Forum 1
I think the story about Kumiko Tsuchida which was reported in The Times and The Guardian in June 1997 is true. When you don’t speak a language 100%, there is always a possibility of miss understanding, specially when we know that English from England can be difficult in its pronunciation, so if she only heard the place where the train was leaving it could be more possible that she didn’t understand than if she could read the ticket or the name of the destination of the train which was leaving to Tourqua. So for my believe this story could had happened for sure.
Forum 2
When I started to learn English in a college in California, I was in second level and my teacher told us to bring our journals on Tuesday, and I understood Thursday. I got confuse because the two days sound similar too me in that time, so when it was Tuesday I didn’t have the journal finish and realized I miss understood, that cost me a bad grade on that week.