French Jokes: “Where is Brian?”

Having a good private joke (especially an in-joke) is a great way to open the door to a new culture and break the ice. For many learners of a foreign language humour is not always the easiest thing to understand, and it can be a rather large cultural hurdle.

In my experience, I found it difficult to capter des blagues françaises (get French jokes), until I heard one that played into how the French learned English.

Recently I was in France on business with Ben Amrany of FC Exchange, we were seeking out new Cle France agents and meeting old friends at the same time. Talking about the buying process and how to sell French Houses to non-French speaking clients can be a trial so from time to time I tried a little humour to lighten the load.

At one point I was introduced to a member of the team in a local French estate agents office, we shall call him Ernest, he was in his 30s and I was told he was the member of staff learning English but had only just started, so I said "was he attending a CP class cour preparatoire at the local school?" I then went on to mime trying to get in and out of the small chairs they had in the lobby for children to sit on whilst waiting for Mum and Dad who were viewing property for sale.

Everyone thought it was funny except Ernest who probably thought I was saying he had a mental age of a 6 year old rather than just making light of learning English as a beginner!

So I brought out the default blague “Where is Brian?” to rescue the situation!

Photo by Elliott Brown on Flickr.

La blague (the joke) comes from the famous comedian, Gad Elmaleh, and the joke plays on the teaching method used in French schools for learning English throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s.

La blague from his sketch (routine) goes like this:

En Francais...

Parce que j’ai quelques notions d’anglais quand même, j’ai appris l’anglais comme vous à l’école quand on était petit.

On a tous eu les même cours débiles !

Avec cette fameuse question existentielle à laquelle il fallait trouver absolument une réponse: “Where is Brian?”

Il vous a traumatisé aussi ce Brian…

On savait pas qui c’était ce Brian, on s’en foutait, mais il fallait le localiser dans la maison pour apprendre l’anglais, c’était ça.

Il fallait trouver les gens de la famille Brian pour apprendre l’anglais, qu’est-ce qui s’passe ?

“Where is Brian?” et toi comme un idiot tu répondais sagement : “Brian is in the kitchen”…

In English...

Because I know a little English too, I learned English in school when I was little like all of you.

We all had the same dumb class!

With that famous existential question that you just had to find an answer to: “Where is Brian?”

Brian traumatized all of you as well…

You didn’t know who Brian was, you didn’t care, but you had to find out where he was in the house in order to learn English, that was it.

You had to find the members of Brian’s family in order to learn English, and what happened?

“Where is Brian?” and like an idiot you calmly responded: “Brian is in the kitchen”…

Insert laughter here...

I know it is not that funny on paper but the result of his wildly successful standup show is now a common joke among French people. “Where is Brian?” leads almost immediately to the response, “Brian is in the kitchen.”

If you can learn this simple blague, tes amis français (your French friends) will be surprised that you know la blague and feel more comfortable sharing French culture with you.