During breakfast, an Italian asks for burro while pointing to the butter. It sounds Chinese (me suena a Chino ) to us Spaniards; burro is the word we use for ‘donkey’ (in Spanish butter is mantequilla)…

Whilst this incomprehensible muddle sounds Chinese for the French (on dirait du chinois ) too, the Italians would tell you it sounds like Arabic (Parlare arabo ). 

An Englishman hears the Greeks saying that something sounded Chinese - he would probably respond that to him in fact it really sounded like Greek , or double Dutch.

To top it all, if a Finn were to pass by and hear all this, he would settle the discussion by adding that everything the others were saying sounds Hebrew to him.

To a German, this tower of babel would sound Spanish (das kommt mir Spanisch vor) .

This article was fist published on cafebabel.com 14 August 2007, translation Claire Thorne