In other threads discussing language, it’s said that idioms and humor don’t translate well between languages. Idioms I can see, there’s this whole culture thing missing, “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” and all that.
Puns I can see not translating well - they’re word related after all.
What about the rest?
Can you translate a joke into english?
(from French)
‘What do you call people who don’t eat meat?’
‘I don’t know. What?’
‘Why, the poor.’
My German teacher asked once:
What’s better than Bonnie and Clyde?
“I don’t know, what?”
Bonnie ohne Kleid! ahaahahahaha!
Ohne is “without”; Kleid is “dress.” *Bonnie ohne Kleid * is “Bonnie without dress” or “Naked Bonnie.” Wasn’t he a card?
Told in Russian by my Russian brother-in-law and translated for me:
Do you know what that big white thing in the bathroom is?
Uh, the toilet?
No, it’s a refrigerator. It’s my refrigerator. I can put it where I want!
Doesn’t really translate, I guess…
J.
Of course, there’s always the Funniest Joke in the World…
Ha! Ha! 
Riddle told to me in Ecuador by the local field assistants who were helping us with an Earthwatch project in the cloud forest:
Q: What is the most dangerous animal in the forest?
A: A gringo with a machete.
(If you don’t know what you are doing it is very easy to slice off a part of your body with a machete).
Not quite a joke, but supposedly a German proverb that we were taught in high school German class:
Wer ein Radi gut schneiden kann, kann auch gut tanzen.
A person who can slice a radish well is also a good dancer.
What the hell does that mean??
I’ve got two. The first is meant for English & Hindi speakers.
Q. What do you call a lonely banana?
A. Akela. (*Akela *is the Hindi word for lonely, *kela *is the Hindi word for banana, and it parses into English as “A kela.” Or one banana. Ha. Ha. Ha.)
Second one. My aunt told me this one fully in Hindi.
A man went shopping one day. He found there were these new kinds of underwear, silk boxers. Wow, he thought. He bought two pair.
The very next day he wanted to wear his new boxers, so he got dressed up and tied his *lunghi *(a lengthy piece of cloth wrapped just so around the bottom half or a person.) In his excitement, though, he completely forgot to wear his underwear. He went off down the street. On his way, he tripped over a rock and fell down, legs akimbo.
A woman was standing nearby and saw right up his lunghi. He saw the look on her face, and he said, “You like that? Well, it just so happens I have another one at home!”
It’s not a real knee-slapper, but “you are what you eat” shows its punny nature auf Deutsch: man ist was man ißt.
From Russian (this was a joke during Soviet days, it makes less sense now).
Census taker: Where were you born?
Russian: Sankt Piterburg
CT: Where did you grow up?
R: Petrograd
CT: Where do you live now?
R: Leningrad
CT: Where do you want to live?
R: Piter!
(Note- These are all the same city, the name changed for political reasons during WWI, and again after the revolution. “Piter” is the local name, which has never changed. Apparently, inhabitants of this lovely city are notoriously parochial in their worldview.)
From Slovak:
Two Hungarians are walking around, and since they are in Slovakia, agree to speak only in Slovak. One casually mentions to the other “Look at ta helicopter!” The other says, “You idiot! It isn’t ta helicopter, it’s ten helicopter!” First Hungarian, “Wow! If you can tell from here it’s ten helicopter and not ta helicopter, you have better eyes than I do!”
(Hungarian nouns don’t have grammatical gender and Slovak ones do. Hungarians are always making mistakes about which articles and such to use. “Ta” is the feminine form of “that,” “ten” is the masculine one. Hungarians, you see, are such idiots that not only can they not speak grammatically, they actually believe that there are male and female helicopters!)
Die bayerische Mädchen sagte, ‘Küss mir, Casimir!’
Casimir sagte, ‘Nicht “mir”. “Mich”!’
Die bayerische Mädchen sagte, " Küss mir, Casimich!’
(According to a German teacher, Bavarians often use ‘mir’ [to me] where ‘mich’ [me] should be used.)
