Thursday, June 09, 2005
International Humor
Living in Dublin has given me many opportunities to gain insight into foreign culture, but as there is so much to learn I opted for a short cut,I'm just going to learn to say "Cheers!" and tell a joke in a variety of languages. The theory behind this is that wherever I end up, the pub is always the first point of call, and it'd be impolite to go the pub without wishing good health to others.
So far, "Cheers!" is the greatest success:
Prost! = German
Yammas! =Israeli (?)
Yackheydow! = Welsh
Slancha! = Irish
Salude! = Spanish
Kombeh! = Korean
Kombaih! = Japanese
Nastroiva! = Russian
Sveikata! = Lithuanian
These are all of course, spelt phoneticaly
The joke task is much harder, it requires the language skills I don't have, but I have learnt some translations.
From the German comedy, Seiben Zweger I have:
"A woman goes the the Doctors and she says, "Doctor Doctor, it's sore when I touch here, here and here, what's wrong with me?"
The Doctor says, "You have a broken finger!"
(Did I mention the woman was blonde?).
Lithuanian jokes seem to revolve around hedgehogs.
"A hedgehog found a bomb, but nobody found the hedgehog" seems to be as classic as a knock knock joke,but my favorite so far is:
"A hedgehog falls down a hole and everytime he tries to climb out he falls back down. He's trying this for hours on end until he says to himself "Right, one more try, then I use the ladder".
But last night I got the best result yet, while at the house of a Chek friend, showing them how to play table football properly, I was introduced to the antics of Mat & Pat. It follows the adventures of two friends who when faced with a simple task, such as painting a gutter or paving the garden, will concut some unnecessarily complex solution drawing upon their ample DIY skills, and naturally, it never quite goes to plan. Best of all, its all silent comedy so it has universal appeal, allowing me to laugh along with everybody else. And man, it might have been the situation, it might have been the new comedy, hell it might have even been the bong, but Mat & Pat are my new favourite comedy team, move over Punt & Dennis
So far, "Cheers!" is the greatest success:
Prost! = German
Yammas! =Israeli (?)
Yackheydow! = Welsh
Slancha! = Irish
Salude! = Spanish
Kombeh! = Korean
Kombaih! = Japanese
Nastroiva! = Russian
Sveikata! = Lithuanian
These are all of course, spelt phoneticaly
The joke task is much harder, it requires the language skills I don't have, but I have learnt some translations.
From the German comedy, Seiben Zweger I have:
"A woman goes the the Doctors and she says, "Doctor Doctor, it's sore when I touch here, here and here, what's wrong with me?"
The Doctor says, "You have a broken finger!"
(Did I mention the woman was blonde?).
Lithuanian jokes seem to revolve around hedgehogs.
"A hedgehog found a bomb, but nobody found the hedgehog" seems to be as classic as a knock knock joke,but my favorite so far is:
"A hedgehog falls down a hole and everytime he tries to climb out he falls back down. He's trying this for hours on end until he says to himself "Right, one more try, then I use the ladder".
But last night I got the best result yet, while at the house of a Chek friend, showing them how to play table football properly, I was introduced to the antics of Mat & Pat. It follows the adventures of two friends who when faced with a simple task, such as painting a gutter or paving the garden, will concut some unnecessarily complex solution drawing upon their ample DIY skills, and naturally, it never quite goes to plan. Best of all, its all silent comedy so it has universal appeal, allowing me to laugh along with everybody else. And man, it might have been the situation, it might have been the new comedy, hell it might have even been the bong, but Mat & Pat are my new favourite comedy team, move over Punt & Dennis
