Then the man goes downstairs, talks to the dock the dog says "are you looking
at me?". So he says "no I'm looking at your tail. The tail end of your weekend".
Then the dog says "woof woof"... Good morning, good afternoon
and good evening. Welcome to Smashing English!
Yes, today we are talking about jokes. Now I know what you're thinking "how on earth can a
joke teach me english?" well let me tell you. A lot of jokes rely on word play and phrases
that we already know to help it become funny and that's why humor is so hard to translate. Because
if you're not familiar with idioms and phrases and words and word play in a certain language
you're not going to find these jokes funny. So my hilarious partner Bez is going to tell us
some jokes and we are going to break those jokes down. We're going to learn about the phrases that
they use, common words and slang that people use, that native speakers use and we will simply learn
why they are funny. We're going to get a little bit of typically British humor. I think a lot
of these jokes sum up British humor in a way so without further ado let's hear the first joke.
Okay so this joke relies on the idiom "to put one's foot down". If you put your foot down you
stand up for yourself, you say "no this is where you stop. You know what? I can't accept this.
No I won't allow it. I am putting my foot down". The father said to his son "Okay if you are going
to act like that I am putting my foot down and you are not allowed to play on your Xbox tonight"
I'm stopping I am saying no, I'm being assertive, I'm standing up
for what I know is right. Put your foot down. So obviously in this joke the wife has said to her
husband "stop impersonating a flamingo" and the husband thinks "I can't accept that. I can't.
No no I won't stop impersonating a flamingo I'm gonna put my foot down" and obviously flamingos
always stand with one foot up and that's why it's funny. Okay let's hear another joke!
Again, this joke is only funny because they use word play. They are using
"and then it hit me". If something hits you you realize something very quickly, you have a
sudden realization. It's kind of like this face...
It hit me. Okay so obviously they are talking about the frisbee getting bigger
and bigger and closer and closer and then it hit me, then I realized why the frisbee
was getting closer and closer. It's because it's flying right towards my face. Next joke!
"Money talks". Money talks is a phrase that means if you have money you can get your point across
a lot easier than someone who doesn't have money. So if you are in a business meeting
and you're trying to talk to a very important businessman if you can show him that you have
a lot of money he'll listen to you. I see you know money talks, money is very persuasive,
money helps in a lot of ways. Let's hear another joke. Why not? I love jokes!
Okay, this joke relies on you knowing what a kleptomaniac is. A kleptomaniac is a more
technical term for a shoplifter. A shoplifter is a slang term for someone who steals things from
shops. The joke says that the problem with these people, with shoplifters is that they take things
LITERALLY. Now this comes from the phrase "to take something literally" so forget about kleptomaniacs
if we say "don't take things so literally" it means "don't hear things in a literal way. don't
listen to things and understand them in a literal way". So if i said to you "hey it's Friday night,
go crazy!". I don't really want that person to go crazy. I don't want them to jump off a building
and run around naked and that. Not that crazy, you know? So don't take what I say literally.
Don't think that what I say is actually accurate. It's just a phrase. I'm just giving you a phrase,
it's not a real thing I want you to do. However, if we take something LITERALLY that's using take
in a different way. We're using the verb take not in a metaphorical sense, as in taking words.
Taking an object. So the whole joke is like this. The problem with kleptomaniacs is that they always
take things literally, they literally take things, they really do it. Okay let's hear another joke.
So. if you want to understand this joke you first need to understand how we use the verb "to suffer
from". This is something we commonly use when we talk about diseases, illnesses, mental illnesses,
we say that we suffer from them or sometimes suffer with. So we might say "oh i suffer with
arthritis. I suffer from diabetes. I suffer with anxiety". Suffer from, suffer with. It's
the verb that we use to mean "we have it and we constantly have to deal with it". However
in this joke he's saying "look I don't SUFFER from anxiety" taking that verb suffer "I enjoy it". You
know? He's taking this phrase that we all know so commonly, "to suffer from insanity. To suffer
from this" but he's saying actually "there's no suffering. I love it!" because he's insane
and he's having a great time inside his head. Let's hear another joke shall we? I'd love to!
Again, to understand this joke you need to know the phrase "to run in the family". "Something runs
in the family". This means that a trait may be a gene or a hair color or a personality trait
is common in your family. It happens with a lot of people in your family. So we might say, "oh curly
hair runs in my family. We all have curly hair. My mum, my brother, it's just it's in our family.
and when I have children they will probably have curly hair because it runs in my family". So with
this joke obesity, that's another thing that we can say runs in the family, you know? If
someone suffers suffers with obesity or struggles with obesity (that's another thing we can say, if
someone struggles with obesity) they might say "it runs in my family", "all of my family are obese".
