Terrible bilingual jokes

[TuggyNE]

So, if the (Latin American) Spanish term for passionfruit is parchita, would the English term for what they call a parcha be "zealfruit"?

:smallamused:

1 Share your own! Or yell at mine, it's pretty bad. :smalltongue:

[enderlord99]

Omelette du Fromage.

[The Fury]

My signature is one. It's pretty bad.

[thubby]

My signature is one. It's pretty bad.

i don't speak spanish at all, but...i like to act like it??:smallconfused:

[BWR]

Some really bad translation puns, Norwegian and English.

He came driving in a bad car - Han kom drivende i et badekar (he came drifting in a bathtub)

He rushed down the stairs - han røska ned stærekassa (he tore down the starling-s birdhouse)



Or one story that supposedly happened in London: A man hailed a taxi and asked if the driver took credit cards "You see, I'm blakk [pronounced similarly to 'black']"
When the customer noticed that the driver was a black man he excused his odd remark by explaining "You see, in Norway we call poor people 'blakk.'"

The joke being that 'blakk' means broke, or in this case without cash.

[Axiomatic]

Literal, word-for-word translations are always good.

Kako da ne? - HOW YES NO? (it means why not)

[SiuiS]

Some really bad translation puns, Norwegian and English.

He came driving in a bad car - Han kom drivende i et badekar (he came drifting in a bathtub)

I've started an RP that way. No joke.

[Owlglass Moot]

Here's an English/Spanish/French one:

A Spaniard and a Frenchman are waiting at a train platform for their respective lovers to disembark. The train arrives and the Spanish lady descends gracefully into the arms of the Spaniard. The French woman goes to do the same but accidentally trips coming down the steps. Her skirt flies up over her head as she falls forward, embarrassing her greatly.

The Frenchman rushes to help his love to her feet, saying, "Do not worry, ma chérie! C'est la vie!"

Hearing this, the Spaniard looks over at the Frenchman, grinning as he replies, "¡Yo también!"

---

And it's not properly bilingual, but this is my favorite philosophy/Latin groaner:

Q: Why should you never say "Cogito ergo sum" before "Carpe diem"?
A: Because that would be putting Descartes before the Horace. :smallredface:

[Winthur]

I told a Jewish girl I'd like to see her labia menorah.

[inexorabletruth]

The best golfers choose spanish made clubs, because they're guaranteed to get a hole in Juan.

[Lon'qu]

My best bilingual jokes would probably be;

Why didn't the Japanese man pick up the snake?
Because it was too Hebi :smallcool:
(Hebi = Japanese for snake)

Karameru is both caramel and "to couple with' in Japanese
Also kame is both 'turtle' and the abbreviated version of camera

And (I don't exactly know if this would count as bilingual, but it's worth a shot, right?)

A lady was pregnant with twins, however due to reasons she and her husband had to put them up for adoption.
One was adopted by a Spanish family and he was named Juan, the other by an Egyptian family and named Amal.
Years later the mother got in touch with Juan and later that day she talked to her husband about wanting to meet her other son.
Her husband replied, "But honey, when you've seen Juan you've seen Amal."

[GolemsVoice]

There's an old joke among Russian-German emigrants.

The Russian words "vash mashin", (actually "vasha mashina", but Russians tend to mumble the end vocals), meaning "your car" is very similiar to the German word "Waschmaschine" meaning "washing machine".

Believe it or not, a few days after I read this, it happened to me.

[SaintRidley]

I'd post my best one, but coming up with it makes me a terrible person and I don't want to trigger anyone. Rest assured it's good.

[Jay R]

I wrote a Saxon-style alliterative verse in the SCA, about another bard. Describing one of his poems, I included the half-line, "That was good kenning."

I got the perfect response. Performed for 300 people, he laughed and nobody else did.

A kenning is a metaphoric reference like "swan road" for the sea, or "ash-snake" for a spear. The line above is pronounced very similarly to an extremely common formulaic half-line to praise a king with: "Þæt wæs god cyning" (he was a good king).

[Arkhosia]

The boy pulsavit the door!

The joke: in Latin, pulsavit means knock on or punch

[Eldariel]

Well, this one works for people who speak Finnish and Swedish (so most Finns I guess):
"Smör vägar, julsexan kommer tillbaka."

Literally, in English it would mean: "Butter roads, yulesix comes back." In Finnish, each of those words is a homonym, so the Finnish translation "Voi teitä, joulukuusi palaa." simultaneously means "Poor you, your Christmas tree is on fire."

