Spanish:

–Señor, mi mamá quiere saber qué vende.

–Dile a tu mamá que ceviche.

English:

–Mister, my mom wants to know what are you selling.

–Tell to your mom that ceviche.

Ceviche is, well, ceviche. In north west of México, we often say “vichi” to say “nude”. “vicharse” would be “get naked”, so “Dile a tu mamá que ceviche” can be a pun for “dile a tu mamá que se viche” (Tell to your mom that get naked)

“Was ist der Unterschied zwischen Schach und Billard?” - “Beim Schach hat man den Kö nich.”

“What’s the difference between chess and billiards?” - Answer is a pun, can mean both “In chess, you have the king.” and “In chess, you don’t have the cue.” Doesn’t translate at all.

Spanish wordplay: ¿Por qué está feliz la escoba? Porque siempre barriendo.

Translation: Why is the broom happy? Because it’s always sweeping (barriendo = sweeping, sounds like va riendo = goes around laughing)

「野菜を食べやさい！」

I think a close-enough approximation (which isn’t close at all) would be “eat your veggies, peas.”

Får får inte får. Får får lamm.

sheeps don’t get sheeps. Sheeps get lambs.

Får = sheep/to get

var tog vägen vägen? Ute på en åker och åker

where did the road go? Out in a field and driving

“Tog vägen” = literally “took the road”, meaning “where did it go”, sort of. And åker = driving and a farm field.

I got a t-shirt from the Swedish Society for People with Anxiety. It came with a print on the chest.

“print on the chest” would be “tryck för/på/över bröstet” having the double meaning “preassure over the chest”.

Then there are endless of jokes from Gothenburg which all do not translate.

Who is faster, Eminem or Taylor Swift? Eminem, he is a rapper

“rapper” in swedish is “rappare”, meaning also “faster”.

In stockholm a snake escaped the zoo and has not been found. The zoo is missing him a lot

The last bit in swedish would be “saknaden är enorm”, “saknad” being the emotion of missing someone, “enorm” being large/a lot/great. But also enorm=en-orm=a-snake.

life is like a cucumber, sometime in your hand sometime in your ass. Arabic/Sudanese dialect

el eisha zey el ajoura, mara fi eedak, mara fi teezahk

……

what am i doing with my life 🙈

Who’s the stinkiest Norse god? Gar-loki

Works better in Dutch, I swear

Here’s one which only works if you know BOTH Portuguese and English:

“In Portugal it’s very common for old ladies to go to a coffee place and ask for a big cock”

(Explanation: the Portuguese word for milk with coffee - “galão” - also means “big rooster”. Those are the only two meanings it has in that language. However when you translate it to English you can use a certain synonym for “rooster” which can be read as having another, very different, meaning)

What’s the most dangerous brick? A crocodile

¿Que hace el pez?

Nada.

Dutch: Er liep een man in de woestijn en die vond een kameel, maar de kameel vond van niet.

English: A man was walking in the desert and he found a camel, but the camel found he hadn’t.

I don’t know, maybe it works in English too.

German joke with word play: " ‘Nur noch schnell einen runter holen, dann ist Mittag’ - Karl Heinz (Flackschütze)"

I hope this isn’t racist as I never thought it was. Best told to an English speaker who only speaks that one language.

A Chinese man is walking down the street and he notices a Chinese friend of his on the other side of the street, walking the opposite way. He yells across the street to his friend “(do fake Chinese talk)”. His friend yells back “(more fake Chinese talk)”. He answers him back with more fake Chinese talk while starting to laugh. He then laughs like a loon as if it is the best joke he’s ever heard.

There is no joke to get but only pretending there was one. Stupid and absurd, I know.

Finland and sweden were having a competition about which language is the most beautiful. Finland was let to choose the sentence and “saari, saari, heinäsaari, heinäsaaren neito”. In swedish its “Ö, ö, hö ö, hö ö mö”

(in english its “island, island, grassy island, grassy island’s maiden”)

A joke in Spanish: ¿Como se dice “autobus” en alemán? “subanstrujenbajen”

Explanation: The question asks how to say “bus” in German. The answer is a form of the words “get on, squeeze, get off” made to look/sound like faux German.