The fear of not getting the joke
Being in a conversation when everyone starts laughing and you don’t know why can be frustrating. Humour is a really hard part of learning a foreign language because there is so much cultural variation. Even if two people share the same first language, they might have grown up with different norms and cultural references which make it hard to share humour. In English, a common form of humour uses wordplay and puns, which require a good knowledge of spelling and pronunciation patterns.
Try these tips
- Be yourself. Even if the humour varies across cultures, you don’t have to change your sense of humour to fit in.
- You don’t need to use complicated language to be funny. Use facial expressions, gestures, experiment with your tone of voice.
- Laugh at yourself when things go wrong. If you say something that doesn’t work and someone laughs, laugh with them! Showing a bit of vulnerability can relax the atmosphere.
- Notice what makes you laugh and try doing the same.