The story about Kumiko Tsuchida was reported in The Times and The Guardian in June 1997. But do you really think it is true? Is it possible someone could travel two or three hours on a train and really think they had arrived in Turkey?
I think it's true because she was from another country, so it was easy for her to get confused with the name of the places, that in fact have a pretty similar pronunciation, and also if she had never been there before, she could really believe she was in the right place, maybe because she just new a few things about Turkey before going there. And talking about the train travel, is feasible that the time she spent travelling in there made her think that she was arriving Turkey, for example, if I want to travel to one place that would take me lets say 5 hours by plane to get there, but by mistake I take a flight to another place that take a similar amount of time, when I have arrived there, I probably would think I'm in the right place, but imagine how I would feel when I realise about the thruth, so better not to get confused!
Has anything happened to you because you mispronounced, or didn't understand, a word or name in another language (like Turkey and Torquay)?
Yes, when I was learning english on the elementary school, by mistake I said a bad word, and felt really bad about that. And now that I'm improving my english pronunciation I realise how easy is to mispronounce some words, at home is not a real problem, but when you are in a real situation you could get in real trouble, so it's better learn to pronounce well, and be far away from trouble!