Bilingual jokes?!?!

Guys, take a look at these pictures!

Do you find the above jokes humorous? In English, as in other languages, puns are always being used in jokes. In the above pictures, although the jokes themselves are nonsensical, the bilingual concepts behind are still worth discussing.

In the above pictures, the word “fan” and “match” were used as puns. For example in the first picture, while the viewers thought that the man was showing gratitude to his fans (with the meaning of followers or supporters), he was actually talking to his fans, the electronic one. And in the second picture, while the viewers, again, thought that the researcher had found a match (with the meaning of a well-suited sample), he found a match (it’s kind of hard to explain, but I think you know what I mean, just refer to the second picture if you don’t) instead. Puns are words that have several different meanings and the realization of these words requires a similar cultural background with the languages used.

And what’s more is that, puns are usually hard to be translated perfectly. In Chinese, we can use 風扇 and 追隨者/粉絲 to express the both meanings of the word “fan”, but we can’t form the same joke in Chinese.

From the above cases, we can conclude that, simply by knowing two or more languages won’t make you more bilingual, but you should have more understandings on the cultural factors implied. After all, just as what the linguistic experts said, language is something beyond words.