little things hanging by safety pins

hi
my portugese flatmate has portugese friends round. they are all studying engineering at a portugese school. they play the guitar and are generally wholesome.
today when they were cooking they said "we want to cook pasta. can we have the thing that boils the water? what is it called?"
"a kettle" and i pointed at the kettle
and then they brought down something else off the shelf that wasn't a kettle but they thought i was pointing at it and  kept calling it a kettle
we also spoke about swearing in english and portugese and how its okay for me to say fudas but not so okay to say filho da puta and that i shouldnt really say it because it would be calling someones mother a bitch. i didnt really think of it in such a literal way but i guess its true and anyway i sound chinese when i try and speak  portugese so i really shouldnt.