Make ‘em Laugh!

Find a good, brief joke in a language other than your mother tongue; if you don’t know any other languages this might be a good way to start learning. Record your voice telling the joke focusing on pronunciation and try to make it sound as natural as you can with appropriate vocal inflections. Add a (cc) music track underneath (maybe from jamendo.com) and a laugh track (soungle.com is a good source) at the end.

Here we go!

Okay, okay, I admit, I didn’t put a music track underneath.  But I have reasons.

First, though, credit, where credit is due.  I got the joke from here, and the Outdoor Spanish Party background here.   I also found the laugh at the suggested site.  I’ve been approaching these assignments like I approach recipes – I’ll do my best to stick to the instructions as closely as possible the first time, so I can judge it properly on its own merits.  I’ll make it my own next time.

Admittedly, though, I didn’t completely do that this time.  The thing is, I got this story in my head of me being at this party with a bunch of Spanish-speakers, and feeling really awkward-like and such, until finally, I decide to tell my ridiculously stupid joke and laugh obnoxiously at my own stupidity.  So I tried to create that effect, including the delay between the joke and the crowd laugh.  I also tried to make the background noises of the party relatively loud, in order to give the impression that I’m right in the middle of the party, but made sure my voice was loudest, in order to establish the fact that I’m the one talking.

This assignment is worth 2 Stars.

Also, translation for those of you who are not Spanish-speakers by birth or schooling.  What did one fish say to the other fish?  The response ‘Nada’ means both ‘nothing’ and ‘swim’ at the same time.  So it’s a play on words.

…GET IT?!?! ;D

So in my attempt to make you laugh I told a joke in Spanish. I have an awful Spanish accent, so to anyone who listens to it and is a native Spanish speaker I apologize and please forgive me. I recorded myself telling the joke using audacity.  I chose a Spanish joke because Spanish is really the only other language other than English that I am familiar with.

Make ‘em Laugh

Find a good, brief joke in a language other than your mother tongue; if you don’t know any other languages this might be a good way to start learning. Record your voice telling the joke focusing on pronunciation and try to make it sound as natural as you can with appropriate vocal inflections. Add a (cc) music track underneath (maybe from jamendo.com) and a laugh track (soungle.com is a good source) at the end.

This is a two star assignment.

I knew for this assignment I wanted to recite a joke in French.  I had taken 4 years of French in high school and I am currently in French 202 at UMW.  For this assignment I had to Google jokes in French that I thought would be appropriate.  This is where I came across these french jokes for kids.  It’s about a little boy named Toto who always seems to be getting in trouble at school.  These jokes are known to kids who are all part of France.  I then went to Freesounds and downloaded a laughter sound that sounded like a child laughing since this is supposed to be a joke for a child.  I then recorded the joke into Audactiy and then I imported the laughter sound.  Afterwards I converted the Audacity file into a .WAV file and uploaded it to Soundcloud.

This is the joke I recorded into Audacity, with the translation:

Toto rentre de l’école :

- Papa! Tu vas être fier de moi! J’ai été le seul à répondre à la question du maître! ? – Et c’etait quoi la question? – C’était: qui a posé une punaise sur ma chaise?

Toto comes back from school:

- Daddy! You’re gonna be proud of me! I was the only one who answered the teacher’s question! – And what was the question? – It was: “Who put a tack on my chair?”

This assignment was to tell a joke in a language other than one’s mother tongue; I decided to do a joke in Indian language. I found the joke from Google; I then find some laughter sound effects from http://www.freesound.org. I used Audacity for this audio, which was easy and fun to do.