From a comment in the 'Kids' thread about English and Danish humour being incompatable. What is the Danish sense of humour?

the only Danish joke on earth is

"Can you play the violin?"
"I don't know, I've never tried"

That's quite funny. I don't understand.

A Swede and a Dane were sitting on a park bench smoking a cigarette. It started raining and then the Swede pulled out a condom and covered his cigarette so he could continue smoking. Now the Dane was wondering what it was because his cigarette was drenched and he couldn't smoke it anymore. He asked the Swede what it was and where he could get some. "They're called condoms, and you can get them in that pharmacy over there." The Dane went off to the pharmacy and asked for some condoms. The pharmacist asked him what size he would like. The Dane thought for a while and then replied: "Ones that fit a camel."

That's sort of funny too.
Hmmmm.

They wouldn't 'get' a lot of British jokes because we like innuendo, smut, word play and puns. They're no-where near as bad as germans who don't understand (but desperately wish they did) any jokes so laugh at them all but if you pick a point in between these two points you've got danish humour. It all has to be very literal.

My GF's Danish and I'd say it was pretty similar, but has been living here 11 years so I guess she's a bit British too. I'm off to Denmark to meet her folks on Wednesday so I guess I'll know after a week there, eeeek!

Mother and Daughter and Danish. That would tick 2 of my 'ten things to do before you cark it' list.

I think Danish people understand British humour pretty well, they certainly enjoy a lot of the same TV comedies.

I don't get Dinner for one though

And I don't speak any Danish so anything else would be lost on me.

Other half (Danish) reckons danish humor is much much more dark and sarcastic

Not quite sure about Danes, but I always thought Scandinavians "get" our sense of humour. A lot of pop songs written by Scandinavians are filled with the dryness, irony and wry sarcasm that we love so much in this country…even though English is not their first language. I always loved the sentiments expressed in lots of the Wannadies songs. Maybe the Danes aren't as Scandinavian as as the Norwegians, Swedes and Fins…?

the one's I know are funny drunks. and great people, much funnier than half the knobs on here 😉

Mrs Pigface is Swedish and loves Brit humour, she thinks Danes are very odd. I found the Finns to have a very dark humour drier than tinder.

I believe the Scans are also binge drinkers?

thez have that Dinner for One here in germany, too. they show it on almost every channel at new years. it has every teutonic creasing up with laughter; a sight not often seen and i suppose once a year won't hurt.

german jokes play almost extensively on word play and as a consequence aren't always very funny (if at all).

here is a danish joke for you

Gift, er noget man tager for ikke at blive det.

Word play aswell, as Gift means both Married and Poison!

So the joke goes: "gift" is somthing you take, to not get it.

Mrs Oddjob is Danish and having lived here in Denmark for 5 years I think that the humour is pretty similar. We laugh at the same things, but they are generally not as much into sarchasm as we Brits.
One of the Danish jokes that made me laugh the most was a Dane who was hunting raindeer in Greenland with a Brit. They shot one and whilst gutting it, the Dane told the Brit that he should try eating the content of the stomach becuase it was considered a delicacy. The British guy reluctantly took a finger full of the stuff and ate it. He spat it out much to the amuzement of the Dane.
Brit:" you don't really eat that stuff do you?"
Dane: " no, of course not it's shit!"
That epitomised danish humour for me. Dry and funny and a bit cruel.
The Finns on the other hand are like the Yorkshiremen of the Nordics. Dry beyond belief and very funny.

Explains the danish.

Bro that clip is a classic, norwegian colleuge showed it to me some years ago.

oddjob, where in Denmark are you living?
I find that the humour im used to is way more sarcastic than the English one, and lot dryer for sure.
(im Danish btw 😉

I don't get Dinner for one though

Tell me about it. My mother in law is Danish, so we get the DVD played every Christmas. Happy days.

That youtube video is reasonably funny. It's *nothing* like the 4 or 5 danes I've known who have been very odd people with an annoying habit of pointing at inaminate objects and starting laughing.

Maybe danish geeks are different to normal danish people…

I watched that video with my (Danish) Mrs and she didn't laugh at all. There was another clip on youtube where one news reader asked another when he had last had an erection (I think he meant to ask something else) and that did get a giggle. Perhaps we're not that different afterall.

@Mikkel – I live in Ringsted, where are you?

Bro,

i thought that was hilarious! Live in stockholm, btw.

is that video the Danish equivalent of four candles?

Funny video. I had a slightly similar experience on Friday, when the flight attendant on Norwegian Air didn't understand the Danish lady sitting next to me.

Wouldn't really expect that video to be really funny to Danish people. It's funny to people who (like me) find spoken Danish incomprehensible!

I'm getting better at listening, speaking and pronunciation still a mystery to me. I'm currently working on trying to say the word 'mad' which is much harder than it looks!

Oddjob, im in Hucknall, but im from Esbjerg area, the humour is defenetly different from the westcoast to Sjælland (they dont get anything over there 😉

My english and french colleuges cant understand how i can call customers in Norway and just speak Danish to them and them Norwegian 🙂 Only have to be carefull with the numbers.