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how do you get someone to pick up sarcasm and western humor quicker?

vital said:
If the person isn't from the US, how?
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Feed them a steady youtube and hulu diet of South Park, Family Guy and every clip you can find of George Bush attempting to deliver a speech.
 
They're not going to get it... ever.

I'm convinced that you need to attend at least high school in the US. Come later than that, and you'll always be a foreigner to the culture.
 
It took me a good part of 2 years to get into the groove(sort of).. but even now I have a hard time figuring out some references.
 
You have to make jokes with them like normal. And if you have the patience catch them up when they're lost.
 
It about wit, if the person is witty and is good with sarcasm and humor in his/her native language/culture, then they themselves will pick it up quickly. Believe me, the world is full of dull and bland people, with them, no matter what you do... you will be out of luck.
 
vital said:
If the person isn't from the US, how?
Click to expand...

Buy them a collectors edition of beavis and butthead and king of the hill, a 2 liter bottle of coke, and a bottle of crown royal.

You might even want to throw in some family guy in there.

After a few hours of the proper combined ingredients, they shoudld start to pick up american humor
 
It might be easier to explain that sarcasm is sometimes delivered in a "snarky tone." It certainly doesn't have to be... even Ben Stein could be sarcastic in his deadpan voice, but I'd say it may be more common than not 😛.

As for western humor... in my eyes, the difference between say... our humor and the UK's humor is that we make things obvious. For example, I remember watching the movie Paul, which was written by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (British citizens). There was a scene where Pegg's character tells the girl that she can use his bed and to ignore the tissues because he had a cold. Now, given the character is a major geek without a significant other, you probably have an idea what this actually means.

In American humor, this would usually be represented by actually seeing the tissues (the line in the movie took place outside the RV) and quite possibly the girl making a comment about them and so on. Just think of equivalent type of situations in movies like American Pie. Hmm maybe not the best example, but I think it gets the point across?

Another way to look at it is looking at stuff like Monty Python. The British humor there tends to be on the outrageous side. They have situations that you're supposed to laugh at simply because of how outlandish they are. I find that this humor tends to not be as funny the first time, but is usually fun afterward or when quoted. I do notice that there seem to be a lot more American comedies that take this approach of just presenting this odd situation that we're supposed to find amusing. This is unlike the other method of simply delivering funny lines. Kind of like when someone was showing me HBO GO the other day, they had Get Him to the Greek on, and one of the best lines came up...

PD: "You see that... I'm mind fucking you right now!"
JH: "Hehe I hope you're wearing a condom... because I have a dirty mind"

Well, I'm certainly no expert and all of this could be wrong!
 
Just rack them in the nuts as hard as you can so they won't be able to breed here.

Then ask them if they get it yet, aka Jackass style humor.

If they say no, keep racking them until they get it.
 
sactoking said:
Show them every Family Guy clip of Fuad.
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those don't make any sense to anyone with little US pop cultural exposure.

for example, i had to show Star Wars to my GF before she could passably understand Family Guy.

Back to the Future, Spinal Tap, Indiana Jones--one needs that kind of background to understand the actual references. But then, the references still only make sense to those who have been repeatedly exposed to this stuff, and likely grew up with it.

don't even think about the somewhat obscure TV culture...
 
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