I’ve heard it claimed German humour differs from English humour due to the grammar of the German language making it harder to hide the punchline, and so largely eliminating a lot of wordplay. The humour that remains is either cerebral (conceptual satire and such) or lowbrow slapstick.
Native speaker of German here and I am not sure about that. German tends to put verbs in the end in a lot of sentences, but apart from that, it’s mostly possible to use English-like word orders in German too; I don’t think the difference is significant enough that it would change the entire style of humor.
Nah, our humour and our everyday conversation is chock full of wordplay. Obviously it’s hard to detect the humour if one doesn’t speak the language. Humour is a nuanced thing anyways and also plays with cultural associations.
For example if I were with friends in a pub and only ordered one beer and someone asked me why and I replied: “I muss fei spare” , the text itself isn’t funny
(I have to save money).
But it would be funny because I said it in a slight Swabian accent and because of the cultural association of Swabians being penny pinchers.
It wouldnt be hilarious mind you, just a little funny to spice up conversation.
How would one translate or even understand that?
I’ve heard it claimed German humour differs from English humour due to the grammar of the German language making it harder to hide the punchline, and so largely eliminating a lot of wordplay. The humour that remains is either cerebral (conceptual satire and such) or lowbrow slapstick.
Native speaker of German here and I am not sure about that. German tends to put verbs in the end in a lot of sentences, but apart from that, it’s mostly possible to use English-like word orders in German too; I don’t think the difference is significant enough that it would change the entire style of humor.
Nah, our humour and our everyday conversation is chock full of wordplay. Obviously it’s hard to detect the humour if one doesn’t speak the language. Humour is a nuanced thing anyways and also plays with cultural associations.
For example if I were with friends in a pub and only ordered one beer and someone asked me why and I replied: “I muss fei spare” , the text itself isn’t funny
(I have to save money).
But it would be funny because I said it in a slight Swabian accent and because of the cultural association of Swabians being penny pinchers.
It wouldnt be hilarious mind you, just a little funny to spice up conversation. How would one translate or even understand that?