EP123 That's Funny! | Intermediate

Welcome back to English Pod. My name is Marco. And I'm Erica. And today we're gonna have a fun funny lesson. That's right, so I think this lesson's gonna be a little bit different than most of our lessons, right? Right, today we're gonna be looking at jokes, which is a very important part of English speaking culture.

Yeah, so we're actually we're gonna teach you a few um pretty hilarious jokes, but we're also gonna teach you some language related to jokes, funny things, and um that sort of stuff. Alright, so in order for us to understand a little bit better the jokes that we're gonna be looking at, why don't we take a look at vocabulary preview? Vocabulary preview Two of these words you'll hear in the dialogue, but one you won't, but you still need to know this word so you can understand the jokes.

Alright, so the word that we're talking about is not really a word, it's a sound. Yeah. Move. Moo. So m is the sound that cows make. That's right. M O. Oh right, they go moo. Very nice, Marco. Uh I could do a good cow. Alright, so we all know now that that's what Cow said. Exactly. So it's gonna be important for the joke, you'll see why. Okay, now another word that you need to understand is a dam. So a dam. A dam. A dam is a is is like a big wall, right?

The wall in water that stops the river from flowing. Okay, so usually you build dams in rivers and then the water can pass or not. Yeah, it it's something that we use to generate electricity, right? Very good. But there's another word that sounds exactly the same way, but it's just spelled a little differently. That's right. And and we might hear someone say, Oh damn. And that's an interjection which basically means Oh no! Right. That's terrible. Uh-huh. Yeah. Damn.

Mm-hmm. Damn, we're late for the movie. Okay, so it's an interesting interjection and we'll also see it in one of our jokes. And now let's move on to our last word. nostrils. Okay, nostrils. Nostrils. So a nostril or your nostrils is The two holes in your nose. Right. You breathe through your nostrils. Alright, so now that we've taken a look at these three words, why don't we listen to our comedian for the first time and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more.

Hello everyone and welcome to Open Mic Night. You're in for a real treat as we've got a lot of great comics here with us tonight. First up, we have a very funny man coming straight from the state of Montana, Robert Hicks. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Well, what a lovely crowd.

You know there's nothing I love better than stand-up comedy. You know, I've been working on my routine for months now, and I've got some real zingers for you tonight. Let's start out with some short jokes. How about that? Where do you find a one legged Where you left. Get it? Hmm, anyways, what do you call a sheep with no legs? A cloud. Tough crowd. All right. Now you're gonna love this joke. It's hilarious. What do cows do for entertainment? Movies.

Okay, okay, okay. We've got a okay. We've got a few hecklers in the audience, but this one is good. What does a fish say when it runs into a water? DAM! Okay, okay, okay, okay, last one. Why do gorillas have big nose? Cause they got big fingers. Thanks everyone. Mm-hmm. Okay, so some pretty hilarious jokes. Huh? I don't think the crowd really enjoy them all that much. Okay, well maybe um I'm just a fan of really terrible jokes.

Well they were pretty funny, but I guess the crowd just didn't appreciate his uh sense of humor. But you know what, they did use quite a lot of really interesting language, so why don't we look at that now in language takeaway?

Language takeaway. On Language Takeaway, we're gonna be looking at six words today, so let's get started. The announcer welcomed everyone and said that uh it's open mic night. Open Mike Knight. So an open mic night. Okay, well we know mic is short for microphone, right? Now an open mic night is a chance where anyone can come up and talk into the microphone. So you can come up and sing or you can tell jokes, you can do anything basically. Yeah. All right. Open mic.

So it's not for professionals, but for people who maybe want to be professionals. Right, amateurs. Mm-hmm. So it was open mic night and he said they had a lot of great comics there. So comment. A comic. So basically a comic is a person that makes a living by making people laugh. Yeah, someone who who stands up on stage and tells jokes. Alright. Would you say a clown is kind of like a comic? No, they're different. They're different, right? Comic doesn't wear a red nose and a crazy costume. Yeah.

All right. Yeah, because I hate clowns. We do know that about you. Alright, so a comic. And well what comics do is they perform stand up comedy. Stand up comedy. Stand up comedy. Okay, so stand-up comedy is is really exactly what its name suggests, right? Right, you stand up in front of a a p an audience and you tell jokes and or you make them laugh. Yeah, tell funny stories. It's a very popular form of entertainment in the United States and the UK.

That's right. Um, and I think we'll talk a little bit more about that at the end of the lesson, but why don't we move on to our next word, which is routine. A routine. The guy says, I've been working on my routine. So what does he mean by his routine? Well I guess a r a routine is like a series or a collection of jokes or maybe movements that you use in a performance. Alright, a routine. So you can talk about a dance routine.

