Jokes

[Shemtov]

A Hispanic man who spoke no English went into an American department store to buy socks. He found his way to the Men's Wear department where a young lady offered to help him.
"Quiero calcetines" said the man.

"I don't speak Spanish, but we have some very nice suits over here." said the salesgirl.

"No, no quiero trajes. Quiero calcetines." said the man.

"Well, these shirts are on sale this week." declared the salesgirl.

"No, no quiero camisas. Quiero calcetines." repeated the man.

"I still don't know what you're trying to say. We have some fine pants on this rack." offered the salesgirl.

"No, no quiero pantalones. Quiero calcetines." insisted the man.

"These sweaters are top quality." the salesgirl probed.

"No, no quiero sueter. Quiero calcetines." said the man.

"Our undershirts are over here." fumbled the salesgirl, beginning to lose patience.

"No, no quiero camisetas. Quiero calcetines." the man said.

As they passed the underwear counter, the man spotted a display of socks and happily grabbed a pair. Holding them up he proclaimed "Eso sí que es!".

"Well, if you could spell it, why didn't you do that in the beginning?" asked the exasperated salesgirl.

[ol bofosh]

Still makes me smile. That's a lot more developed joke than the one I shared here already.

[Alessio]

Another couple of jokes from the Italian language.
A teacher is calling for the roll.
«Ragazzi, Ferdinando è presente?» (Guys, is Ferdinando present?)
«No prof, Ferdinando è gerundio!» (No, teacher, Ferdinando is gerund!)
In Italian, -ando is the suffix of the gerund mood for 1st conjugation verbs, like -ing in English. Thus when the teacher asks if the word is "present" (tense), they answer that it's gerund. Actually quite sad, considering that if the verb "ferdinare" existed, "ferdinando" would be gerund present, and thus technically they should have answered "yes" anyways.

Another one, which can't be translated wholly, so help yourself with Google a bit.
Un Direttore Generale di banca era preoccupato per un suo giovane collaboratore che, dopo un periodo di lavoro insieme, senza mai neanche essersi fermato per la pausa pranzo, comincia ad assentarsi a mezzogiorno.
Il Direttore Generale chiama quindi il detective privato della banca e gli dice:
«Segua il Sig. Bianchi per una settimana intera, non vorrei che sia coinvolto in qualcosa di losco!»
Il detective fa il suo lavoro, torna e rapporta:
«Bianchi esce normalmente a mezzogiorno, prende la sua macchina, va a pranzo a casa sua, fa l'amore con sua moglie, fuma uno dei suoi eccellenti sigari e torna a lavorare.»
Risponde il Direttore: «Oh, meno male che non c'è niente di losco in tutto questo!»
Il detective quindi domanda: «Posso darle del tu, Signore?».
Sorpreso il Direttore risponde: «Sì, come no».
Ed il detective:
«Ti ripeto: Bianchi esce normalmente a mezzogiorno, prende la tua macchina, va a pranzo a casa tua, fa l'amore con tua moglie, fuma uno dei tuoi eccellenti sigari e torna a lavorare!»

Explanation: the Italian polite form requires you to talk to your interlocutor in 3rd person singular (also, always feminine); thus, you say "is she OK?" instead of "are you OK?", for example. However there is no difference between "his" and "her": possessive pronouns decline according to the gender of the noun, not that of the owner. Thus when the detective says that mr. Bianchi takes "his car", eats his lunch at "his home", has sex with "his wife", smokes one of "his excellent cigar" he actually means the boss's car, home, wife and cigar. The misunderstanding is clarified when the detective asks if he can "give some You" (which means, referring to the other people using the informal 2sg) and starts listing "your car, your home, your wife, your cigar".

[ol bofosh]

What do you call a pair of fearful Spanish poets?

Co-bardes (cobardes=cowards)

[Shemtov]

Here's a (possibly terrible) Linguistics joke:



4chan's random imageboard is the only imageboard on the 'net dedicated to a single phoneme.

[Torco]

What do you call a pair of fearful Spanish poets?
Co-bardes (cobardes=cowards)

Ah, the good old days, when the plural of bards in spanish was bardos and not bardes :P

maybe it works in catalan tho ?

[Tomos]

Is it true that there aren't jokes in Japanese?

[Santophrin]

Is it true that there aren't jokes in Japanese?

