A Canadian man is giving a speech in English to a large audience of Koreans, and a local resident is also on the stage with a microphone translating into Korean. The Canadian tells a joke — something to help reinforce his latest point. It’s the translator’s turn, and the Korean says:
“Our speaker has told a joke. Unfortunately, it’s an English-language joke and it won’t translate into Korean. So please laugh now.”
Everyone laughs! The speaker goes on.
This story offers two insights:
- A translator’s task isn’t simple or easy.
- Humor doesn’t always carry over across cultural and language barriers.
I once attended a workshop about dealing with different cultures. The leader was from Brazil, and we had people from places like Denmark, Canada, South Korea, and Australia. Collectively, we had enough English-language skills to get along. The leader explained that humor can depend on its host language. “I am sure you can each think of a joke that you can tell in English, but which the rest of us won’t understand if we have a different mother tongue. Does anyone want to try?”
After a few seconds I got my hand up and was able to deliver a perfect specimen. The punchline is “Knick knack, Paddywhack? Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone.” If you’re a native English speaker, you can already imagine the basic outline of the joke. As I got close to the punchline, the Aussie howled “Oh no!” When I finished, the native English speakers laughed — that nervous guilty laugh that goes with such a long yet stupid joke, but it’s still a laugh. The others looked blank — even the Danish woman who had spent a year in America working with children. And of course the Brazilian.
A few months later I learned a joke (from the Aussie, incidentally) that might pass in any culture. You don’t even need language. It will pantomime perfectly well.
A man is peacefully asleep. Along comes a fly. It buzzes next to his ear and wakes him up. He’s angry about this, and it happens several times. Sometimes he even thinks the fly is in his hear. He’d like to swat the fly down, kill it entirely, but it evades him.
Finally he does succeed in catching the fly out of the air. Now it’s trapped in his closed hand — he can hear it buzzing in there. A vengeful smile crosses his face. With a gentle rocking motion and a peaceful tune, he lulls the fly to sleep. He listens closely; no sound. He cracks open his hand and puts his mouth up next to it.
“B-ZZZZZZZZZZ!”
