I’ve often wondered about this. I’d like to think I’m really darn good at English as it’s my only language.
If I moved somewhere and had to start over, it would probably take years before I learned a fluent vocabulary. Even then, I’d still be miles away from being able to write good poetry or craft pithy jokes.
I started learning mandarin and found out one of my coworkers names “sounds” like Flower Cat. He did not think it was funny when I started calling him FlowerCat in English
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Arabic first, English second, German third. Obviously.
German and third don’t go well together though…
If you acquired them all in early childhood they’re all your first language.
What’s a third culture?
kid born from immigrant parents that each immigrated from different countries.
Ah! Wow!
Kein Problem, Habibi, just be yourself.
No problem, Brudi, كن نفسك فقط
I had to look up the Arabic for “just be yourself” and was a bit taken aback.
The first example use of the phrase “just be yourself” reads:
Just be yourself and leave a pool of blood on stage.
I have to ask: is that a translation error or a really colorful German idiom?
I’m not funny in any language ;-;
Now now, that’s not fair. You’re probably hilarious in Swahili, but just haven’t found out yet.
Can confirm. Every swahilispeakinging person I know talks about how funny grranibal would be.
<3
I had brain surgery and hand to relearn how to talk and express my self and it was not working at all for years until I started trying to learn Spanish again, and then I realized that was my first language when everything clicked.
I get confused when I dream in other languages. Like, I guess that’s my first language at the moment.
This has happened to me once or twice, and I always found it extremely bizarre in my dreams when my friends were all speaking ancient Latin lol
Miss Worldwide
You should be at home in NYC, and can probably find other people like you
Sometimes I will make jokes to my friends that are untranslatable to english, and giggle to myself about it, while all of them are confused lol… but I think im also relatively funny in english and my other non-native languages, which is fine enough :3
The trick is to be equally unfunny in every language. Here’s how you do it:
I hear mines hate being stepped on. Apparently it triggers them.
Once you become proficient in the dark arts, barriers of language become mere opportunities to display your power.
You’re thinking of mimes
I feel this deeply
True humor transcends language barriers. If you have difficulty being funny in a different language, it means you’re relying too heavily upon puns.
It’s not just puns. Humor relies on expectations, which change depending on culture, so most jokes you memorize fall flat in a different language.
I don’t think so, every language has some concepts or words that translate poorly. Languages are also rooted in culture, so for instance some jokes in the English language are either hilarious or meh or fall flat depending on if you’re in the US, the UK or Australia.
I dunno. Some humor does, but man try watching comedians outside your home country with subtitles. So much of it just bombs. Come diams tap into shared experiences and the nuances of them. So much of that is culturally, geographically, politically relevant.