I’ve heard a few Russian jokes that involve a hero coming upon a sign post in the woods and able to choose two or three paths as the setup, which is similar to our, ‘guy has to spend the night in a farmhouse’ setup. I can’t remember any of the jokes, but thought the setup was of interest.
Oh, and from French (Paris):
What is the first African city that the Paris to Dakar rally passes through?
Marseilles.
(Paris looks down on Marseilles enough that it might as well be part of Africa)
Seen by me on Russian TV, in 1993, in St. Petersburg:
Extremely serious-looking anchorman in the middle of the street, sporting a black armband, microphone in hand, is speaking, giving an eulogy with a background of funeral music: “Dear friends, we are here to give the last farewell to our friends. They were with us throughout all of our lives, and we will miss them sorely. We will never forget them”. As the man is saying this, a line of trucks is parading behind him, decorated with funeral wreaths. On the trucks it is written: “BREAD” / “MILK” / “EGGS” / “MEAT”…
Spanish joke (dated to the 19th century at least):
A priest is back in his village after a pilgrimage to Rome, and he is telling everybody about the marvels he has seen there, including St. Peter’s in the Vatican. At that point, one of the guys in the crowd interjects: “Indeed, the padre is right, that place is magnificent! The very cathedral of Seville would fit inside St. Peter’s!” The priest, amused, says: “But, my son, have you been there?” And the guy, unfazed, answers: “But of course! And the place is so huge that whenever the altar boys have to go from one side of the altar to the other, they have to ride a bicycle!”
(This one sounds WAY funnier in Spanish, believe me. The particular use of language here MAKES it funny).
Another Spanish one:
What is the difference between falling from the 2nd floor and the 15th floor of a building?
If someone falls from the 2nd floor of a building, you hear: THUD - AAAAARGH!
If someone falls from the 15th floor of a building, you hear: AAAAARGH! - THUD
Just my 2 eurocent!
A joke I heard in Russia:
A man with an incurable disease goes to a Dr.
The doctor says “you might try mud baths.”
The man gets excited and asks, “will that help?”
The doctor replies, “no, but you’ll want to get used to the idea of being covered with dirt.”
Cameroonian dirty joke:
One day the village had a contest to see who had the biggest penis. The first guy came in and his penis hung down to the floor. Then the next one came in, and he needed a wheelbarrow to cart it around. Each one got bigger and bigger. But the last contestant came in with his pants on. The judges asked why he was in the competition when it was clear that he had nothing special.
“Oh sorry,” he replied “I had to leave it at home, it won’t fit out the door.”
Two German jokes / puns…
Q) What’s the emptiest place in the world?
A) Canada (“keine da” = “no-one there”)
Q) What’s the name of the Chinese transport minister?
A) Um Lei Tung (“Umleitung” = “diversion”)
Cantonese:
Ngoh-geh hun mo bei.
[spoiler]My dog’s got no nose.
OK, that’s not a real Canto joke and it doesn’t work in Cantonese at all because the verb “to smell” does not have a dual meaning indicating “a smell”, but the entire setup makes me laugh a lot and mystifies my Chinese friends.[/spoiler]
There are a BUNCH of puns in Spanish in this vein… 
Q) What’s the name of the Secretary of the F.A.O.? (Food and Agriculture Organization)
A) Deborah Sandwich (“devora sandwich” = “Devours a Sandwich”)
Q) What’s the name of the adjutant to the Japanese Secretary of the Association for Upholding Morality?
A) Keputa Kesuna (“Qué puta que es una” = “What a whore one is” = “What a whore I am”)
Q) What’s the name of the Japanese Admiral of the Navy?
A) Sinado Nomajogo (“Si nado no me ahogo” = “If I swim I won’t drown”)
Q) How do you say “underground train” in German?
A) Subanempujenestrujenbajen (“Suban, empujen, estrujen, bajen” = “go in, push, squeeze, get out”).
There are plenty more, but I guess this is enough for now
Just my 2 eurocent!
A German joke, children for the delectation of:
What’s ‘thief’ in Chinese? - Lang Fing
What’s ‘police’ in Chinese? - Lang Fing Fang
What’s ‘police dog’ in Chinese? - Lang Fing Fang Wau