Lost in translation.

In my experience as a Native Speaker teaching English, any lessons connected with comedy can go two ways. Extremely well or be an absolute disaster. Which is probably why I generally try to avoid lessons about comedy and jokes, as humour doesn't always translate.

But I thought I'd try and put that right and look at 'wordplay' in this blog. So many jokes are based on wordplay, especially 'puns' (gra słów). If you want examples of pun-based English humour, go to YouTube and search for 'Tim Vine'.

Wordplay relies heavily on 'homophones' (see blog 13th June) and 'homonyms' (see blog 17th August).

These types of words feature a lot in children's jokes, so I thought I'd share a few with you. I'm not offering any explanations, just see if you can work out what is humorous.

1. Why are Saturday & Sunday the strongest days?.....Because the others are weak days.

2. Your battery is flat. That's why it won't start.

Oh dear! What shape should it be?

3. Why can't Cinderella play football?

Because she's always running away from the ball.

4. Waiter! What's wrong with this egg?

Don't ask me sir, I only laid the table.

And finally a joke from Tim Vine, who I mentioned earlier....

I said to the gym instructor: ‘Can you teach me to do the splits?’

He said: ‘How flexible are you?’

I said: ‘I can’t make Tuesdays.'”

So are you a fan of this type of humour? Did you understand any of the jokes and their use of homonyms and homophones? I hope at least they may of just put a little smile on your face.

Until next time......

#nativespeakerbrzegdolny, #englishhumour, #nativeway