Here’s a simple test. Read the joke. If it makes you laugh (giggle, chuckle or only smile, grin) your English is at least B1 level. Here we go: I’m not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change.
If you've laughed, congrats. If you haven't, you probably don’t yet know all the meanings of CHANGE, so go and work on your vocabulary
Well, here you need two meanings: 1. ‘the act of becoming different, or the result of something becoming different‘ ; 2. ‘money in the form of coins rather than notes'.
Stand-up comedians build their jokes on the various meanings of words. This brilliant example by the stand-up Ken Cheng won the Dave’s Funniest Joke of the Fringe Award at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival.
Do you want to know some of the other jokes that were nominated? No problem. The only thing is... you have to put them together yourself.
Match the first parts of the jokes (1-6) with the second parts, which are called punchlines (A-F).
1 I've given up asking rhetorical questions.
2 I wasn't particularly close to my dad before he died...
3 I'm looking for the girl next door type.
4 Trump's nothing like Hitler.
5 For me dying is a lot like going camping.
6 I like to imagine the guy who invented the umbrella was going to call it the 'brella'.
A There's no way he could write a book.
B I'm just gonna keep moving house till I find her.
C What's the point?
D But he hesitated.
E which was lucky, because he trod on a land mine.
F I don't want to do it.
Key:
1-C, 2-E, 3-B, 4-A. 5-F, 6-D
If you want to know some of the other jokes of the 2017 Fringe, or hear the best jokes of the past year's from the winning comedians' mouth, click on this Guardian page (and be ready for a taste of British accents!).
Read more about the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.