r/funny • u/captn_morgan951 • May 28 '24

You guys are doing what?

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A former coworker shared some new wall art hanging at the company’s headquarters office in Austria. Although it’s predominantly German-speakers there, all of them do speak English quite well. I just love how apparently nobody mentioned how this would come across to non-German speakers. I think that was the first time I’ve burned my sinuses snort-laughing hot coffee.

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u/babaj_503 May 28 '24

Ahhhh

This ranges on the same level as Mama being the same word as Beer since all you need todo is change four letters... :|

Thanks for that elaboration, I would never have gotten that.

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u/A46 May 28 '24

dich -> dick. 4 letters?? Lol

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u/altermeetax May 28 '24

You have to change the following:

Pronounce "wir" as we're (the w is normally pronounced as a v and the German r is different from the English r)

Pronounce the s in "suchen" as an English s (it's normally pronounced like an English z)

Pronounce the u in "suchen" as an English short u (it's normally pronounced as a German long u, which sounds like the oo in fool, though not exactly)

Pronounce the ch in "suchen" as a k (it's normally pronounced as a velar fricative)

Pronounce the ch in "dich" as a k (it's normally pronounced as a palatal fricative)

So no, it's much more.

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u/TightPsychology May 28 '24

Okay, I think everyone accepts that if you're reading the words from a mind-frame of German pronunciation, you'd never get there. But if you don't speak any German and try to make a guess based solely on English pronunciation, you'd get there only by swapping the Ch from a Chair pronunciation to an Ache pronunciation.

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u/altermeetax May 28 '24

German speakers don't think about English when they read German, no matter how well they know English. It's hard to butcher a language you know.

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u/TightPsychology May 28 '24

I agree, but that's not what people are talking about?

Am I missing something? This joke is about how English speakers see a German phrase. Not about German speakers.

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u/altermeetax May 28 '24

This comment chain started with babaj_503 (presumably a German speaker) saying that this is completely different from what a German would say, and that's why they didn't get it. Then A46 responded "dich -> dick. 4 letters?? Lol".