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Is anyone into multilingual puns and poetry?
I speak five languages: French, Dutch, German, English and Spanish. Not my fault, just my life's circumstances. But now I am faced with a slight dilemma: I really enjoy making multilingual jokes that most people cannot understand and a joke is never funny when you have to explain it; like, for example, saying to my brother (now unfortunatly on the other side of the globe): "You are completely hammer!", a literal translation of the French expression "Tu es completement marteau", meaning you are completely nuts. Are there any hubbers who would like to share multilingual puns and poetry?
asked by Sue Adams 2 months ago
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GusTheRedneck says
Yes and No. Idioms in one language are likely to be meaningless to folks who do not speak that language or who are even in a different area of the country of that language. An example - the various dialects of German. I was taught some German in school. Later, I was assigned to the SW area of Germany. I could scarcely understand a word the people were saying. (Ufer da Bruck for Ueber die Brueke, Do for du, Ne for Nein, and so forth.) Anyway, I used pronunciation in a dumb poem here on Hubpages - it was named "The Nazi Party." In German, I'd have written "Leuten" which would have rhymed OK in German, but English speakers would say, "Looten." I wrote "Loytin" to keep everyone happy! ;-)
Shelly Bryant says
I mix puns from Mandarin and other Chinese dialects into English, typical of what everyone does in Singapore. It really doesn't translate well, except for other people within the community, like you said. I seldom use it in my poetry, unless I can make it make sense to a larger audience.
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