Another one would be:
"Island, jag kommer och stannar -land"

Literally it's "Iceland, I come and stand -land"; in Finnish it's "Islanti, tulen ja jään maa", which is homonymous with "Iceland, the land of fire and ice".

[Flickerdart]

There's an old joke among Russian-German emigrants.

The Russian words "vash mashin", (actually "vasha mashina", but Russians tend to mumble the end vocals), meaning "your car" is very similiar to the German word "Waschmaschine" meaning "washing machine".

Believe it or not, a few days after I read this, it happened to me.
Along similar lines, the English phrase "thank you very much" when mangled by Russian foreign language education sounds like an imperative for a small child to grab a ball - Сенька, бери мяч.

[The Fury]

i don't speak spanish at all, but...i like to act like it??:smallconfused:

Roughly yes, that's what it is. I actually got when I was talking with this guy from México D.F. and I was mostly going for "I can't speak Spanish at all, but I like to pretend that I can."

[Ravens_cry]

There's an old joke among Russian-German emigrants.

The Russian words "vash mashin", (actually "vasha mashina", but Russians tend to mumble the end vocals), meaning "your car" is very similiar to the German word "Waschmaschine" meaning "washing machine".

Believe it or not, a few days after I read this, it happened to me.
Looking at some old Soviet cars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporozhets), I can see the resemblance.:smalltongue:

[dehro]

apparently you shouldn't ask for burro on your toast, in Spain, on account of how it means donkey, and not butter, which is what burro means in italian.

[Kato]

And then there was the German who was irritated when his English friend told him he'd bought him a gift. ("Gift" means poison in German)

Or the fact that Germans refer to their mobiles phones as "handys". Well, that's not really a joke, more a weird name for an item, if you're an English speaker.

[GolemsVoice]

If read a story about Jews who were evacuated from Nazi Germany, and when they arrived in port they thought they'd poison them anyway, because they read "Gift" or "Gift shop".

Sad story, actually.

[Telonius]

English/German one ...

English: "What's the weather out?"
German: "Mist!"

(Works as both a literal and figurative answer, since "Mist" refers to excrement).

[Kalmageddon]

Or the fact that Germans refer to their mobiles phones as "handys". Well, that's not really a joke, more a weird name for an item, if you're an English speaker.

This is relevant. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39EPz2JsbUk)

[dehro]

well.. if you put it that way... old but gold (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg0fmaCSDPg)

[Kato]

This is relevant. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39EPz2JsbUk)

Well, I'm going to forgive him for that joke because he is who he is :smalltongue:


There's the one about the (American) Indian who met a German and was punched in the face after he had greeted him.
I'm not sure how correct this is actually, but Germans at least believe the Indian greeting is "how" which means "punch" so...

And it's not really a joke but I always find it curious the common greeting in Bavaria is "servus".

[Eldariel]

English/French:
An Englishman is visiting a rural French town. He's sitting in a bar drinking a beer.

A French patron approaches him, points to his beer and says "fourmi".

The Englishman responds with slight irritation: "No no, for me"

The Frenchman thinks for a bit and repeats "Fourmi".

Quite agitated, the Englishman repeats "No, no, for me!"

This sequence repeats quite a few times until the Englishman shoves the Frenchman, who hastily leaves the bar.

The barkeeper, having witnessed the exchange, comes to the Englishman and explains the Frenchman was trying to tell him there's an ant in his beer.

"Heavens!", bellows the visitor, "I must apologize to him. Does he come here often?"
"Yes, daily." responds the barkeeper.

Next day, the Englishman again sits the bar drinking a beer. Eventually he does spy the same Frenchman entering, and beckons him over saying "Come here! Come here!"
The flustered Frenchman responds "Non, non, non pas comme hier!" ("comme hier" = "like yesterday" in French)

[BWR]

True story, so I am told and I hope I remember it correctly. Either way it's a fun story:
My sister studied a year in Poitiers, France. There she met, amongst others, some nice Irish lads. One of them told this story about his first day there. As a stereotypical Irishman must, he needed a drink after arriving, so a friend of his who had been there a bit longer took him to a bar. There, rather than beer or wine, he ordered some frilly drink. Before getting on to the drinking, he decided he needed some straws and was already at the bar before he realized he didn't know the French for 'straw'. "No matter," he thought "straws are basically small pipes, and 'pipe' is the same in both French and English. If I ask for two small pipes, he's bound to understand what I want".
Now you will pardon my French (ha ha) if it's not spelled correctly: "Deux petite pipes, s'il vous plaît".
The bartender, a rather large and rough looking fellow, I'm led to believe, looked rather puzzled. Thinking the look of puzzlement to mean he hadn't heard, our hero repeated his request in a loud, clear voice. At this the bartender reportedly grew red and started looking rather unpleasant. Fortunately, the second Irishman had heard this and came running, putting himself between the two and apologizing profusely for his ignorant friend. Once the bartender had calmed down, it was explained to the bewildered newcomer that 'pipe' was local slang for a blow-job.

