What Makes The World Laugh? Ambassadors Share Their Favorite National Jokes For Edinburgh Fringe

As the Edinburgh Fringe Festival lights up the United Kingdom this August, we asked ambassadors from around the world to share a joke that represents their country, and explain what it says about their national humor.

The official “Best Joke of the Fringe” award may be on pause this year, but the spirit of international comedy is alive and well. To celebrate the cultural diversity at the heart of the Fringe, we teamed up with embassies and cultural representatives across the UK and asked: what’s a joke that really sums up your country’s humor?

The result? A growing collection of jokes that range from bone-dry to beautifully absurd, with each one offering a little window into the national psyche. And because humor doesn’t always translate well, Babbel’s team of linguistic and cultural experts are here to explain not just what the jokes mean, but why they’re funny in the first place.

So whether you’re in Edinburgh catching a late-night show or just curious about what makes people laugh in Latvia or Brazil, here is your passport to global humor.

Ambassadors’ Favorite National Jokes

Austria
Submitted by the Austrian Cultural Forum in London, which serves as the Cultural Section of the Embassy

Babbel’s Explainer: This joke gently mocks Austria’s sense of practicality and its understated humour. The flag’s symmetrical red-white-red design makes it impossible to hang incorrectly, which is both a source of national pride and the punchline of the joke. It suggests an endearing obsession with order and functionality, while acknowledging that such traits can sometimes come across as overly literal.

Belgium
Submitted by the Embassy of Belgium

Babbel’s Explainer: The humor arises from a linguistic misunderstanding. The phrase Quo vadis? (“Where are you going?” in Latin) is mistaken for the title of a film, resulting in a loop of confusion. This reflects Belgium’s complex linguistic environment, where communication often spans multiple languages and dialects, creating room for confusion and wordplay. The joke subtly acknowledges the everyday challenges of multilingualism in Belgian society, and how humor often emerges from everyday communication misunderstandings.

Brazil
Submitted by Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, the Brazilian Ambassador to the United Kingdom

Babbel’s Explainer: This joke reflects Brazil’s highly active political landscape, where elections feel nearly constant (just like the presence of sunny weather). It reflects a national humor that is direct and ironic, while also nodding to the country’s warm, high-energy character, where both politics and people are full of life.

Czech Republic
Submitted by the Embassy of the Czech Republic to the United Kingdom

Babbel’s Explainer: The joke satirizes Czech drinking culture, particularly the social ritual of meeting for “just one beer,” which rarely remains just one. The three statements are understood as knowingly false, forming a kind of shared cultural script. It reflects a national tendency toward self-awareness. The structure of the joke also highlights the Czech preference for irony and understatement.

Denmark
Submitted by Kristina Miskowiak Beckvard, Ambassador of Denmark to the UK

Babbel’s Explainer: This is a self-referential observation about social behaviour and humour style. The joke reflects how Danish and British humor both favor irony, restraint and a certain emotional reserve. By drawing attention to this shared cultural trait, it functions less as a punchline and more as a dry cultural comparison. 

Estonia
Submitted by the Embassy of Estonia in the UK

Babbel’s Explainer: This joke plays on the classic Estonian stereotype of being extremely literal and reserved. When the hitchhiker asks, “Is Tallinn far?” the driver simply says “No” — truthfully, from that spot, it’s not. But, he doesn’t realize the hitchhiker actually wants to go to Tallinn and is asking for a lift. Instead, they drive in another direction (the direction that the driver was always intending on driving). Hours later, the hitchhiker asks again, and the driver replies, “Now it is.” The punchline lies in the dry, deadpan delivery: he never took the hint, and now they’re far from where the hitchhiker hoped to go. It’s a self-deprecating joke about how Estonians may answer exactly what you ask, without picking up on the deeper context as to why you may have asked it.

Finland
Submitted by Jukka Siukosaari, Ambassador of Finland to the United Kingdom

Babbel’s Explainer: This joke exaggerates Finnish introversion by suggesting that even the most socially outgoing individuals avoid eye contact. It is a form of self-deprecating humor that recognizes cultural norms around personal space, silence, and social restraint. The flatness of the delivery and the absence of embellishment reflect the Finnish preference for dry, understated humor that is often more observational than performative.

Hungary
Submitted by Dr. Ferenc Kumin, PhD, Ambassador of Hungary to the United Kingdom

Hungarian: A kommunizmus idején, 4 barát elmegy egy hotelbe nyaralni. Az egyikük Géza, mindig azzal viccelődik a többiekkel, hogy vigyázzanak mit mondanak a rendszerről, mert a falnak is füle van. A többiek persze nem hisznek neki.

Egyik este Géza, miközben a többiek már a szobában vannak, odaszól a lobbyban a pincérlánynak, hogy hozzon már fel nekik 4 üveg sört a szobába.Mikor belép a szobába hallja, hogy a többiek már megint a rendszert szidják. Rájuk szól, hogy ne tegyék, hiszen ahogy már többször is mondta a csapból is lehallgatják őket. A többiek csak nevetnek. Ekkor Géza beleszól a vízcsapba: “Főhadnagy elvtárs, hozzanak már fel nekünk 4 üveg sört!”

