I have tried my best, I absolutely don't understand this joke. ( Found on language learning sites). And it puzzles me so much… I don't even grasp what can be laughed about, I'm just completely intrigued:
It's about a man, Japanese, or Russian according the case, learning English all his life. One day it comes to London. While wandering he reads on a newspaper, (or on a theater bill board): "Oklahoma Pronounced Success."
And he shoots himself (if Japanese), or err aimlessly drunk and arrested by police (if Russian).
Best Answer
Elaboration: Picture a Japanese man who has been studying English and struggling with the vagaries and idiosyncrasies of its spellings and pronunciations. He believes that he's finally got a handle on things and heads over to New York. However the first thing he sees as he gets off the boat is a sign effectively stating the following:
This is too much for our ESL student to process and his brain explodes.
Explanation: Oklahoma! is actually the name of a wildly successful Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and the sign is stating that the show has been pronounced a success. It should technically have read:
While the missing exclamation mark might have been a mistake made in the joke or the sign-writer in it, the article "a" is often dropped in headlines for reasons of brevity.
The joke demonstrates how confusing English spelling and pronunciation can be, particularly for foreigners.