{"id":21676,"date":"2015-02-18T14:05:27","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T13:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=21676"},"modified":"2017-10-23T14:10:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T12:10:00","slug":"french-jokes-where-is-brian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-jokes-where-is-brian\/","title":{"rendered":"French Jokes: “Where is Brian?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having a good private joke<\/strong> (inside joke) is a great way to open the door to a new culture. For many learners humor isn\u2019t always the easiest thing to understand in a new language, and can be a rather large cultural hurdle.<\/p>\n

In my personal experiences, I found it rather difficult to capter des blagues fran\u00e7aises<\/strong> (get French jokes), until I heard one that played into how the French learned English.<\/p>\n

La blague<\/strong> (the joke) comes from the famous comedian, Gad Elmaleh, and the joke plays on the teaching method used in French schools for learning English throughout the 80s and into the 90s.
\nLa blague<\/strong> from his sketch<\/strong> (routine) goes like this:<\/p>\n

Parce que j’ai quelques notions d’anglais quand m\u00eame, j’ai appris l’anglais comme vous \u00e0 l’\u00e9cole quand on \u00e9tait petit.
\nOn a tous eu les m\u00eame cours d\u00e9biles !
\nAvec cette fameuse question existentielle \u00e0 laquelle il fallait trouver absolument une r\u00e9ponse: “Where is Brian?”
\nIl vous a traumatis\u00e9 aussi ce Brian…
\nOn savait pas qui c’\u00e9tait ce Brian, on s’en foutait, mais il fallait le localiser dans la maison pour apprendre l’anglais, c’\u00e9tait \u00e7a.
\nIl fallait trouver les gens de la famille Brian pour apprendre l’anglais, qu’est-ce qui s’passe ?
\n“Where is Brian?” et toi comme un idiot tu r\u00e9pondais sagement : “Brian is in the kitchen”…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because I know a little English too, I learned English in school when I was little like all of you.<\/em>
\nWe all had the same dumb class!<\/em>
\nWith that famous existential question that you just had to find an answer to: \u201cWhere is Brian?\u201d<\/em>
\nBrian traumatized all of you as well\u2026<\/em>
\nYou didn\u2019t know who Brian was, you didn\u2019t care, but you had to find out where he was in the house in order to learn English, that was it.<\/em>
\nYou had to find the members of Brian\u2019s family in order to learn English, and what happened?<\/em>
\n\u201cWhere is Brian?\u201d and like an idiot you calmly responded: \u201cBrian is in the kitchen\u201d\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

The result of his wildly successful standup show is now a common joke among French people. \u201cWhere is Brian?\u201d leads almost immediately to the response, \u201cBryan is in the kitchen.\u201d
\nIf you can learn this simple blague<\/strong>, tes amis fran\u00e7ais<\/strong> (your French friends) will be surprised that you know la blague and feel more comfortable sharing French culture with you.<\/p>\n

Next time you meet with tes amis fran\u00e7ais<\/strong>, try askng them:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere is Brian?\u201d<\/p>\n