Joshua Kreitzer sends this one in, noting that the punchline suggests that Curtis thought Barry made a comment about smoking, but “Comment allez-vous? Como estás?” doesn’t sound like “smoking”.
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I also note that Barry starts with French and finishes in Spanish (with one translation covering both). LanguageS, yes. No idea what Curtis heard…but given French pronunciation learned from a book, I could understand it being not at all what was written (Spanish is slightly closer to phonetic, at least to my ear). Presumably the strip writer came up with something that sounded like “zoo” and “smoking”…
Yes, Spanish spelling is almost always a very good match for what is spoken/heard. Of course, some of the sounds are a bit different from what you might be looking for based on English, but it is still quite self-consistent and fits the label “phonetic”.
French is further from that idea, due to (i) silent letters (ii) multiple ways to spell the same sounds [so that pronunciation can be predictable while spelling is not] and (iii) some sounds that are not used in English speech, and some others that have a variation or position in French that they do not have in English.
An example of (iii) would be the nasal vowel at the end of the word “Comment” in “Comment allez-vous?”. Perhaps also (iii) is what happens to the /t/ from the end of “Comment” — it is not silent, but is sort of moved to begin the next word. So overall: “Como~ tollay voo?” where õ is nasalized.
And yes, nothing there sounds like “smoking”.
Given that we all agree that the question in the final panel has nothing to do with Barry’s French and Spanish samples in the second panel, perhaps that is the whole point of the joke: Curtis has completely misunderstood the foreign text. His mom’s disappointed expression seems to confirm that she thinks Curtis is an idiot.
We see the foreign phrases in Barry’s word balloon, but we can’t be sure how he’s pronouncing them. If he pronounces the ‘z’ in “allez-vous”, that could sound like “zoo”, and if he pronounced the ‘s’ in “vous” and that could blend into the next phrase as “scomo estas” and maybe sound like ‘smoke’?
I don’t know, I’m reaching here.
I was trying to figure out what it sounded like Barry asked that might have referred to smoking without saying something that sounded like the actual word. Like maybe asking for a light or an ashtray, or something about an alley. But I haven’t gotten anywhere with it.
I don’t think the zoo comment has anything to do with what Barry said. It’s just Curtis’ usual opinion about what to do with his brother.
Curtis knows Barry is saying something in foreign language(s). It doesn’t matter how it sounds to him. He assumes it must be some foreign-language 101 expression, such as,
“Can you tell me where the railroad station is?”
“How are you?”
“Smoking is forbidden here.”
“The eternal-feminine leads us upward and on.”
Curtis just guessed wrong.
I was thinking the “smokin” comment was in the slang sense of “succeeding wildly,” or “hot stuff.” But that doesn’t lead to anything sensible, either.
Not much help from the relatively few comments at CK either.
Brian (8): CK has made commenting more difficult. On the other hand, they have made an interesting sport of second-guessing their censorbot.
A similar game is going on at GoComics. There’s the secondary one of, “how can I sort of post a URL to evade their link filter?” CK doesn’t have that one, and in fact can post images including moving GIFs.
There are a LOT of languages at the zoo? Could keep him busy elsewhere for a long time since none have a written component.
Since I didn’t understand this strip, I want to offer my alternative version which I think might have made more sense:
The first two panels remain the same.
Third panel:
Curtis: “Eres un niño feo. That’s Spanish for ‘You’re an ugly child.'”
Diane: “Curtis!!“
Fourth panel:
Curtis: “I thought you were praising foreign language skills.”
And yes, I realize that Curtis is not known to speak Spanish and probably wouldn’t be able to come up with a sentence in that language.
Comics I Don't Understand 
I also note that Barry starts with French and finishes in Spanish (with one translation covering both). LanguageS, yes. No idea what Curtis heard…but given French pronunciation learned from a book, I could understand it being not at all what was written (Spanish is slightly closer to phonetic, at least to my ear). Presumably the strip writer came up with something that sounded like “zoo” and “smoking”…
Yes, Spanish spelling is almost always a very good match for what is spoken/heard. Of course, some of the sounds are a bit different from what you might be looking for based on English, but it is still quite self-consistent and fits the label “phonetic”.
French is further from that idea, due to (i) silent letters (ii) multiple ways to spell the same sounds [so that pronunciation can be predictable while spelling is not] and (iii) some sounds that are not used in English speech, and some others that have a variation or position in French that they do not have in English.
An example of (iii) would be the nasal vowel at the end of the word “Comment” in “Comment allez-vous?”. Perhaps also (iii) is what happens to the /t/ from the end of “Comment” — it is not silent, but is sort of moved to begin the next word. So overall: “Como~ tollay voo?” where õ is nasalized.
And yes, nothing there sounds like “smoking”.
Given that we all agree that the question in the final panel has nothing to do with Barry’s French and Spanish samples in the second panel, perhaps that is the whole point of the joke: Curtis has completely misunderstood the foreign text. His mom’s disappointed expression seems to confirm that she thinks Curtis is an idiot.
We see the foreign phrases in Barry’s word balloon, but we can’t be sure how he’s pronouncing them. If he pronounces the ‘z’ in “allez-vous”, that could sound like “zoo”, and if he pronounced the ‘s’ in “vous” and that could blend into the next phrase as “scomo estas” and maybe sound like ‘smoke’?
I don’t know, I’m reaching here.
I was trying to figure out what it sounded like Barry asked that might have referred to smoking without saying something that sounded like the actual word. Like maybe asking for a light or an ashtray, or something about an alley. But I haven’t gotten anywhere with it.
I don’t think the zoo comment has anything to do with what Barry said. It’s just Curtis’ usual opinion about what to do with his brother.
Curtis knows Barry is saying something in foreign language(s). It doesn’t matter how it sounds to him. He assumes it must be some foreign-language 101 expression, such as,
“Can you tell me where the railroad station is?”
“How are you?”
“Smoking is forbidden here.”
“The eternal-feminine leads us upward and on.”
Curtis just guessed wrong.
I was thinking the “smokin” comment was in the slang sense of “succeeding wildly,” or “hot stuff.” But that doesn’t lead to anything sensible, either.
Not much help from the relatively few comments at CK either.
Brian (8): CK has made commenting more difficult. On the other hand, they have made an interesting sport of second-guessing their censorbot.
A similar game is going on at GoComics. There’s the secondary one of, “how can I sort of post a URL to evade their link filter?” CK doesn’t have that one, and in fact can post images including moving GIFs.
There are a LOT of languages at the zoo? Could keep him busy elsewhere for a long time since none have a written component.
Since I didn’t understand this strip, I want to offer my alternative version which I think might have made more sense:
The first two panels remain the same.
Third panel:
Curtis: “Eres un niño feo. That’s Spanish for ‘You’re an ugly child.'”
Diane: “Curtis!!“
Fourth panel:
Curtis: “I thought you were praising foreign language skills.”
And yes, I realize that Curtis is not known to speak Spanish and probably wouldn’t be able to come up with a sentence in that language.