Give me your wordplay and obscure culture references, I love them all.
“Was ist der Unterschied zwischen Schach und Billard?” - “Beim Schach hat man den Kö nich.”
“What’s the difference between chess and billiards?” - Answer is a pun, can mean both “In chess, you have the king.” and “In chess, you don’t have the cue.” Doesn’t translate at all.
An Ulster Scots on:
“Ballymena mawn went uptae glens in Canadae yin dae”
“An he saa tae yer man in the pub: What’s that thaer on tha wall?”
"An the publickan saa “Why, That’s a moose”
"Ballymena man saa: “Aye? That a moose? Sure, if thats a moose then yer cats must be wile big!” "
As a Canadian in Scotland, this is the number one joke I’m told by Scots. Closely followed by the statement “I’ve a (cousin/sister/brother/uncle/auntie etc) in Canada.” I swear, it’s probably 1 in 3 Scots with family in Canada.
In Japanese: 春夏冬
It means spring (haru), summer (natsu), winter (fuyu). What’s missing? Autumn. In other words, autumn (aki) is nonexistent (nai), so this is pronounced akinai, which means “not getting tired/bored of something”.After the workers are finished, Mandy from Saxony comes home to see the result of the house renovation.
The entire floor is covered in white bread.
She shouts “What’s this? I wanted parquet flooring, not baguette flooring!”(Parquet and Baguette are pronounced exactly the same in Saxonian dialect)
life is like a cucumber, sometime in your hand sometime in your ass. Arabic/Sudanese dialect
el eisha zey el ajoura, mara fi eedak, mara fi teezahk
……
what am i doing with my life 🙈
A joke in Spanish: ¿Como se dice “autobus” en alemán? “subanstrujenbajen”
Explanation: The question asks how to say “bus” in German. The answer is a form of the words “get on, squeeze, get off” made to look/sound like faux German.
I didn’t know alemán was another way to say “German.” I play early music, and it’s also a type of song known as a “German dance,” so that makes a lot of sense.
The French call Germany “Allemande” as well.
Spanish wordplay: ¿Por qué está feliz la escoba? Porque siempre barriendo.
Translation: Why is the broom happy? Because it’s always sweeping (barriendo = sweeping, sounds like va riendo = goes around laughing)
El pan está blando ¿Y qué dice?
Oye, esa oración no tiene sen—ooooooh. 🙈
Here’s one which only works if you know BOTH Portuguese and English:
“In Portugal it’s very common for old ladies to go to a coffee place and ask for a big cock”
(Explanation: the Portuguese word for milk with coffee - “galão” - also means “big rooster”. Those are the only two meanings it has in that language. However when you translate it to English you can use a certain synonym for “rooster” which can be read as having another, very different, meaning)
Finland and sweden were having a competition about which language is the most beautiful. Finland was let to choose the sentence and “saari, saari, heinäsaari, heinäsaaren neito”. In swedish its “Ö, ö, hö ö, hö ö mö”
(in english its “island, island, grassy island, grassy island’s maiden”)
Who’s the stinkiest Norse god? Gar-loki
Works better in Dutch, I swear
3 students share an apartment and 2 of them study a lot but the third spends most his nights partying. The 2 studious housemates decide to pull a prank on him, and one night when he comes home they are waiting for him next to the bedroom door wearing white sheets. One of the friends says ‘welcome friend, I am Peter!’. The other says ‘welcome friend, I am Paul’. The drunk house mate looks at them and says ‘Colleagues! would you mind stepping aside? I am Lazarus!’
yeah, that doesn’t translate… in Dutch, the names refer to St peter and St Paul and both end in -us as well: Petrus and Paulus. Also, ‘being Lazarus’ means being very drunk.
Får får inte får. Får får lamm.
sheeps don’t get sheeps. Sheeps get lambs.
Får = sheep/to get
var tog vägen vägen? Ute på en åker och åker
where did the road go? Out in a field and driving
“Tog vägen” = literally “took the road”, meaning “where did it go”, sort of. And åker = driving and a farm field.
I got a t-shirt from the Swedish Society for People with Anxiety. It came with a print on the chest.
“print on the chest” would be “tryck för/på/över bröstet” having the double meaning “preassure over the chest”.
Then there are endless of jokes from Gothenburg which all do not translate.
Who is faster, Eminem or Taylor Swift? Eminem, he is a rapper
“rapper” in swedish is “rappare”, meaning also “faster”.
In stockholm a snake escaped the zoo and has not been found. The zoo is missing him a lot
The last bit in swedish would be “saknaden är enorm”, “saknad” being the emotion of missing someone, “enorm” being large/a lot/great. But also enorm=en-orm=a-snake.
I hope this isn’t racist as I never thought it was. Best told to an English speaker who only speaks that one language.
A Chinese man is walking down the street and he notices a Chinese friend of his on the other side of the street, walking the opposite way. He yells across the street to his friend “(do fake Chinese talk)”. His friend yells back “(more fake Chinese talk)”. He answers him back with more fake Chinese talk while starting to laugh. He then laughs like a loon as if it is the best joke he’s ever heard.
There is no joke to get but only pretending there was one. Stupid and absurd, I know.
German joke with word play: " ‘Nur noch schnell einen runter holen, dann ist Mittag’ - Karl Heinz (Flackschütze)"
Flak ohne ck (von FLugAbwehrKanone)
Legastenie lässt grüßen
“Hello, I’d like one of those smurfs from up on that shelf, please.”
“Want me to get one down for you?”
“Sure, if I can get a smurf in return?”
Dutch: Er liep een man in de woestijn en die vond een kameel, maar de kameel vond van niet.
English: A man was walking in the desert and he found a camel, but the camel found he hadn’t.
I don’t know, maybe it works in English too.
I don’t get it, and I speak Dutch…
Well, OP didn’t specify good jokes…
Sorry, can’t help you there. There’s nothing less funny than explaining jokes, except maybe this joke…
Hibbedi bobbedi hopfn, jetzt hoats a mal dei Fotzn.
