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I'm a beginner in German and I'm trying to speak German at my friends and such in order to help my learning journey. I was wondering how does one say "get the joke", as in "finally, you get the joke!"? Thanks for the help.

Maths fan123
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    We typically expect some attempt on tackling the question by yourself, which typically results in more precise questions. Here google translate seems pretty close. – guidot Oct 27 '21 at 06:15
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    @guidot sorry, it's just that I didn't really trust (and usually don't) the google translate translations for idioms and such. Next time I'll include what google translate says in my question. – Maths fan123 Oct 27 '21 at 09:11
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    @Mathsfan123: I support to trust google translate only as far as you know it is right. And I support the claim to include your best attempt(s) by yourself into your question. Even better is to add "what doubts you do have" with this attempt. Or why you don't trust it (in case you read a rule - cite it). Or maybe include real dictionaries - or mention where you did not find anything helpful there. – Shegit Brahm Oct 27 '21 at 12:13
  • There is a German idiom "Wer zuletzt lacht, lacht am besten." This comes close to the English "He who laughs last, laughs loudest / longest / best." And there is a common modification "Wer zuletzt lacht, hat die längste Leitung" which you can use after having made a joke. In English perhaps "He who laughs last, has the longest wire." Do you get the joke? – Paul Frost Oct 27 '21 at 23:31

3 Answers3

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For Finally, you get the joke! you could say: Jetzt hast Du es kapiert!, or Jetzt ist der Groschen gefallen! The latter expression is analogous to the phrase the penny dropped.

Martin Peters
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    Except that Finally would suggest Endlich rather than Jetzt. – Michael Kay Oct 27 '21 at 08:37
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    @MichaelKay Strictly speaking yes, but as a native speaker I would say using "jetzt" in that context would have the same connotation that it took the person a while to get there. "Endlich" is certainly a bit stronger, but "jetzt" sounds a bit more natural to me. – xLeitix Oct 27 '21 at 10:45
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    @MichaelKay I would say if you use Endlich you are sort of critizing that it took so long, jetzt is more neutral. Depends on what you want to convey. – quarague Oct 27 '21 at 12:31
  • Jetzt just sounds like the English "Oh, *now* you get it" – Mawg says reinstate Monica Oct 27 '21 at 13:11
  • @quarague I wouldn't disagree that endlich feels like it's criticizing that it took so long, but that seems appropriate as finally in the English sentence OP gave does the same thing. – Chris H Oct 27 '21 at 13:51
  • Could use as well "Du hast aber eine lange Leitung gehabt", "Du hast aber lange auf dem Schlauch gestanden" or "Du hast aber lange gebraucht" – Zibelas Oct 28 '21 at 15:31
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First, you should not expect idioms and other figurative expressions in English to have corresponding expressions in German, and vice versa. The best German translation is the non-idiomatic verstehen or "to understand". So Er versteht den Witz nicht for "He doesn't get the joke.". On the other hand you might say, Er reißt immer Witze, literally "He's always ripping jokes", of someone who is never serious.

Wai Ha Lee
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RDBury
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  • As an additional remark, it can be noted that translating "to get" as "verstehen" applies in all contexts where "to get" is meant in the sense of "to understand", not just specifically for jokes. "I don't get it." = "Ich verstehe es nicht." – O. R. Mapper Oct 27 '21 at 01:03
  • @O. R. Mapper: The difference between "get" and "understand" is rather subtle; I don't think I could explain it myself. For example "I don't get calculus" has a slightly different meaning than "I don't understand calculus." But calculus is something you can "get" or not, and it's (usually) not meant to be a joke. – RDBury Oct 27 '21 at 06:19
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    I see. I think that in German, you'd use "Ich verstehe ... nicht." in both cases (although "Ich blicke nicht durch bei ..." would work, as well). – O. R. Mapper Oct 27 '21 at 06:54
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    @RDBury: concerning the subtle difference on get and understand: to me, "get" has the connotation of "grasp intuitively", while "understand" could mean "being able to follow a chain of reasoning conciously". One could be able to perform calculus correctly, while still feeling uncertain and unconnected to the underlying intuition. Once that clicks, "one has gotten calculus". – ojdo Oct 27 '21 at 08:09
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    May I propose kapieren as an alternative to verstehen? As a non-native, I still feel it captures the essence of getting as opposed to understanding e.g. a joke. – Toivo Säwén Oct 27 '21 at 08:16
  • @RDBury Are you perhaps looking for that part of understanding that is referred to as "to grok" in Heinleins "Stranger in a strange land"? (See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok) – orithena Oct 27 '21 at 08:27
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    @ojdo so "to grok" > "to get" > "to understand". – henning Oct 27 '21 at 08:35
  • @ojdo - Yes, that seems like a reasonable explanation. I think there's also a sense of enjoyment and purpose that comes with "getting" as opposed to merely "understanding". – RDBury Oct 27 '21 at 15:44
  • @orithena - I thought about "grok"; I actually read SiaSL a long time ago. The word gained enough currency to get an entry in many dictionaries. I think Heinlein's idea was that no earthly word could fully capture the meaning, and indeed no one raised on Earth could truly understand the concept. Given the problems you can encounter translating between two closely related languages such as English and German, it would be very surprising if there were only one word in Martian that would untranslatable in English. – RDBury Oct 27 '21 at 16:03
  • @Toivo Säwén - I'm thinking kapieren would also work, and about as well as verstehen. It seems it's a bit more common to use verstehen with Witz which is why I thought it would be a better translation, I don't think either one captures the exact meaning though. – RDBury Oct 27 '21 at 16:12
  • As an alternative to kapieren, there's also begreifen (more like "comprehend" though, I wouldn't use it for a joke), and also from youth language there are durchsteigen and the anglicism checken. "Checkst du den Witz?" / "Er hat den Witz nicht gecheckt." are very colloquial though. – Bergi Oct 27 '21 at 19:45
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My answere is more in a casual (austrian) context:

  • "checkst?"/"verstehst?" - if you ask someone if he got the joke (or the explanation)
  • "Jetzt hab ichs gecheckt"/"jetzt hab ichs verstanden" - now I'm starting to get the joke
  • "Jetzt dämmerts bei mir" - if you stopped being in the dark

I think nearly all synonyms to "verstehen" work - like "kapieren", "überreißen". However I would not use "verstehen" itself in the context of a joke

You could also connect this to the term "Sickerwitz", a jokes that needs time to understand. "ist es jetzt durchgesickert?"

Fritz
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