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The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 1
By Heejeong Haas | July 18, 2007
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I talked about speaking simple phrases such as “thank you” and “nice to meet you” in Korean.
Today, I would like to talk about one common mistake being made in cross-cultural settings which I also witnessed at the conference and have witnessed numerous times in business meetings with American and Korean businessmen.
The key authority of the organization was about to give a speech to about 70 people mainly consisting of different nationalities. He started his speech with an Irish joke as many American speakers would typically do. At this, all the interpreters in the room gasped. I could see that some interpreters handled it well, and some newly-experienced ones had a face of “there we go again”. I knew exactly why those interpreters gasped. I also knew exactly why only a few attendees laughed. I turned around to the Korean official’s interpreter who was dumbfounded and told her not to say anything, instead I told the Korean official as follows:
“He told a joke. We will tell you later what the joke is about.”
Then both the Korean official and interpreter laughed.
So, was his joke rude? No, certainly not. It was funny to me, and funny to other interpreters. Did he say it in a plain, not-so-funny way? Oh no, he was a top notch speaker all right. Then why would I say such a thing to the offical?
I will talk about this in my next blog entry, but in the meantime, I want you to think about it why. And no, it is not because Koreans or other nationalities do not have sense of humor.
And before you go, please read the following joke that was once popular in Korea.
There was a dumb farm boy named Man-deuk. In the middle of a night, a thief broke in and said to Man-deuk, “Shut up and don’t move.” At the thief’s threat, Man-deuk sprung up and ran to the chicken coop and hit all the chickens to death and ran to the kitchen and took the rice bag and ran back to the room then put the rice bag over his head.
Isn’t it just hilarious? Yes, you are thinking “What?”
That was exactly the reaction other nationalities showed to his Irish joke.
See you in my next blog post.
Heejeong Haas
Topics: Communication |
July 18th, 2007 at 6:10 am
That’s the truth. Jokes 99.99% of the time fall flat. Heck even certain types of humor like sarcasm don’t translate well…even if you’re telling it in the listener’s native language. Looking forward to the next part.