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Not everything needs a word-for-word translation, especially when it’s only going to hurt someone’s feelings.

One college student ran into that after an exchange student saw her dad adding caramel syrup to coffee from her home country.

She joked that he was ruining the flavor, but the dad didn’t understand what she said.

So, instead of translating it exactly, the student softened the comment.

Later, her brother accused her of lying and said their dad deserved to know the truth.

Read on to see if you think she handled it the right way.

AITA for giving my dad an inaccurate translation of what the exchange student said?

My sister befriended an exchange student from our university.

She is from a major coffee bean-producing and exporting country and is very proud of their Arabica coffee.

She came over yesterday and was at first happy to see that my dad has coffee beans from her country. But she got quite disturbed to see him adding pumps of caramel syrup to his cup of coffee.

She and her brother had different ideas on how to handle it.

She said that her country’s coffee has a great fruity taste and he’s “contaminating it.”

Dad seemed a bit confused and asked us what she said. My brother, sister, and I looked at each other before I told him that she was just a bit surprised by him adding so much syrup to it.

My brother later said I shouldn’t have lied to our dad and that he has the right to know what someone said about something he did/his habit.

AITA?

Yowzers. That’s quite the moral dilemma.

Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit think they should’ve handled it.

For this reader, the only person who didn’t do anything wrong was the dad.

Here’s an excellent point.

According to this reader, it was just a softening of the words.

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If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who finally blew up after years of being treated as the second-best sibling.

So true.

Her brother made a big deal out of nothing.

In the grand scheme of things, she was only trying to spare her dad’s feelings over something completely harmless.

It wasn’t some huge secret, and nobody was trying to deceive him about anything important.

At this point, it’s best to just let it go and move on.

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Author

Heather Hall

Heather Hall | Contributing Writer, Life & Drama

Heather Hall is a contributing writer for TwistedSifter specializing in internet culture, workplace conflict, and viral customer service stories. With over a decade of editorial experience in digital publishing, Heather excels at curating trending online discussions and providing insightful commentary on the daily dramas that capture the internet's attention.

Since beginning her career in 2011, she has developed deep expertise in SEO-driven digital content, having written for a wide array of publications covering lifestyle, business, and travel. At TwistedSifter, Heather focuses on synthesizing complex social media threads into engaging, highly readable narratives that highlight the human element of viral news.

When she isn’t analyzing the latest internet discourse, Heather is a dedicated mother of three sons who takes family gaming nights entirely too seriously—whether she is dominating in Mario Kart, exploring The Legend of Zelda, or jumping into Roblox.

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