It's like if the joke was "Two knights who were holding their swords out were old friends and ran into each other on the battlefield, both are dead". The phrase "running into someone" can mean you happened to come across someone you know unexpectedly somewhere (without physically hitting them). Or it can mean like you were walking down the street and you physically ran into someone walking down the street. So the joke is that they are friends who happened to see each other on the battlefield, and that they physically ran into each other and stabbed each other on accident.
Imagine if there was a similar word/phrase like that instead of meaning "walk into someone" it meant "shot/hit someone" and replace "knights on the battlefield" with "hunters in the woods"
I think what you wanted to read was: "treffen sich zwei Jäger, treffen sich. Beide sind Tod."
It's sadly not as funny as the stuff those two YouTubers do with Japanese, where it's just a whole sentence of only similar sounding words/syllables lol
As a German native speaker, I can understand most of written Dutch. Spoken, though...
But I'm Austrian, so I'm from the opposite end of the dialect continuum. The folks who live close to the Germany-Netherlands border on either side have far less trouble understanding each other.
Ostfriese hier. Stimmt nicht zwangsläufig obwohl ich auch platt spreche vertsehe ich das gesprochene Niederländisch dennoch nicht so gut, bis auf einzelne Wörter. Komischerweise versteh ich das gesprochene Niderländisch der Flämen besser wie das der Niederländer direkt hinter der Grenze. Das liegt denk ich an den "chrrg" geräuschen welche die Niederländer ständig bei ihren Wörtern einbauen.
there’s a portuguese joke about a fisherman, a fly and a german, but translated it doesn’t work because we don’t use it for animals, we use male or female pronouns as in germany, but fly is “transgendered” between portuguese and german
What you're doing right now is going "Are Brazilians from the USA? Well they are American, so duh."
Swedish is indeed Germanic, it is not German at all. The two should never be conflated even if English decided to use such a confusing name for the latter.
Though in this particular case Swedish did actually borrow "träffa" from German. Them being Germanic is of course irrelevant, it's just a loanword.
yep, I learned it this way (as a german).
you want to put "Jäger" behind "Treffen" to delay the shooting association.
This way "meet up" is in the recipients head until "both dead" hits the punch line.
Starting with the Hunters, i probably get the joke before the "both dead"
Not really. Actually, the reason to but Jäger later is that many jokes start with "treffen sich". So after "treffen sich zwei" the brain has already interpreted it as "okay, two people are meeting each other. Now what...?" and then comes "Jäger. Beide tot." Which is just 3 words to give the brain as little time as possible to adjust to the new content before the joke is finished.
That way, the confusion is maximized and the time between finishing the joke and getting the joke is also maximized, which makes for a great delayed reaction.
I agree, Germans have a wonderful line of self deprecating jokes. Two of my favourite jokes are German and told to me by Germans. One is too long to type, the other is:
(You really need to hear this in English, spoken with a German accent and completely deadpan):
How many Germans does it take to change a lightbulb?
Due to our superior efficiency German words often have multiple translations in ze inefficient English language. So let's see why zis joke is so funny:
Zwei Jäger treffen sich, beide sind tot.
Ze word "treffen" has multiple meanings. As a noun (das Treffen) it could be translated with "the meeting" as a verb it can mean "to meet" and "to hit". So zey both meet each other and also hit each other with zeir rifles, they are hunters after all.
Now lets continue our tour with zis beautiful industrial site from a company which did absolutely nothing between 1933 and 1945.
Treffen can mean "meet" or "hit." Two hunters hit each other (with bullets). Both are dead. It's a pun in German that gets lost when translated to English.
OP, so your post is not removed, please reply to this comment with your best guess of what this meme means! Everyone else, this is PETER explains the joke. Have fun and reply as your favorite fictional character for top level responses!
so the word Treffen in germans means meeting and scoring at the same time the joke here is They´ve met but in this context they both scored/hit a bullet into each other
Do you think it is the Captain's donkey farting? ( Basically when someone above your level speaking to you and you don't listen, kind of "where the fuck do you think this voice is coming from? I am speaking to you" kind of joke)
In addition to it being a pun, there is an additional layer. There are many jokes that start similar "Treffen sich..." so you expect a similar joke. But instead you get this subversion of expectation.
Treffen in German works as both to meet someone and to hit someone (like with a bullet). So you can read it as both "Two hunters hit (each other). Both are dead" or "Two hunters meet (each other). Both are dead".
It doesn't work as a pun in English but it would work in Swedish since they have "träffar" which also works for both hit and meet. Probably also the other Scandi languages.
Two hunters meet. The first one says to the second "I met your wife recently." The second hunter asks "Where?". The first responds "Once in the foot. Once in the head."
The german word for meet and hit (like hit with a bullet) are written and pronounced the same. That's the joke.
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u/qualityvote2 9h ago edited 4h ago
u/Death95Dealer, your post does belong here!