Pár perccel később kopognak az ajtón és ott áll a pincérlány 4 üveg sörrel. “Na kinek volt igaza?” — kérdezi Géza. 

A 3 barát szinte elájul. A pincérlány erre odaszól Gézának: “Igaz, hogy késtem pár percet, de azért nem kellett volna azonnal szólni a főhadnagy elvtársnak.”

English: Many decades ago, before the iron curtain came down, four Hungarian friends go on holiday together and check into a hotel. One of them, Géza, is always jokingly warning the others to watch what they say about the regime, because “even the walls have ears.” Of course, the others don’t believe him.

One evening, while the others are already up in the room, Géza’s still in the lobby. He turns to the waitress and asks her to bring four bottles of beer up to their room. When he gets back upstairs, he hears the others badmouthing the system again. He warns them — like he always does — not to say such things out loud, because they could be listened to anywhere, even through the taps. The others just laugh at him. So Géza leans over to the sink and says into the tap: “Comrade Lieutenant, could you please send us four bottles of beer?”

A couple of minutes later, there’s a knock at the door. It’s the waitress, standing there with four bottles of beer.

“Well?” says Géza. “Who was right?” His three friends nearly faint. The waitress turns to Géza and says: “I know I was a few minutes late, but there was really no need to call the lieutenant.

This joke originally appeared in the show Hofélia, by the popular Hungarian comedian Géza Hofi.

Babbel’s Explainer: This is a classic example of political humor from the communist era. It satirizes the culture of surveillance and censorship, where the idea that “even the walls have ears” was treated half as paranoia and half as reality. The joke blends absurdity with plausibility, which gives it its unsettling edge. It reflects Hungary’s tradition of political humor, where comedy served as a subtle means of critique and social commentary.

Latvia
Submitted by the Embassy of Latvia to the United Kingdom

Latvian: Latvietis zina 50 sēņu nosaukumus, bet trīs kaimiņu vārdus.

English: A Latvian knows the names for 50 different kinds of mushroom species, yet only three neighbours’ names.

Babbel’s Explainer: The humor lies in the contrast between a Latvian’s detailed knowledge of mushrooms and limited familiarity with their neighbors. Mushroom foraging is a popular and culturally significant activity in Latvia, often associated with solitude and time spent in forests. The contrast between deep botanical knowledge and minimal social engagement plays on stereotypes of Latvians as private, introverted and deeply connected to the natural environment.

Norway
Submitted by the Embassy of Norway to the United Kingdom

Norwegian: En mann hadde stinkdyr under huset sitt og spurte sin svenske venn hva han skulle gjøre med det. Vennen hans fortalte ham om en norsk nabo som hadde lagt lutefisk under huset for å bli kvitt stinkdyrene, og foreslo at han kunne prøve det samme. En uke senere spurte svensken hvordan det hadde gått. Mannen sa at han hadde laget en stor gryte med lutefisk, og at han ble kvitt stinkdyrene med en gang. «Hva er problemet da?», spurte han. «Nå har jeg nordmenn som bor under huset!»

English: A man had skunks under his house and asked his Swedish friend what to do about it. His friend told him about a Norwegian neighbor who put lutefisk under the house to get rid of the skunks and suggested he give it a try. A week later, the Swede asked him if he’d tried using the lutefisk. His friend said he made a big pot of lutefisk and it got rid of the skunks immediately. “What’s the problem then?” he asked. “Now I have Norwegians living under the house!”

Babbel’s Explainer: The year 2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the first Norwegian emigration to the United States. Many settled in the American Midwest, where Norwegian, Swedish and Danish communities lived side by side (often good-naturedly teasing one another). This joke taps into a long tradition of Scandinavian neighborly teasing, playing on regional stereotypes and the infamous reputation of lutefisk, a pungent Norwegian Christmas dish made from dried whitefish and lye. The twist is that while the lutefisk repels the skunks, it attracts Norwegians, suggesting a cultural fondness so strong that even an unbearable smell is no deterrent. It’s a classic example of affectionate Nordic self-deprecation.

SlovakiaSubmitted by Peter Susko, Ambassador of Slovakia to the United Kingdom

Babbel’s Explainer: This joke relies on the imagined scenario of Slovakia defeating a football powerhouse like England — but only in a video game. It acknowledges a common disparity in international sporting success through humor. 

Sweden
Submitted by the Swedish Embassy to the UK

Babbel’s Explainer: This pun plays on the Swedish word pigg, which means “energetic” or “alert,” but happens to sound just like the English word pig. The joke works because Swedes, with their high level of English fluency, are attuned to this kind of cross-language wordplay. They notice that pigg sounds like pig, even though it means something entirely different in Swedish.

Switzerland
Submitted by the Embassy of Switzerland in the United Kingdom

Babbel’s Explainer: This joke is based on a simple visual pun: the Swiss flag is a white cross on a red background, resembling a plus sign. Its structure is clean, which mirrors broader Swiss values such as neutrality, order, and clarity. The joke is widely known and often told in several of the country’s official languages, highlighting the multilingual nature of Swiss identity. 

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