What Europeans think of each other
This is a basic backgrounder for Americans, primarily, who might think Europeans do nothing all day but bitch about Americans. Don’t get me wrong—they do love bitching about Americans. But they also like bitching about each other, as well. Bordering countries, especially, have complex caricatures of each other, even when an outsider might think they’re more or less the same. The following is based on my numerous interactions with Europeans, having lived there for 4 years. Here’s a run down:
The French — Disliked by some Spanish (particularly the Catalonians), for being arrogant. One woman from Barcelona told me, “Come on¦who really likes the French? Nobody!” The Swiss don’t like the fact that they have contempt for authority and are lazy. The Brits, of course, have the most mixed feelings about the French, though. One half the country hates them, the other half loves them. Those that hate the French tend to like the Americans, and vice versa. In the UK, they’re considered stinky, rude (they never line/queue up like decent people), and a bit yellow, based on their tendency to not fend off invaders like the Nazis.The French, in turn, dislike the British, look down on Belgians for being stupid, and don’t have much to say, in my experience, about Spaniards or Germans (oddly).
The Italians — Most of the stereotypes are positive, but mostly because of the food. Northern Europeans consider them lazy and flaky, and maybe incapable of managing anything right (mostly because of the 50+ governments they’ve had since WW2). One Dutch professor I had dismissed another Italian one, saying, “All the Italians care about are pasta and mamma.”Italians, in turn, don’t have strong feelings about other Europeans, but within Italy, the north-south divide is pretty strong. Northern Italians continuously complain that Southerners are lazy and unproductive, while Southerners complain that Northerners are devoid of culture or joie de vivre.
The Germans — Germans are considered industrious but uptight and humorless, by just about all the other Europeans. They know WW2 is a sore spot for them, so other Europeans will often mercilessly tease them about it. As much as Germany is considered an economic powerhouse, the vast majority of Europeans don’t really want to learn German or study there (or send their kids there to study). The food is considered uninspired, too, and only Berlin has some cachet among younger Europeans for its vibrant underground club scene. The most anti-German sentiments are among the Dutch and Danish, who just hate them from invading their countries too often. When German ask for directions in Holland, they’re usually given directions to the shortest way out of the country, or told “Give us back our bikes!”, a reference to the fact that Germans confiscated Dutch bicycles during WW2.Danes hate it when you pronounce their capital as “ko-pen-HAH-gen”, because this is the German pronunciation. Either pronounce it the English way (with “HAY” instead), or the Danish way, which is literally impossible to put down here.Germans tend to like their Western neighbors far more than they are liked by them, but they look down on their Eastern neighbors, particularly Poles. They, oddly, have some mixed respect for the Czechs, who have resisted German aggression.
The Scandinavians — Widely respected by most other Europeans, because of their high standard of living …and blond hair and blue eyes. However, within Scandinavia there are some persistent stereotypes. The Norwegians, Danes and Finns all think the Swedes are stupid and uptight. Norwegians are considered racist. Danes are considered more blunt than the others, maybe a bit more cranky, and the Finns are oddly introverted, even by Scandinavian standards. Except for the Danes really disliking Germans, and Finns really disliking Russians, they don’t really have anything against other Europeans.
The Belgians — Considered idiots by both the Dutch and the French. Belgians, in turn, consider the Dutch to be a bunch of cranky assholes, and French stuck-up.
The Dutch — The Dutch, like the Scandinavians, have an enviable economy and social order that’s admired by southern European countries. However, they do have a reputation of being self-righteous “know-it-alls” and very similar to their German cousins in terms of their rigidity. But they do not like any comparisons to Germans, and if you remind them that the Dutch national anthem makes a reference to the Dutch being “van Duitse bloed” (from German blood), you might quickly get the silent treatment. The Dutch are also disliked for being the biggest misers in Europe, and because of this they incur the wrath of the tourist industry wherever they travel. The Dutch have been known to stock up on water before they take their campers down to the south of France.The Dutch, in turn, kind of look down on just about everyone. Yes, there’s a bit of a reason for the “know-it-all” smart-ass reputation they have.
The Swiss — Considered extremely rigid, even by the Germans. Blunt to the point of being rude, the Swiss probably have the least likely reputation for being characterized as “friendly” or “warm”. Note that there is a big cultural divide between French-speaking Swiss, and the German-speaking Swiss. The former are almost exactly like the French, except having a blander cuisine and more respect for authority, the latter being more like the Germans except even more stiff, rigid and cranky. However, everyone knows Switzerland “works” so the fact that foreigners comprise 20% of the population (mostly from EU member states) should make this clear.Note that the German-speaking Swiss also speak their own variant of German, which sounds very strange if you’ve only been exposed to standard “hoch-Deutsch”.
