He can't take the temperature of the room.

Does the above sentence make sense? I am talking about a situation, for example, where a person makes funny remarks that are not funny at all to the other people because they are not in a mood to accept such funny remarks, a situation where a person says something or does something that is unseasonable as far as the other people on the occasion are concerned. You might say (1) he just can't seem to read between the lines or (2) he can't take a hint, but to me neither of these two expressions seems to convey the exact meaning. Does the above sentence carry the meaning? If not, what expressions are good? In Japanese we say "kuuki ga yomenai", whose literal translation into English is "can't read the atmosphere (or air)".