[dehro]

I was already laughing halfway through the tale.. lol.. this couldn't go any other way...

[Kalmageddon]

True story, so I am told and I hope I remember it correctly. Either way it's a fun story:
My sister studied a year in Poitiers, France. There she met, amongst others, some nice Irish lads. One of them told this story about his first day there. As a stereotypical Irishman must, he needed a drink after arriving, so a friend of his who had been there a bit longer took him to a bar. There, rather than beer or wine, he ordered some frilly drink. Before getting on to the drinking, he decided he needed some straws and was already at the bar before he realized he didn't know the French for 'straw'. "No matter," he thought "straws are basically small pipes, and 'pipe' is the same in both French and English. If I ask for two small pipes, he's bound to understand what I want".
Now you will pardon my French (ha ha) if it's not spelled correctly: "Deux petite pipes, s'il vous plaît".
The bartender, a rather large and rough looking fellow, I'm led to believe, looked rather puzzled. Thinking the look of puzzlement to mean he hadn't heard, our hero repeated his request in a loud, clear voice. At this the bartender reportedly grew red and started looking rather unpleasant. Fortunately, the second Irishman had heard this and came running, putting himself between the two and apologizing profusely for his ignorant friend. Once the bartender had calmed down, it was explained to the bewildered newcomer that 'pipe' was local slang for a blow-job.

But he only wanted a small blowjob, that's entirely reasonable! That bartender should chill out.

[GolemsVoice]

On the topic, on of my German students wanted to say that he just returned from his girlfriend, but ended up saying that he just came OUT of his girlfriend. I giggled.

[Proud Tortoise]

In sign language it only takes a moment longer to say "he drove in a swerving, drunken fashion and careened off the right side of the road" than to say "he drove". I find this really funny for some reason.

[KuReshtin]

There are a few old tales of Swedish people trying to speak English, but not knowing some vital word that makes the sentence take on a completely different meaning.

Like the executive trying to show the good points of the Swedish manufactured fighter jet, the JAS-39 Griffin. At a demonstration in front of several foreign potential clients, he exclaimed excitedly:
'Did you see how it shot up in the air with great fart?' (The word 'fart' in Swedish means 'speed')

Also, before the implementation of Chip&PIN, it was customary for tellers at shops to ask customers for a form of identification when they wanted to pay with a credit card. The word used for 'ID card' in Sweden is 'legitimation', but since that's a bit cumbersome to say, it gets shortened in everyday use. This meant that an English speaking customer was very confused when trying to pay by credit card and was asked:
'Can I see your leg, please?'

[dehro]

lol.. I just had a Scrubs moment there, with the request to see my leg spouting a burlesque scene.

anyhoo, there's an age old joke anecdote out there called "the italian who went to malta".. I shan't repeat it here on account of how it's kinda long and so old you've probably all heard it multiple times. if not, just google it, it's quite funny.

on another side note, there are plenty of jokes related to the world of pilots and air traffic, which are less about the language than they are about the different nationalities..but some of them are really funny.

[GolemsVoice]

There was a German president who allegedly once told the queen that a dinner would soon start with the words "Equal goes it loose"

Which is a word-for-word translation of the German sentence with mixed with just directly translating the sound.

For people who speak German, the German sentence would have been "Gleich geht es los"

[Flickerdart]

But he only wanted a small blowjob, that's entirely reasonable! That bartender should chill out.
He did want two of them, though.

[BWR]

But he only wanted a small blowjob, that's entirely reasonable! That bartender should chill out.

Two small ones, actually. In my mind I am convinced the story would be better if the guy had tried to mime what he wanted.

One Norwegian on national television: "Don't you have piggs in your decks?"
What he meant to ask was "don't you have studded tires [for snowy/icy roads]?

[SaintRidley]

I wrote a Saxon-style alliterative verse in the SCA, about another bard. Describing one of his poems, I included the half-line, "That was good kenning."

I got the perfect response. Performed for 300 people, he laughed and nobody else did.

I love you.