ZombiepirateWhat's your favorite joke that doesn't translate to English very well?
KennystillaliveTwo divers meet. One say “Hi” the other says “where?!”
Two hunters meet. Both of them are dead.
TotallyNotSpezHai (similar pronunciation as hi) = shark
German:
Joke: “Hi” is spoke like “Hai” German for shark. So when two divers meet and one says hi, the other thinks, where is the shark??
Joke: “to meet” is translated in german as treffen. Treffen can also the mean to hit. So the joke goes from a freindly meet up between hunters to both of them hitting eachother while on the hunt and dying.
isnt it haifisch? rammstein vocabulary sorry
LumidaubHaifisch is also correct but less commonly used. Sounds a bit old-timey, my first association is Mackie Messer (Mac the Knife): “Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne”.
that song is actually pretty killer, pun intended…
the rammstein lyrics are also pretty dope:
Und der Haifisch, der hat Tränen Und die laufen vom Gesicht, doch der Haifisch lebt im Wasser – so die Tränen sieht man nicht.
cool little song also
silly goose meekahIm pretty sure a Haifisch is a specific species of fish that looks like a shark, but isn’t an actual shark.
hai, lika i svenska?
dunz
oni ᓚᘏᗢSpanish:
–Señor, mi mamá quiere saber qué vende.
–Dile a tu mamá que ceviche.
English:
–Mister, my mom wants to know what are you selling.
–Tell to your mom that ceviche.
Ceviche is, well, ceviche. In north west of México, we often say “vichi” to say “nude”. “vicharse” would be “get naked”, so “Dile a tu mamá que ceviche” can be a pun for “dile a tu mamá que se viche” (Tell to your mom that get naked)
I get it. The spanish wordt for swimming is “nadar”, which sounds almost the same. Seems like DuoLingo isn’t completely useless after all.
Imperative conjugation of nadar is nada
TheMadCodgerUn león comió jabón. Ahora, es puma/espuma.
ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠
LimfjordenFrom Danish: You can make a call from Ringsted to Thisted but you can’t pee from Thisted to Ringsted.
riot[off topic?]
Yiddish. Does not translate to Christian.
Old man goes to the same lunch counter every day and orders the exact same meal every time. Tuna fish salad on rye toast and tomato soup.
One day he walks in and orders his meal. The waiter brings it.
“Waiter, I want you to try this soup.”
“I’m sorry sir, I’ll get you a different bowl.”
“No, I want you to try this soup!”
“I’ll get the manager.”
“No, I want you to try this soup!”
This goes on for five minutes and finally the waiter gives up.
“Okay, I’ll try the soup. Where’s the spoon?”
“Aha!”
What really translates here for me is how exhausting customers can be.
If the server forgot to bring a spoon you could have just said that five minutes ago while the soup was still hot.
you could have just said
No, you could not, and that’s what makes it a Jiddish joke. It’s cultural, not linguistic.
FYI…you might want to edit. Or not, because it’s funny that way.
I don’t know about Yiddish culture, but there are a lot of cultures where it would be considered extremely improper to tell someone they made a mistake because this would ring shame on them – complaining to a superior even more so. In these cultures, you have to resort to such indirect clues as described in the joke to communicate complaints.
As I understand it, this joke describes the a clash between shame based and guilt based cultures making fun of both.
I didn’t know this joke had Yiddish origins. Funnily enough, it was told to me by my Jewish grandmother when she was explaining in a convoluted way that I should sweep before mopping 🤣.
One time, between classes we got on the topic of ethnic humor. The guy I told the joke to looked at me like I was insane, but the Russian immigrant woman who overheard it laughed. Someone else told me that Southern US folks would get it.
「野菜を食べやさい！」
I think a close-enough approximation (which isn’t close at all) would be “eat your veggies, peas.”
Is -やさい just a cheeky pun off of -なさい?
5回も誤解した
庭には、鶏が二羽いる。
I almost forgot about that one!
English is squeezing the last scraps of Japanese out of me. :(
GalI thought I might make a joke about the Deutsche Bahn but I don’t think it would go over well.
Tap for spoilerEdit: I should add explanations. “To go over well” in German is “(gut) ankommen”. “Ankommen” also means “to arrive” - which Deutsche Bahn trains are notoriously bad at doing in a timely manner.
Didn’t the German trains have such incredible reliability that they issued apology notes for workers when they arrived late, because bosses wouldn’t believe that’s why someone was tardy?
It’s also is Germany (and France, Malaysia, and Singapore). At least according to Wikipedia.
It’s possible Wikipedia is relying on outdated info though.
Not because our trains are usually so very reliable though. On the contrary, if DB has actually managed to implement a mechanism like that (I personally haven’t heard of it), that’s because they get so many complaints and people kept demanding some kind of documentation to show their higher-ups to explain why they’re always late.
My husband just reminded me what this actually is. It’s not for people being late for work, it’s for people demanding their money back from DB. And it’s only issued after the train was late for a certain time, an hour at least, iirc - because if they did this for shorter delays, they wouldn’t get around to doing anything but issue delay certificates. (Note that you only get the entire cost back when the train was delayed significantly, for several hours, otherwise it’s a partial refund at best.)
And in true German fashion, they privatized it only half-way, combining the disadvantages of a privately run enterprise with the drawbacks of a state-owned company.
There is a traditional saying in Germx’an: punctual as the railway. It’s meaning has shifted quite a lot after Deutsche Bahn was transformed from a public service to a private company. So yes, the reliability of DB is indeed incredible. They’d have to issue notes when they’re on time nowadays, though.
No matter how sloshed you may be, Goethe was a poet.
Tap for spoiler“Dicht” is a word for “drunk/pissed/sloshed”. “Dichter” is both “poet” and “more sloshed”.
Oh God there are so many of these.
No matter how young your friends are, Jesus's friends were apostles.
No matter how well you drive, trains drive freight.
No matter how empty you feel, remember, there others who are teachers (this one works out unexpectedly well)
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.
leadoreSpanish 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)
paequ2