That was in my salad days. One day in a small English class, the teacher (he was from US, by the way) asked each student to tell what we thought about the scientist story in the class book.
When it was my turn, I said: "fortune likes prepared people"
The teacher paused for a bit, then repeated my words, but didn't give any comment, like he did to other students
I thought he probably was shocked by my broken English then. 