But he's making a joke, saying that "yeah it's not a problem that obesity runs in your family,
it's that NO ONE runs in your family". Using the literal verb "to run". You see? Comedy could be
translated! I'm not sucking the fun out of these jokes at all! Okay, let's move on to another joke!
I like this one because I'm an English teacher. If you've been watching the videos on my channel you
should understand this one. Obviously the present, the future, the past walk into a bar (they are all
tenses they're different tenses) so things "got a little tense". Now, we're using the phrase "to get
tense", "to feel tense". If something feels tense or if something gets tense the atmosphere
feels very awkward a bit scary. You don't know what's going to happen. You're a bit worried
about maybe the future and the past will fight. You're nervous for what might happen.
That kind of feeling. Okay, we have three more jokes to go. Let's go!
Hoover? Vacuum cleaner? Collecting dust? Okay, first off i'm going to be really boring
and teacher-like and i'm going to say that- look, he's used the present perfect. "I've
decided to sell. I have decided to sell". Why? Because it's a decision that he made in the past
but the results of that are still happening now. It's a recent decision. He hasn't sold it yet
but he's still got that decision in his head, it's recent, it's relevant. Now, just wanted to draw
your attention to that, but also he uses the word "hoover". Which I believe is the brand name so
vacuum cleaner is also used in the world but in Britain we tend to say hoover a lot more
than vacuum cleaner. But it's the same thing. You can choose. He's going to sell his hoover because
it's just collecting dust, that is literally what a hoover does. Hoovers collect dust.
But that is a phrase that we already have in English "to collect dust". It means something
that you don't use in your house, it just sits there and dust forms on it. That's it, doesn't
do anything. I don't move it. I don't use it. It just collects dust. So by using collecting dust
literally which is what a hoover does and the phrase to collect dust, we get wordplay.
A once-in-a-lifetime holiday. Once in a lifetime. This is a lovely adjective phrase. "Once in
a lifetime" means it only happens once in a lifetime. It's so special, it's so amazing,
it doesn't happen every year, it doesn't happen every two years, it's WOW so special! Once in
a lifetime. And then he says the very british phrase of "i'll tell you what". This is kind
of something that we say before an admission, before a confession, before we are about to be
quite honest about something. "I'll tell you what I think he's very attractive that man over there".
So he says "I'll tell you what, never again!" "Never again". Another phrase that we use to mean
"I will never do that again". So if we deconstruct the joke it's a once-in-a-lifetime holiday woo,
but because it's only once in a lifetime, never again, i'll never do it again. Does that make
sense? Humor's so hard to translate and even when you break it down you're not necessarily
going to find these jokes funny. But hopefully it'll help teach you these different phrases
that we use and you can use these jokes with english speakers and I promise you they'll get
them and they'll find them very funny. I found these very funny! okay let's hear one more joke!
Oh, i love this one! This is my favorite one! Conjunctivitis is an eye disease where your
eyes get very sore and very swollen. Not a nice disease to have. So conjunctivitis.com,
that's a site, it's a website, for sore eyes. They're using the idiom "a sight for sore eyes".
Now we use a sight for sore eyes for someone who is beautiful "oh wow! You look amazing! Oh you're
a sight for sore eyes! Look at you! You're a sight for sore eyes!". But we mean a SIGHT something
that we SEE. He's saying that conjunctivitis.com is a SITE s-i-t-e for sore "ow ow" eyes.
Does that make sense? So, this is why jokes are so hard to understand. If you don't speak the
language, because listen to how many different layers there are. It's like, "okay you need to
understand the words, you need to understand the structure but also you need to understand this
idiom and this phrase". There's loads of things that you need to understand to get these jokes.
But it's not impossible! It's not impossible. If you can break them down, figure out what the
different phrases mean you should be fine. So take these jokes, use them in your meetings or
with an English-speaking person and you'll get a lot of laughs I'm sure. Thank you so much for
watching. If you enjoyed this video please give it a like and if you want to follow us on Instagram
you can do so there. If you want an online one-to-one English lesson with me or my partner
Bez then you can do so down below. Thank you so much for watching and i'll see you next time!
Ta-ta!