The Spaniards — Honestly, very little antagonism against the Spanish or by the Spanish. No one really seems to dislike them, and they don’t seem to really dislike anyone else. (Yes, some Spaniards near the border to France don’t like the French very much) Not entirely sure why. However, God forbid you speak Spanish with a Latin American accent — there is still a lot of snobbery among Spaniards towards Latin Americans. Spaniards consider themselves white and European, and would be deeply insulted if you suggested they were Latin American of any kind.
The Greeks — Only nominally considered European by other Europeans, but the Greeks fiercely identify as European. Naturally, this is a huge irritant to Greeks.
The Poles — Not much seems to register about Poland and the Poles except that they’re quiet. They are a relatively big country (40 million people) so the supposed scare of being overrun by Eastern Europeans when a bunch of Eastern European countries joined the EU in 2005 focused in on the Poles. The Germans really don’t like Poles, and among Germany’s 9 neighbors, are disliked the most. Poland is considered a country of car thieves by the Germans. Really, the relationship between Germany and Poland is similar to that of the United States and Mexico, and often for many of the same reasons (differences in income, history of war, different languages, etc.).Poles really shore up their hatred for their eastern & southern neighbors, primarily Russia and Ukraine, although they don’t like Czechs, Slovaks or Lithuanians either. Oddly, they don’t really mind the Germans, and probably still fear them a bit — you never, ever hear jokes about Germans in Poland.
The Czechs — Considered a relatively bright spot of Eastern Europe by Western Europeans, but I think primarily because Prague is such a gorgeous city and a popular tourist destination. Czechs are a bit like Germans, though — a bit rude, blunt, and cold. Poles don’t have much good to say about them.
The Austrians — Considered a mix of the best & worst aspects of Germany and the Balkans, Austrians are considered laid-back but very nationalistic and racist. They’re said to be the birthplace of Hitler, but never came around to being fully apologetic about the Holocaust (unlike Germany). Neutral feelings from most ofWestern Europe, negative feelings from Germans (who consider them backwards, and not always the representing the best image of German-speaking people) and admired by Eastern Europeans (a throwback to the Hapsburgs).
The British – About half of the British would be really angry at being called European, so that should provide an apt starting point. The main beef with the Brits is that they’re considered the lapdog of the U.S., and are anti-European because the U.S. tells them to be so. They are considered polite, but maybe a bit two-faced (hence “Janus Britain”) and snobby. The Scots and Welsh are tolerated and liked, inasmuch as that no one really knows too much about them outside the UK, but the English are those that bear the brunt of negative sentiments among other Europeans. After all, London is in England.
The English also have a poor reputation in tourist traps, such as Amsterdam and Ibiza, for being loud-mouthed, obnoxious drunks.
The English, in turn, really seem to hate everyone. This is because it’s pretty hard to find an Englishman that has even, at best, neutral opinions about other Europeans (or Americans, or other nationalities). Europe is full of English expats, and the longer they live abroad, the more they seem to hate their host country. And yet they never seem to want to move home.
The Irish — A very small country, despite its exaggerated importance in Americans’ minds (just over 3 million) but considered polite and humble. They nominally dislike the English, but I have yet to meet an Irishman who really loathes the English. The sentiments towards the Irish and by the Irish seem to be positive, overall.
I personally don’t know much about how the Portuguese, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, and others are perceived, or how they perceive others, but if you have something to add, please do so in the comments below.
I’ll leave you with this poster I saw in an Italian office years ago, that helps sum it up in some ways:
In Heaven…
- the mechanics are German
- the chefs are French
- the police are British
- the lovers are Italian
- and everything is organized by the Swiss.
In Hell…
- the mechanics are French
- the police are German
- the chefs are British
- the lovers are Swiss
- and everything is organized by the Italians.
Update: Here’s my follow-up after this post got an avalanche of traffic and comments.
Another update: Here’s a related post on what Americans think about Europeans.
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Posted on September 24th, 2007 by JM
Best ever slagging off of a German:
German pilot, German airline, German airport: Asks tower a question in German.
Tower (in English): If you want an answer you must ask in English.
