Another one from Saxony.
A man drives his car to the junkyard, looking for replacement parts. He greets the owner and asks:
“Windshield wiper for a Trabant?”
The junkyard owner thinks for a moment, then replies:
“Sure, sounds like a fair exchange.”The Wikipedia page on East German jokes has a few Trabant jokes.
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What’s the best feature of a Trabant? – There’s a heater at the back to keep your hands warm when you’re pushing it.
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A new Trabi has been launched with two exhaust pipes – so you can use it as a wheelbarrow.
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How do you double the value of a Trabant? – Fill it with gas.
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The back page of the Trabant manual contains the local bus schedule.
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Four men were seen carrying a Trabant. Somebody asks them why? Was it broken? They reply: “No, nothing wrong with it, we’re just in a hurry.”
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How do you catch a Trabi? – Place a piece of chewing gum on the road.
The heated rear window one and the doubling its value one were jokes that we used to make about Skodas before they got good.
Also, what do you call a Skoda with a sunroof? A skip.
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Aha!
In case people are wondering: it’s indeed a german joke.
It’s a pun. “meet” and “hit” are using the same word in german
Come to think of it, that’s a thing in Swedish as well - we could make the pun work there as well:
Två jägare träffades. Båda dog.
Båda dog! Båda dog! No Treåt
(I know å is pronounced like “eu” like in Blåhaj. Couldn’t help myself tho)
For it to match Swedish phonetic rules, it would have to be:
Bäd dågg! Bäd dågg! Nåu trit!
Wouldn’t it be “Nåo trit”?
In the early 80s, American scientists and engineers produced the smallest precision drill bit ever created. With great pride and fanfare, they sent it to their West German colleagues for study and reproduction.
Just days later, the engineering team received a parcel. In it, a note: “Thank you for letting us test our equipment” and the original drill bit with a hole drilled through its center.
I know a variant
endingof this:I messed up a bit. They were sending the thinnest wire they could build.
Just days later, the engineering team received their
drillbitwire with a note attached: „The description got lost on the way. We didn’t know what to do with the rod you sent us, so we cut an internal threading into it. Best regards!“
One translated from Norwegian:
“Once upon a time… But now it’s a corridor”
I’ll supply the original and an explanation:
“Det var en gang… Men nå er det en korridor”
“Det var en gang” is literally “It was a time/an instance”, and it’s the main way every fairytale starts in Norwegian. But “gang” could also mean hallway.
“Det var en gang” is better translated as “Once upon a time”.
They showed that with their first translation. The second, more literal, translation is to explain the pun.
Two Bulgarians are driving through the countryside when they are pulled over by an officer. “Sorry to bother you”, says the officer, “but I’m looking for two child molesters.”
The Bulgarians look at each other for a moment, turn to the officer, and with a solemn nod say
“We’ll do it.”
Here a joke my english teacher always told us:
What says a Saxon in New York when he wants a Christmas tree? .
A tännchen, please.
The saxon “a tännchen” sounds in english like: attention
«done is done said the moose and walked over the river and became a reindeer.»
in norwegian done rhymes with deer, and reindeer rhymes with clean.
It kinda works because a moose and a deer are similar if not for the size, and both rain and rivers have water. It became a rain-deer.
Terrible pun, sue me.
I gonna explain the the joke in the picture.
The German joke is “Treffen sich zwei Jäger, beide Tot.”
THW important word is “treffen”. It can mean “meet” and “hit”(with a weapon). depending on the context
Oh I thought it was a Dick Cheney joke, I guess that’s the American version though. It actually made perfect sense to me even without the double meaning.
Ty, I figured there had to be a double entendre in there.
An angry Ontarian calls a radio show, and complains about all the Newfies coming to Ontario to take the good jobs. “We aughta build a wall to keep them Newfies out!”
Next call to the radio show is a newfie: “Owshegettinonb’y? Ye by’s be havin’ any jobs bildin tha’ wall or wha’?”
(How are you doing? You guys have any jobs building that wall, or what?)
Like 90% the “jokes” I heard growing up I couldn’t translate without getting banned for racism.
Like automodded, racism. Basically the “punchline” was often the n-word.
Funnybot, is that you?
It’s a bit like the shortest joke: A woman comes at the doctor…
Or in German: Kommt 'ne Frau beim Arzt…
This one works well in German and English, but I assume it’s untranslatable in many other languages.
Stupid question
Does it play on the double meaning of “come” being “to arrive” and “to orgasm”?
That. And the fact that doctor jokes have a well known scheme that’s broken here, as you’d normally expect the joke to continue after the sentence.
A woman comes to the doctor and asks “Can I take a bath with my diarrhea?” The doctor answers: “Sure, if it’s enough to fill the tub.”
That’s sadly the funniest German joke I’ve ever heard, I mean the punchline is there, but the set-up isn’t, meaning it’s closer to what I recognize as a joke than most Germanic Humor.
Edit: Nope, funnier German jokes are in this comment chain, I’m in a good mood today
One of my favorite Filipino jokes:
Why didn’t the priest go swimming in the ocean? Because it’s salt water.
“Salt water” in Tagalog can be translated as “tubig asin,” which sounds like the English “too big a sin.” Many Filipino jokes rely on Tagalog and English like that.
Here’s another (putting original Tagalog because it’s kind of relevant):
May joke ako tungkol sa airport kaso NAIA ako eh hehe.
English:
I have a joke about the airport, but I am NAIA (Ninoy Aquino International Airport) hehe.
NAIA sounds like “nahiya,” which means “shy,” so it would sort of translate to “… but I was shy.”
We have some like that in England, for example a Frenchman only ever carries one egg because an egg is un oeuf
What?
WE HAVE SOME LIKE THAT IN ENGLAND, FOR EXAMPLE A FRENCHMAN ONLY EVER CARRIES ONE EGG BECAUSE AN EGG IS UN OEUF
Oeuf is French for egg. “Un oeuf” sounds like “enough”
Québécois and a French learning Ontarian having a chat. The Ontarians goes - o look a fly, Québécois corrects him- A fly. O - wow you have good eyesight. Wregarde, un mouche- -Non, une mouche
For anyone who doesn’t get it: The joke relies on understanding how Latin languages gender words (Un v. Une, Masculine/Feminine form).So it literally doesn’t work in English. It’s also a common translation error non native speakers have because you only know the “gender” of a word by… Knowing if it’s masculine or feminine through experience.
Best way to carry the joke is:
“Oh look, a/un(male) fly.”
“No, it’s a/une(feminine) fly.”
“Wow, you have good eyes/Wow, you can see it’s genitals from here?”
Certainly clunky but hilarious if you speak French.
