# Dual-language jokes/funny stories **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 17, 2008, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721 "2008-03-17T23:28:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/21 "2008-03-18T18:25:10Z")
Not quite the same but Flann O’Brien had a great little story with a posh Englishman and a working class Dubliner trying to have a conversation. I can’t recall most of it but “I beg your pardon” became “I pick up Auden” etc. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/22 "2008-03-18T18:41:02Z")
Why do French cats avoid the river? Cat sank. (_Quatre cinc_, or four-five.) ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/23 "2008-03-18T19:20:27Z")
How many stars are in the sky? 50! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/24 "2008-03-18T19:37:04Z")
This Polish/Englush joke made the rounds back around the time Solidarity was starting, and the economy was the pits in Poland: When a man walks into the butcher’s in America and asks for meat, the butcher says “Yes, sir!” In Poland when you walk into the butcher’s and ask for meat, the butcher says “Jest Ser!” \* \*(“All we have is cheese!”, loosely. Bear in mind that it’s pronounced just like “yes, sir”) ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/25 "2008-03-18T19:45:34Z")
Not a joke, _per se_, but I thought it was pretty damned funny. Some years back, a new building sprang up practically overnight in a shopping center parking lot. It featured a jazzed-up faux Greek facade, and was highly visible from the nearby freeway. After some weeks of public speculation as to what the nature of the business might be, the establishment finally added its marquee: “Playboy’s Gentlemans Club”. As there was, it would seem, no official affiliation or prior arrangement with the magazine of the same name, the first word of the marquee was removed after only a few days. No big surprise there. A couple of weeks later, I overheard my supervisor at work mention that the establishment in question had re-opened with a new name: “Parthenon”. It took me some moments to stop laughing for long enough to explain that _parthenon_ comes from the Greek word for “virgin”. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/26 "2008-03-18T19:51:40Z")
My sister went to Costa Rica once. She would sometimes get up early in the morning and go for a walk. Her landlord asked her once what she was doing. She said (or tried to say) “I’m walking for exercise”. He gave her a funny look, and she figured exercise must not be part of the culture there. She later figured out that she had actually said “I’m farting for exercise”. There’s a classic from Erma Bombeck. She supposedly went into a bar in a Spanish-speaking country and tried to order a beer by saying “Una cabeza, por favor”. Her husband turned to her and said, “You have just ordered a head”. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/27 "2008-03-18T19:56:12Z")
A triple Play – Polish/English/kinda Japanese joke. Told by Polish immigrants to others, because nobody else could get it. The explanation is longer than the joke, and kills and utterly guts the joke. I present it for your edification: “Did you hear that there’s a car made by a Polish company and a Japanese company in collaboration? It’s called the _Jakotocara_!” 1.) _Jakotokara_ is pronounced like “Yakotokara” in English. It sounds like a Japanese name, like Mitsubishi 2.) _Jakotocara_ means “What a car!” or “Look at this car!”, loosely, in Polish… 3.) …except that “cara” isn’t really a Polish word meaning “car”. That would be “auto”. “Cara” is a Polish/Englsh hybrid word made by sticking an “-a” at the end of the English word “car”. It’s the kind of mixed-language pidgin immigrants use. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/28 "2008-03-18T20:12:50Z")
Do dual dailects count? A friend told me one except I’ve never retold it because I don’t have the central fact of the joke memorized. Perhaps someone here can enlighten me. The story is either that a young boy from El Salvador is sent to visit an uncle in Mexico OR that a young boy from Mexico is sent to visit his uncle in El Salvador. The Uncle needs to make a repair to the roof which required him to put his ladder in the street. The boy’s job was to stay at the bottom and warn him if a car came. As he worked the uncle asked, “Viene carro, chico?”. Every few minutes he’d ask, “Viene carro, chico?”. He was about to ask again when WHAM he was thrown from the ladder and crashed to the ground flat on his back. “Why didn’t you tell me a car was coming?”, he asked his nephew. The boy answered, “You only asked about the little ones. The car that hit you was HUGE!” ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/29 "2008-03-18T20:25:18Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] My sister went to Costa Rica once. She would sometimes get up early in the morning and go for a walk. Her landlord asked her once what she was doing. She said (or tried to say) “I’m walking for exercise”. He gave her a funny look, and she figured exercise must not be part of the culture there. She later figured out that she had actually said “I’m farting for exercise” [/QUOTE] I’m fluent in Spanish - my wife, not really but she tries. I returned from the bathroom in Costa Rica to find everyone laughing. The bartender explained that my wife just asked him ¿Tiénes Cojones? She meant “do you have change” but forgot the word for change, so then she tried asking him for Colones, the money in Costa Rica, but instead said “cojones.” What she really asked him was if he had balls. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/30 "2008-03-18T20:33:06Z")
[QUOTE=Krokodil] Why do French cats avoid the river? Cat sank. (_Quatre cinc_, or four-five.) [/QUOTE] Variation on this… There are two cats, an English cat named 1-2-3, and a French cat named un-deux-trois, who decide to have a race, swimming across the English Channel. Which cat won? 1-2-3 won the race, because un-deux-trois cat (quatre) sank (cinq). Do you recognize this nursery rhyme? Lille beau pipe Ocelot serre chips En douzaine aux verres tuf indemne Livre de melons Un dé huile qu’aux mômes Eau à guigne d’air telle baie indemnes. (Little Bo Peep) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/31 "2008-03-18T21:06:55Z")