Or in this case a comedy routine. Mm-hmm. So the series of jokes he's gonna tell. That's right. Then he practices again and again and again. Alright, and in his routine he said he's got a lot of zingers. A zinger. So what's a zinger? Basically a zinger is like a strong, maybe a little bit rude joke. Yeah, but like a kind of a one line joke, right? Right, exactly. Yeah. And the people that were in the crowd and they were booing him, they were like, Boo, those we call hecklers.

Exactly, and that's our last word, a heckler. Heckler. Hecklers. So let's listen to some hecklers in action. Alright, well I think that's pretty clear. Those are definitely hecklers. Right, they're very annoying. Mm-hmm. So now that we've finished looking at all the words that are related to comedy and performances, let's uh take a look at the jokes now in Fluency Builder.

Fluency Builder Okay, well we're not really focusing on on new phrases for you here, but we thought it would be helpful to um talk a little bit about the jokes to help you understand them, right?'Cause they are, well, I think pretty funny. Yeah, they're pretty funny, but maybe sometimes they're kind of hard to understand. So why don't we start with the first joke? So you said, where do you find a one-legged dog? So what's a a one-legged dog? Basically it's a dog that has one leg.

Ah okay, and the pronunciation here is is important, right? One legged. Not one legged. No. One legged So you can say a one-legged dog, a two-legged dog, or a three-legged dog. Six legged dog? A six legged spider maybe lost two legs in n in a war. Oh dear. Okay, so uh the dog obviously didn't go anywhere, and so that's why you find it where you left it. Exactly. So that's why it's kind of funny. Okay. Right, so then he said, What do you call a sheep with no leg? I don't know.

A cloud, basically because you know, sheep are fluffy and they're white, so if you take away their legs, they look like a little cloud. All right, let's look at the next one. He asked, what do cows do for entertainment? And then the answer was they rent movies. Exactly. So it's kind of funny because he's relating this word movies with what the With the sound that cows make which is moo. Right. And actually, um, there are a million jokes in English following the same pattern, right?

Yeah, exactly. So I'm sure you can find a lot more of them and you can share them with us. My personal favorite joke is the guy says, what does a fish say when it runs into a wall? So to run into a wall basically is to crash against the wall. Yep. So what does the fish say? Yeah. So wh why is this funny? Why does it say damn?

Well'cause it's I mean if you if you if you're a person and you run into a wall, y damn, like the y you know, just like oh no. Yeah. But a fish is swimming under the water and like we saw, a dam is actually like a wall in the water. So he's saying like oh Oh wall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so it's that I like that one. Alright, the last one was pretty good. Why do gorillas have big nostrils? Okay, so the big holes in their nose. Right. And basically it's because they have big fingers.

So they can put their fingers in the nose? Yeah, exactly. How dear. If the gorilla didn't have big nostrils he wouldn't be able to pick his nose. Maybe he'd have to use a stick. Yeah, but that wouldn't be convenient, see? Alright. So that's why those w jokes are funny. They're very short jokes, some of course some of them are not actually really funny, but uh it's just a little bit of a taste of short Jokes.

Okay, well I think we need to hear them one more time in context so um you can all know how funny or maybe not so funny they are.

Hello everyone and welcome to Open Mic Night. You're in for a real treat as we've got a lot of great comics here with us tonight. First up we have a very funny man coming straight from the state of Montana, Robert Hicks. Thank you everyone. Well, what a lovely crowd. You know there's nothing I love better than stand up comedy. You know, I've been working on my routine for months now, and I've got some real singers for you tonight. Let's start out with some short jokes. How about that?

Where do you find a one legged dog? Where you left? Get it? Mm anyways, what do you call a sheep with no legs? A cloud. Yeah. All right. Now you're gonna love this joke. It's hilarious. What do cows do for entertainment? They read Mm. Movies. Okay, okay, okay. We've got a okay. We've got a few hecklers in the audience, but this one is good. What does a fish say when it runs into a wall? DAM! Okay, okay, okay, okay, last one. Why do gorillas have big nostrils? Cause they got big fingers.

Thanks everyone, that was my time. Now if you have any uh good jokes of your own, uh why don't you come to our website and tell us about them? Right, come to Englishpot dot com. Share with us any jokes. Of course they have to be clean, huh? Don't come Yeah. No no swear. No swearing in the in the jokes. Alright, so we'll see you guys there and until next time. Thanks for listening and goodbye.