[Multilingual Monday] Multilingual Jokes
Adapted from the Russian jokes page on Wikipedia:
A new Chinese ambassador is to meet Gromyko. When the latter enters, the Chinese ambassador puts his hand out and introduces itself: "瑞徽 (Ruì Huī)!" Gromyko, unperturbed, retorts "Жуй сам! (Zhui sam)!" The surprised Chinese asks: "Ah, nice to meet you; where can I find Gromyko?"
The joke: 瑞徽 sounds like Russian жуй хуй, "chew a dick," leading the Russian character to respond Жуй сам, "Chew it yourself!" There's multiple language misunderstanding jokes going on here, thus the joke.
(I admit: I picked the nicest characters that would sound something like the Russian жуй хуй; I'm not sure the joke's ever come with plausible name hanzi but if they have, let me know!)
A much lamer language gag -- yes, they DO get lamer: I went up to Carl this weekend, and said, "Do you want to see my dong?"
"... what???"
"My dong. You gotta take a look at it."
Carl crooked an eyebrow at me and I took out an old North Vietnamese bill, worth 50 đồng.
"I'm amazed how big my dong is. I wasn't expecting it to be so large."
With that, Carl sighed, gave me a dirty spousal look, and left the room.
(I trust no explanation is necessary here!)
So, I'd love to hear some other language misunderstanding jokes -- the floor is open!
A new Chinese ambassador is to meet Gromyko. When the latter enters, the Chinese ambassador puts his hand out and introduces itself: "瑞徽 (Ruì Huī)!" Gromyko, unperturbed, retorts "Жуй сам! (Zhui sam)!" The surprised Chinese asks: "Ah, nice to meet you; where can I find Gromyko?"
The joke: 瑞徽 sounds like Russian жуй хуй, "chew a dick," leading the Russian character to respond Жуй сам, "Chew it yourself!" There's multiple language misunderstanding jokes going on here, thus the joke.
(I admit: I picked the nicest characters that would sound something like the Russian жуй хуй; I'm not sure the joke's ever come with plausible name hanzi but if they have, let me know!)
A much lamer language gag -- yes, they DO get lamer: I went up to Carl this weekend, and said, "Do you want to see my dong?"
"... what???"
"My dong. You gotta take a look at it."
Carl crooked an eyebrow at me and I took out an old North Vietnamese bill, worth 50 đồng.
"I'm amazed how big my dong is. I wasn't expecting it to be so large."
With that, Carl sighed, gave me a dirty spousal look, and left the room.
(I trust no explanation is necessary here!)
So, I'd love to hear some other language misunderstanding jokes -- the floor is open!