Is it impossible for non-British people to appreciate and take part in the jokes and comedy in the UK?

Why or why not? The issue of British humour is always an interesting and funny aspect to talk about. Whether it is impossible for non-British people to understand it, that I do not believe. It is more of a 'it depends' kind of situation; that is, non-British people can understand British humour, just not all of it. As I have said, to understand the humour of a language which is not your own can be very tricky, as it depends on a variety of factors. One of them can easily be culture. It is very important that the person who would like to understand British humour or comedy to have a good understanding of the country's culture. A lot of jokes and comedy shows are related to culture in the UK, and talk about/make fun of the way people dress, eat, talk and so on. Therefore it is a plus if we are familiar with the culture of a certain country if we are aiming to understand or take part in its comedy. It is said about the British humour to be very dark and sarcastic, even cruel sometimes. Due to this fact, a lot of people who do not share the same tastes in humour may get easily offended, especially if British people make jokes about things that are a bit of a taboo in their own countries. As a foreigner myself, I have seen and analysed a lot of examples of British humour, and I can say that I find it extremely amusing. Maybe it is because I enjoy sarcasm and black humour very much, and these are two main traidmarks of comedy here in Britain. But I have seen people struggling to understand some types of jokes, even get offended if the jokes are about sex, death or money. It is always awkward to see a non-British person get offended by an innocent joke made by a local, since the local cannot seem to understand why the person got offended in the first place. The British always like to walk a bit on the razor's edge, and dare to joke about things that are quite delicate, or seem to be regarded as delicate from an outside perspective. A good example of this is making jokes about German people and the Second World War. A good friend of mine from Sheffield told me that the first time he ever met a German person, all he could do was to repeat to himself 'Don't mention the war! Don't mention the war!'. Another important aspect to consider when it comes to understanding British humour is the issue of the language itself. It is easy for a non-British person to understand English jokes as long as they don't stem from the language itself. I am talking, of course, about ambiguity of the language, and the different word plays and puns that come with it. Ambiguity in a conversation is an obstacle if it leads to misunderstanding; many people do not grasp an ambiguous joke, or if the joke plays with the double meaning of a word for example. If one of the meanings of the word is unknown to the nonBritish listener, then the joke looses its purpose to amuse. Ambiguity can be easily seen as a device to express two ideas with economy of words, and people who use this type of device are considered clever or witty. This has been said about British humour, and the fact that people don't understand English jokes is due to their lack of understanding the ambiguity of the language. As an experiment, I asked a friend of mine from Spain to tell me if he can understand the following joke: 'What do you call an empty bird cage? Poly-gone.' My friend, who does have an average understanding of the English language, could not understand the joke, nor did he find it funny. This is due to the fact that he is not familiar with the ambiguity of the word 'poly', which in this case stands for 'parrot'. Because of this, many non-British people may regard British humour as strange, since not all types of ambiguity are translatable across languages. This is a problem often encountered while watching British TV programmes dubbed in another language. For example, in Spain it is not usual to include the laughter of the audience while filming a comedy programme. When Spanish people see British sitcoms and hear the audience laughing, they do not easily understand the comedy of the situation, even if the programme is being dubbed into their native language. This is because British comedy plays with language a lot, and the levels of ambiguity that are used cannot always be translated to other languages with ease.

Another important aspect to take into consideration is that of using slang while trying to make a joke. If the receiver is familiar with the meaning of the word, then there is no problem; if, however, the receiver does not know the significance of the slang that is being used, then he will not be able to understand it. Many people try word-by-word joke translations into other languages, and as a result, one of the next situations may occur: a) the joke is exactly the same in the target language, thus considered funny by the natives of said language; b) the joke does make sense in the target language, but has lost its funny content; or c) the joke makes no sense at all, thus making it impossible for the natives of the target language to understand it whatsoever. So, to conclude, I think that it is not at all impossible for non-British people to understand or take part in British jokes or comedy, but it does depend a lot on their knowledge of the English language and whether or not they understand the levels of ambiguity that it uses.