin looking for "boki" in my dictionary and thus began my "lost in translation" moment!

Now, he said "boki ぼき" but he could have been saying "booki ぼうき" or "bokki ぼっき" and from the way he was pronouncing it, to me it sounded like "bokki ぼっき" so that's what I type in the dictionary and when my search results came up I immediately started chuckling and trying my best to hide my embarrassment! I told him that I was laughing because I couldn't find the right word and gave him the dictionary to see if he could find it. When he took the dictionary from me he typed in "boki ぼき" which written in Kanji is 簿記 and means bookkeeping. What I was looking up was "bokki ぼっき" which written in Kanji is 勃起 and means erection! Oooops! I thanked him for teaching me a new word and excused myself to my own study area.

It was a simple mistake (for a non-native Japanese speaker) but that tickled me for the rest of the afternoon. Today my vocabulary was increased by two very important terms, bookkeeping 簿記 and erection 勃起. Thank you 電子辞書! (electronic dictionary)