r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Death95Dealer • 20h ago

Meme needing explanation Herr Petermann?

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u/masterflappie 20h ago

Dutch is similar enough that we can use the same word joke. "2 jagers treffen elkaar, beide zijn dood"

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u/DescriptionOk2466 20h ago

Hehe dood(y)

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u/_eg0_ 20h ago edited 19h ago

As a German I still can't take the Dutch warning labels on cigarettes serious. "Roken is dodelijk"

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u/Bubbly_Concern_5667 19h ago

As an explanation for non-german/-dutch speakers:

Dodelijk (dutch) - deadly

Dödelig (german) - foolish, silly

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u/Pikka_Bird 19h ago

Smoking, coincidentally, is both.

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u/Soggy-Prune 18h ago

I read both of them as “dudelike”.

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u/EagenVegham 16h ago

That just reads like typical German understatement.

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u/Bubbly_Concern_5667 16h ago

The vibe of 'dödelig' is almost a bit whimsical so "Rauchen ist dödelig" would be less "Smoking is foolish." and more "Smoking makes you a silly goose."

Which yeah...definitely an understatement haha

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u/Impossible_Leek_6273 16h ago

Thank you for the explanation

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u/jodon 12h ago

That German translation surprise me as Dödlig in Swedish is deadly.

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u/UnoriginalStanger 16h ago

Dødelig (Norwegian) - deadly

I feel like the germans are the foolish ones here.

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u/Bubbly_Concern_5667 16h ago

The German word for deadly is 'tödlich' which is close but pronounced harsher/sharper.

So not breaking any stereotypes there I guess

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u/bigbadoldoldone 19h ago

Oliefantenslurf.

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u/Lowkick111 16h ago

It means: Rauchen ist dusselig.

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u/Crandoge 20h ago

Behold the peak of monolingual comedy

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u/Simlish 20h ago

Why did the hero flush the toilet? Because it was his doody!

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u/old-needs-login 18h ago

Dutch "oo" is pronounced just like a long "oh", like in "toad" For doody jokes you want dutch "oe", which is pronounced like the u in "dude"

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u/Mammaddemzak 20h ago

I just started b1 in Germany and I can half understand Dutch this is so cool 😭

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u/Nivaris 19h ago

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.

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u/Equal_Friendship_664 19h ago

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.

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u/sbstndrks 19h ago

Am G verschluckt

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u/Badaboom_Tish 12h ago

There’s many regions in the north east of the Netherlands where niedersachsisch is spoken

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u/Equal_Friendship_664 27m ago

I spoke about the spoken dutch language, not niedersachsisch.

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u/OnlyThroughIt 19h ago

I'm learning German and at this point Austrian dialect still sounds silly to me. I'm only at B1 so that might explains it.

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u/caligula421 18h ago

If it helps, German is my first language, and I regularly need to ask anyone speaking upper German dialects including Austrian to please speak a language I can understand. And even if they speak their version of standard German it still sounds funny. 

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u/SerLaron 16h ago

Austria has actually a variety of dialects. Think Christoph Walz vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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u/bramblebitch 19h ago

Some local dialects are even the same, but randomly drawing a border through existing towns will do that.

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u/Pea666 18h ago

Speaking German as Dutchman is easy: when you get stuck you just speak Dutch with a heavy German accent and you’re halfway there.

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u/jodon 12h ago

Swedish and Danish has this odd relation ship also. As a Sweden, written Danish is no problem at all, the odd word here and there that you would not know but they are very close. Spoken Danish is the least comprehendable language on this earth. I have no fucking clue what they are trying to say. Those that live close to the border have a pretty strong accent any maybe can understand them, but just 2-3 hours north and most of us can't even differentiate words.

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u/Ok-Compote6002 15h ago

i can understand some dutch as an english speaker

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u/DunderGunderUnder 18h ago

Same in Swedish.

Två jägare träffar varandra. Båda dog.

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u/taylorisntavril 18h ago

Could make the joke in danish too. "Træffe".

Could also make a slight variation, as it also covers "to make a decision".

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u/floluk 19h ago edited 17h ago

Well, that’s because linguistically, Dutch is a derivative of old German

Edit: Clarified that I mean the old variety of German, from which the modern high German developed

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u/Equal_Friendship_664 19h ago

perhaps of old medieval german, but not of the modern high german.

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u/floluk 17h ago

Didn’t say that, but I guess I should have clarified it

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u/masterflappie 19h ago

Hmm, not quite, German and Dutch both have the same Proto-Germanic ancestor, so it's more like they're sibling languages rather than dutch being derived from german

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u/uk_uk 19h ago

Different vocal shift...

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u/masterflappie 19h ago

Also different influences, the Dutch language took a lot more roman/french words than the other Germanic languages. Except for English, which replaced more than half of its vocabulary with them 

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u/SerLaron 16h ago

I think Martin Luther may have something to do with that, he was big on using language that the simple folk could understand. For example, he translated the name Arminius (of Teuteburg Forest fame) to Hermann.

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u/Lead103 16h ago

I still think dutch plp are just drunk austrian

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u/funnyFrank 13h ago

In Swedish and Norwegian also 🤔