All three are mother tongues aka first languages.
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?
Neither. My guess is AI slop.
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
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.
I try with some cross-language puns between German and English sometimes but boy can native Germans be tough nuts to crack.
What’s a third culture?
kid born from immigrant parents that each immigrated from different countries.
Ah! Wow!
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.
You’re Swiss-Saudi?
No, I’m fully Swiss, but I grew up in the Gulf and was educated entirely in English. I had a bunch of local Arab friends, so unlike most Westerners in the region, I learned Arabic.
I get confused when I dream in other languages. Like, I guess that’s my first language at the moment.
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
Arabic first, English second, German third. Obviously.
German and third don’t go well together though…
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.
