And I a former teacher of English! LOL
EDIT: I once had an adult student, a government official from the country I was living in at the time, attending one of my adult evening classes. He signed up because he was going out of town to a conference where there would be many people - other government officials - from different countries meeting & discussing 'business'. He wanted to be able to hold a conversation with others in English, speaking about things he & his family did, during times of non-officlal business, such as dinners & lunches.
At one point he said the phrase - in practice thank god - 'My wife & I PLAYED HARD last weekend' in reference to his leisure time with his wife, with absolutely NO CONTEXTUAL WORDS around the phrase....dear mother of god...I lost my composure & burst out laughing, as he sat their looking at me stone faced, and embarrassed, which is never a good sign when teaching a second language
That was the one & only time I burst out laughing when teaching, because it is never a good idea to be knocking the wind out of the sails of your students....but for the love of all that is holy, I HAD to explain WHY he shouldn't be saying this, especially with no context attached to the phrase, before he went on this trip...
Try as I might once I got myself together, I could NOT find a way to explain - in an APPROPRIATE MANNER - *why* this was not a good phrase to be using when having conversations with people, *especially* those he would be first meeting in an official capacity LOL
He finally got across to me that what he was trying to convey was the idea that he & his wife had been playing some hardcore games of golf outdoors, and was trying to use some vocabulary he heard on an English TV show, wishing to give the impression that he was a 'hip' guy LOL *and* an avid golfer.....also not a good idea if not true as someone may wind up inviting y'all to a game of golf....and then yer buggered haha
and I don't mean with just yer English!