You're TRULY Fluent in English if You Can Understand These

Did you hear about the claustrophobic astronaut?

He needed a little space.

If you understood that joke, you're already on the right track

to becoming fluent in English.

Understanding jokes shows that you're thinking in English.

It means that you get the nuances, the wordplay, and the cultural references.

It also improves your listening skills, enhances your vocabulary, and most

importantly, helps you connect with other English speakers on a more personal level.

Personally, whenever I'm feeling a little down, I hop onto YouTube and I

watch a video from one of my favourite comedians and that always cheers me up.

I've put together a list of my favourite comedians and of all the jokes that

you're going to hear in this video.

These are all inside the lesson notes that you can download for this lesson.

Just follow the link in the description.

First up — puns.

Puns are all about wordplay.

They use words with multiple meanings or similar sounding

words for humorous effect.

Here's a classic, "I used to be a baker.

But I couldn't make enough dough."

Get it?

Dough is slang for money, and it also refers to the mixture used to make bread.

"I used to be a baker.

But I couldn't make enough dough."

Puns are great because they make you think about the different

meanings of words, which is fantastic for enhancing your vocabulary.

Here's another great pun.

"My wife called me at the bar last night.

She said, if you're not home in ten minutes, I'm giving the dinner

I cooked for you to the dog.

I was home in five minutes.

I'd hate for anything to happen to that dog."

Did you hear about the Italian chef that died?

He passed away.

This pun plays on the word 'pasta', which sounds like 'past' in 'passed away'.

Passed away means died.

Oh, it's a bit corny, isn't it?

If a joke is corny, then it means it's trying too hard to be

funny and it's pretty unoriginal.

Here's another funny one from the boys at DocTalk.

"I'm reading a horror book in Braille.

Something bad's gonna happen.

I can feel it."

Why don't skeletons fight each other?

They don't have the guts.

This joke is a clever play on words.

'Guts', in English, are the insides of a human, all the gooey

bits that skeletons don't have.

So he didn't have the guts.

To have the guts is a phrase that means to have courage, which is why

they don't want to fight each other.

Hmm?

Clever.

These types of jokes can also be called one-liners or dad jokes.

They're short, witty statements that deliver a punchline in a single line.

A punchline is the final part of a joke or story that provides the

humour or the surprise, the part that makes the audience laugh.

And we say that something is a dad joke if it makes you laugh,

but also makes you go, "Oh!"

Here are some more classic one-liners for you.

"The topic of school.

You, uh, you're looking at a very proud Canadian who is very proud of

the education system in Canadia."

He's very proud of his country and education, but

he calls his country Canadia.

Which suggests that he hasn't been very well educated, so his pride is misplaced.

"I was horrible in school.

I failed Maths so many times I can't even count."

I love this play on words.

If you can't count, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, then you've missed

out on some very basic education.

But the phrase, 'I can't count the number of times that something

has happened', then it means it's happened many, many, many times.

I can't count how many times.

So it's very clever.

"I preferred French over Chemistry because the Chemistry teacher

and I just didn't have any, um,

rapport."

Ah, this is very smart because instead of saying, 'we didn't have

any chemistry,' which means we didn't have a connection, he used the French

origin word 'rapport', which means to have a good relationship with.

Now let's talk about knock-knock jokes.

Knock-knock jokes are very simple and have a specific formula and

they are often delightfully corny.

Here's an example,

"Knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"Yoda lady."

"Yoda lady, who?"

"I didn't know you could yodel."

Knock-knock jokes are great for practising conversational structure and

understanding homophones, words that sound alike but have different meanings.

"Knock, knock."

"Who's there?"

"Lettuce."

"Lettuce who?"

"Let us in.

It's freezing out here."

Here we have the homophone 'lettuce', the vegetable or salad,

and let us, which means allow us.

Lettuce, let us.

Lettuce, let us.

Now, let's get a bit more sophisticated with satire.

Satire uses humour, irony or exaggeration to criticise or mock, often

targeting politics or societal issues.

To better understand satire, let's look at some examples from YouTube.

Here's an example from Saturday Night Live.

"Collect them all and the fun never stops.

Awesome!"

And here's an example from a BBC clip.

"Excuse me?

Excuse me?

Sorry.

Um.

Do you speak English?

No, I don't sorry.

Oh.

Um, my car's broken down and I wondered if you could tell me where to find a garage.

Yeah, well, you know, that's, that's wasted on me.

I don't, I don't understand what you're saying.

You don't speak any English at all?

Not a word, no.

That's one of those things where I wish I paid more attention in school, but, um...

Excuse me, excuse me, sorry.

Do you speak any English?

English?

No.

What's the problem?

I don't know, I can't understand.

Hi, uh, my car's broken down and I need to find a garage.

No, I'm so sorry, I didn't understand that at all."

Finally, a BAFTA's opening monologue.

"But do not worry your overly-filmed heads, I'm not going to use your

faces as punch lines or punch bags — you've suffered enough.

No one works harder than us, apart from people in other professions.

I'm putting in a couple of hours today, I'm shattered."

If you enjoy satire, you can also find newspapers in English

that only publish hilariously satirical articles, like this one.

Of course, this is referring to how many of the British politicians are

quite wealthy and have a hard time relating to the general population.

There are also newspapers from other English-speaking countries like

Ireland and the USA, like this one.

This article from the Irish newspaper Waterford Whispers refers to the Irish

famine in which two million people died and emigrated and relating that to the

solution to Ireland's housing crisis.

Do you get the satire in this next video?

"Northerner has been accused of terrorising London by

walking around saying, hello

Generic Northerner, Stephen Malley left Londoners traumatised by his

attempts to interact with them in a friendly, cheerful manner."

This video has cultural significance pointing to the fact that it is

said that Londoners never say hello to anyone they don't know.

The British are said to have a very sarcastic sense of humour and it's true.

We use sarcasm quite a bit.

The thing with sarcasm is that we say one thing and we mean entirely the opposite.

And this can get quite confusing for English learners, especially

if it's done very subtly, which is quite often the case.

I even did a video covering sarcasm and I'll leave a link

to that in the description.

To recognise sarcasm, you have to listen to the tone of voice in which it is

delivered or the look on someone's face.

"Oh, another beautiful English summer's day."

"Do you need help?"

"No, thanks.

I'm really enjoying the challenge."

"Oh, my car's broken down it's broken down.

That's just what I need."

The best way to get better at recognising and using sarcasm is through practice.

Watch British TV shows, movies, and try to notice when

characters are being sarcastic.

Shows like The Office, Blackadder and Fleabag are great examples, but one of the

most famous sarcastic characters on TV was Chandler on the American TV show Friends.

Well, the tough thing is she really wants to have sex with me.

Crazy bitch.

So today we looked at puns, one-liners, knock, knock jokes, sarcasm and satire.

How did you do?

Remember, jokes often reflect cultural values, current events

and even the quirks of daily life.

By unravelling these nuances, you're not only learning to speak English

more fluently, but also gaining insight into the subtleties that make

English-speaking cultures unique.

Now, go and access the lesson notes from the link in the description where

you can watch many comedy videos, explore different types of humour, and

practice your understanding of jokes.

It's a fun and effective way to enhance your English language.

If you have a favourite joke, then I'd love to hear about it.

Please write it in the comments below.

Thank you for joining me.

Until next time, take very good care, keep laughing, and I'll and goodbye.