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It's Official: Germans Least Funny in the World

But Americans aren't so amusing, either

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 7, 2011 2:05 PM CDT

(Newser) – Maybe something’s just lost in translation: A poll of 30,000 people in 15 countries found Germany to be the world’s most unfunny country. But we’re not so amusing either: Russia and Turkey came in as the second and third least-funny, while Britain and the US rounded out the top five. Responders said they saw Germany as being more interested in reason and efficiency than jokes.

“Germans are brilliant at so many things, including making cars and beating us at football. Unfortunately, telling jokes isn’t always one of them,” said a UK rep for social network Badoo.com, which ran the survey. But backers of German comedy say the country is plenty funny, notes the Telegraph—it’s just that the structure of the German language makes jokes hard to translate.

The world doesn't seem to find Germany funny. (Shutterstock)

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Showing 3 of 26 comments

kokuaguy

Jun 8, 2011 8:18 AM CDT

Werner Hertzog blew Stephen's mind tonight on the Colbert Report. B ^) http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/mon-june-6-2011-werner-herzog

NxBigmouthery

Jun 8, 2011 2:57 AM CDT

The last project I was involved with was an English translation of a German breakneck fast comedy. Yes it was funny, but unless something went wrong in translation, I was struck by how many times the playwright diverged from the standard 'set up/tag' formula in his 'jokes', preferring instead to go with set up/tag/tag. Not the best idea for a live audience who is laughing at a joke and the pace is such that the second joke is lost because you either push it out unnaturally on the crest of a laugh or you wait for the natural arc of the laugh to fall before dropping in your line. The structure of the play didn't allow for either to work.

lvan

Jun 7, 2011 9:17 PM CDT

Humor is relative to culture so this survey is poopnoddle.

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It's Official: Germans Least Funny in the World

But Americans aren't so amusing, either

OTHER STORIES ON OUR RADAR

Russia • Turkey • Germany • humor • Britain • Badoo • survey

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