I just searched a bit but all I found are some puns. Not exactly what goes around for a "joke" for English yet some are very funny. (At least I think so)
Some ones from a site I found:
http://www.funjapanese.net/how-to-remem ... aji-jokes/

父さんの会社が倒産した。
(とうさんのかいしゃがとうさんした)
Tou-san no kaisha ga tousan shita.
Father's company went bankrupt.

父さん(とうさん) tou-san : father
倒産する(とうさんする) tousan suru : to go bankrupt -> tousan shita : went bankrupt

予想はよそう。
(よそうはよそう)
Yosou wa yosou.
Let’s stop making predictions.

予想(よそう) yosou : prediction
よす yosu : to stop -> yosou : let us stop

I don't know if these sound juvenile to Japanese people but they were funny, I laughed.

[Tomos]

Like Nossan's jokes in Kyoryuger! I laughed at his:

Konna no nairon tawashi!
こんな の ないろん たわし！
There are too many nylon scouring pads!

Konna no nai: Too many
Nairon tawashi: Scouring pads

I also recall the punchline of a Mandarin or Cantonese pun in one of Moses McCormick's videos on YouTube.

[Lambuzhao]

I am not a "dog person". I do not really like dogs. Yet, I can appreciate their sense of humor.

Hey, I know a joke! A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, "I forgot to store acorns for the winter and now I am dead." Ha! It is funny because the squirrel gets dead."



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9gHZPDh12g

I laughed way too long at that joke in the theater.
Sometimes I think I never actually stopped.

[Party God]

A yeísta Spanish visual pun:

Spoiler:

What do you call a pair of fearful Spanish poets?
Co-bardes (cobardes=cowards)

Ah, the good old days, when the plural of bards in spanish was bardos and not bardes :P

maybe it works in catalan tho ?

Not in dialects without betacism. Bards has a /b/ and covards has /v/, and there are some people who would say that bards are foreign by definition and Catalan poets are trobadors instead.

I am not a "dog person". I do not really like dogs. Yet, I can appreciate their sense of humor.

Hey, I know a joke! A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, "I forgot to store acorns for the winter and now I am dead." Ha! It is funny because the squirrel gets dead."



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9gHZPDh12g

I laughed way too long at that joke in the theater.
Sometimes I think I never actually stopped.

LOL. Now that's a cynical joke!

[eldin raigmore]

.... cynical ....

I see what you did there.

[atman]

A yeísta Spanish visual pun:

[Ànradh]

I am not a "dog person". I do not really like dogs. Yet, I can appreciate their sense of humor.

Hey, I know a joke! A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, "I forgot to store acorns for the winter and now I am dead." Ha! It is funny because the squirrel gets dead."



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9gHZPDh12g

I laughed way too long at that joke in the theater.
Sometimes I think I never actually stopped.

That film had many great moments.
"Squirrel!"

[Xing]

Here are a couple of jokes from my Tamil textbook:

-I was married before my father.
-How was that?
-He sat down before the marriage platform.

-What film did you see in the end?
-I see every film from the beginning.

[Squall]

Chespirito is the best humour author ever.

Traditionally in these countries, children many times conjugate irregular verbs as regular verbs and adults correct them when they use wrong conjugation.

-Where is my son?
-Não sabo. - I do not know. - Wrong conjugation of irregular verb (saber).
-Não sei. - I do not know. - Correct conjugation of irregular verb.
-For this reason you asked me.
-I was saying how to conjugate the verb correctly.
-What is the correct conjugation?
-Não sei. - I do not know.
-If you do not know, why do you correct me?

[ol bofosh]

Ha ha. It would be "no sabo" vs. "no sé" in Spanish (saber, to know). My nephew stills says "ponido" instead of "puesto" (past participle of poner, to put). So do I sometimes.

[Dormouse559]

I'm not sure it would work in French. "Savoir" doesn't even pretend to be regular in the infinitive. There's no such thing as a regular "-oir" verb. But then, I don't have much experience with francophone children.

[Egerius]

I've got one for you:

As you might know, German uses some particulaily hideous ways to form plurals (Ablaut and Umlaut).
Children and teens make errors using these even in the 10 grade, which can be very embarassing: During a German lesson, plurals were practiced and one of the pupils said *"die Vögeln" ( vögeln = pejorative expression for "to f k"), instead of "die Vögel" (the birds, the singular is Vogel).
Needless to say, the teacher replied "na, ich hoffe nicht!" (well, I hope they don't!)...

[Torco]

Que chespirito no es mexicano?
Isn't chespirito mexican? the original joke would have been with no sé and no sabo.... i think i remember having heard it?