Not quite a joke, but an annecdote: My sister was taking Spanish in high school, and to encourage her to practice, one of our neighbors, a Mexican immigrant (though fully fluent in English) insisted that she speak to him only in Spanish. Well, one day, my sister was making cookies, but discovered that we were out of eggs, so she went to the neighbor’s house to borrow some. “Hector, may I please borrow–” “Non, non, en Español!” But she couldn’t remember “huevos”, so she was reduced to asking for “dos pojitos” (“little chickens”), accompianied by gestures: \ “Pojos” \ “Pojitos”. For at least a year afterwards, whenever that neighbor saw her, he would say “Pojos, pojitos”, and break out laughing. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/32 "2008-03-18T22:18:08Z")
The Czech for ‘heavenly love’ (nebeská láska) means ‘blue stick’ in Polish. And the Czech for ‘groceries’ (potraviny) is roughly the same as the Russian for ‘poisoning’ (отравление). Also, while the Czech word ‘užasný’ means ‘excellent’, the exact same word in Russian (ужасно) means terrible. I could go on, but these are not really jokes, just things that could become a joke. One thing that is a joke is that one time when we were in the Czech Republic, my father - who does not speak Czech - , upon entering a church, addressed the man collecting the entrance fees saying ‘na shledanou’, which means ‘bye bye’. We got in for free that time. This joke was actually a repetition of a meeting between Winston Churchill and a Dutch Prime Minister (Gerbrandy, I believe) some time during the war. The Dutch PM walks up to Churchill and tells him ‘goodbye’, which prompted Churchill to say that that must have been the shortest meeting ever. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/33 "2008-03-18T22:42:30Z")
There is a possibly apocryphal story that the American composer Edward McDowell once received a letter headed with a quotation from Wagner’s **Das Rheingold** : _“O singe fort!”_ (Oh sing forth!) McDowell was at first flustered because he interpreted the words in French, where they mean “Oh strong monkey!” ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/34 "2008-03-18T23:24:44Z")
[QUOTE=Švejk] The Czech for ‘heavenly love’ (nebeská láska) means ‘blue stick’ in Polish. And the Czech for ‘groceries’ (potraviny) is roughly the same as the Russian for ‘poisoning’ (отравление). Also, while the Czech word ‘užasný’ means ‘excellent’, the exact same word in Russian (ужасно) means terrible. I could go on, but these are not really jokes, just things that could become a joke. One thing that is a joke is that one time when we were in the Czech Republic, my father - who does not speak Czech - , upon entering a church, addressed the man collecting the entrance fees saying ‘na shledanou’, which means ‘bye bye’. We got in for free that time. This joke was actually a repetition of a meeting between Winston Churchill and a Dutch Prime Minister (Gerbrandy, I believe) some time during the war. The Dutch PM walks up to Churchill and tells him ‘goodbye’, which prompted Churchill to say that that must have been the shortest meeting ever. [/QUOTE] You can get a chuckle by raising your glass to toast and saying “Nádraží,” too. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/35 "2008-03-19T08:33:19Z")
[QUOTE=pravnik] You can get a chuckle by raising your glass to toast and saying “Nádraží,” too. 😃 [/QUOTE] Or you can say ‘Nice Driveway’ ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/36 "2008-03-19T10:12:39Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] “Did you hear that there’s a car made by a Polish company and a Japanese company in collaboration? It’s called the _Jakotocara_!” [/QUOTE] Similar jokes that are based on words sounding like some other language: Spanish -\> Japanese: How do you say “go for a ride” in Japanese? _Sakasumoto_. (_Saka su moto_ means “takes out his bike” in Spanish and sounds Japanese.) Québec French -\> Russian: Who is the oldest living Russian? _Itov Meyashev_ (Sounds like _I’ tough mais y’achève_, “he’s hanging tough, but he’s almost done.”) Québec French -\> Arabic: How do you say “widow” in Arabic? _Imahalla-imahal’pu_ (Sounds like _I’ m’achallais, i’ m’achalle p’us_, “he bothered me, he doesn’t bother me anymore.”) There was a joke I’ve seen several people fall for in Québec: Do you say a-NA-nas or A-na-nas? (The victim, who should not be a native English speaker, usually then ponders the question seriously and picks one of the two pronunciations. The answer is of course neither, it’s “pineapple”.) ---
**Author:** ![Trillionaire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aeb1de/32.png) [@Trillionaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trillionaire)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/37 "2008-03-19T10:47:13Z")
Five Englishmen are driving in an Audi Quattro from France into Spain. An officer at the border stops them, and says “sorry, quattro means four. One of you will have to get out and walk.” The men protest “That’s ridiculous, it’s just the name of the car, it’s nothing to do with how many people are allowed to travel in it.” The officer won’t budge “Quattro means four. One of you must get out and walk.” The men reply “This is crazy, do you have a supervisor or a manager we can talk to?” The official responds “I do, but at the moment he’s busy dealing with two guys in a Fiat Uno.” ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/38 "2008-03-19T12:20:26Z")
[QUOTE=lobotomyboy63] Do you recognize this nursery rhyme? Lille beau pipe Ocelot serre chips En douzaine aux verres tuf indemne Livre de melons Un dé huile qu’aux mômes Eau à guigne d’air telle baie indemnes. [/QUOTE] Un peu de thé d’un peu de thé ça tonné ouaille. Un peu de thé d’un peu de thé A dégrée te falle. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/39 "2008-03-19T12:33:37Z")
Jounalist and broadcaster Miles Kington once claimed that the French Navy had adopted a new, uplifting slogan, to spur its seamen on to valour and glory in France’s hour of need. “To the water! The hour has come!”. Or, in French: “A l’eau. C’est l’heure!” [Explanation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello,_Sailor). ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721/40 "2008-03-19T12:44:39Z")
I just remembered one: Canadians brutally kill young pup seals to make cotton. It’s true, every local I asked confirmed: _Ouate de phoque!_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dual-language-jokes-funny-stories/441721.md?page=3)