After the workers are finished, Mandy from Saxony comes home to see the result of the house renovation.
The entire floor is covered in white bread.
She shouts “What’s this? I wanted parquet flooring, not baguette flooring!”

(Parquet and Baguette are pronounced exactly the same in Saxonian dialect)

“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.

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)

An Ulster Scots one:

“Ballymena mawn went uptae glens in Canadae yin dae”

“An he saa tae yer man in the pub: What’s that thaer on tha wall?”

"An the publickan saa “Why, That’s a moose”

"Ballymena man saa: “Aye? That a moose? Sure, if thats a moose then yer cats must be wile big!” "

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 🙈

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.

Two divers meet. One say “Hi” the other says “where?!”

Two hunters meet. Both of them are dead.

[off topic?]

Yiddish. Does not translate to Christian.

Old man goes to the same lunch counter every day and orders the exact same meal every time. Tuna fish salad on rye toast and tomato soup.

One day he walks in and orders his meal. The waiter brings it.

“Waiter, I want you to try this soup.”

“I’m sorry sir, I’ll get you a different bowl.”

“No, I want you to try this soup!”

“I’ll get the manager.”

“No, I want you to try this soup!”

This goes on for five minutes and finally the waiter gives up.

“Okay, I’ll try the soup. Where’s the spoon?”

“Aha!”

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)

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)

No matter how sloshed you may be, Goethe was a poet.

「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.”

Who’s the stinkiest Norse god? Gar-loki

Works better in Dutch, I swear

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.

I thought I might make a joke about the Deutsche Bahn but I don’t think it would go over well.