German: Im German, in Germany, flying a German plane.. why do I have to speak English?
English pilot: Because you lost the bloody war…
Gotta laff!
Ha ha, that’s a good one! I’m afraid we’ll all be enjoying jokes like that one at the Germans’ expense for quite some time.
Greetings from an English teacher! Nice writeup about What Europeans think of each other. I would have to agree with you on this one. I am going to look more into live abroad. This Saturday I have time.
Hope you consider living abroad, even for a while. It’s an eye-opening experience – truly changes you forever.
I’m Dutch, and come to think of it, you’re quite right about us, although it’s a little old fashioned. It’s said that we also pile up whole bags of potatoes and brown beans before going on vacation in France, with our caravans.
Germans also ‘hate’ us for just those things, ’cause it slows them down on the Autobahn. The other day, when I was in Germany the first German I met asked where I parked my “wohnwagen”. Gotta love ‘em for that. hehehe. (no I don’t have one).
By the way, in Germany you don’t have a maximum speed on the highway, which is why we Dutch like them too. On the other hand, when the Germans come to visit our beaches, they tend to dig holes in them, to sit in and drink their own beer. We like to make fun of that too, ’cause: WHY DIG A HOLE IN THE BEACH? Maybe it’s their trench war instinct
.
Nice article! Fun read.
My Dad used to say “the Wogs begin at Calais” but he was a bit of a racist and a WW2 vet. I was born in England my Mum is a Scot my Dad was of Irish descent and our last name is Welsh in origin so go figure. That’s probably why I live in he States and try to get along with everyone, even the French.
I’m from Germany, have been to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Holland, France, Italy, England, Czech, Hungary and Portugal and met many people from other European countries. And I must say, you are right on spot. Funny read
(Of course, not everybody is like that, but you got the tendencies right.)
That’s a great article on stereotyping Europeans. It’s certainly a fact that by traveling across Europe wich I have done myself you gain more respect for fellow Europeans. Something we should all do, traveling broadens your horizon
A couple of friends of mine who are Spanish sociologists were over for dinner the other night and they were talking about the time the spent in Portugal. The most striking characteristic (to their minds) was how the Portuguese have an incredibly strong tie their history – namely their long-defunct empire. Numerous anecdotes, such as the Weather Reporter who after giving the forecast in the Azores and Cape Verde always says, and now the forecast on the “Continent” – referring to Portugal. Their TV is rife with documentaries talking about their glorious past, you can never have a conversation with a native without somehow turning to historical battles won by the Portuguese, how Portugal extended its global empire, etc. Think of in these terms: You in Portugal: “Please pass the salt”; Random Portuguese: “That reminds me of the famous battle of Carrimbe, where the brave Portuguese fleet defeated the Dutch and won Macao. You get the picture.
They also said the Portuguese are extremely proper in how they speak to people and generally very polite. An old world charm, so to speak
Oh, and they hate the Spanish, who as a whole tend to be quite a bit louder and ruder than the Portuguese.
what a piece of crap!
the spaniards are disliked else and everywhere, for being the stupid and arrogants -not to mention completely racists-, beasts they are!
Whahahaha i’m Dutch and it’s so bloody true! The whole list. Though you forgot the Portugese, but hey! We all tend to forget about them. Swiss isn’t the European Union and so not considered European.
We don’t really consider the Belgiums as idiots. We like to make fun of them but as friends. We are not hostile towards eachother.
The Spanish have a good reputation. It’s true they don’t work hard. But that’s the same for all the countries south of Belgium and Germany. Spanish are known as cheerfull and enjoying life. We from the north can’t stand their culture where they take Siesta for a couple of hours during the day! Where i’m form you work the day and sleep the night.
French are also considered kind of cowards, for there role in the war (the collaborated), very rude. And refuse to speak any other language then French.
Hey i’m Dutch so i have to be a smartass, kind of…:)
Even better slagging off of an arrogant German ground controller at Frankfort International Airport. This airport has a confusing layout, calling for careful taxi-ing of your jet liner. This is compounded by their notoriously impatient and rigid ground controllers, who expect you to know how to get around to your gate without assistance. This exchange was between Frankfort ground control and a British Airways 747 with the call sign of Speedbird 206.
Speedbird 206: “Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway.”
Ground: “Speedbird 206, taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven.”
The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: “Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?”
Speedbird 206: “Stand by Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now.”
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): “Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before!?”
Speedbird 206 (cooly): “Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark…….and I didn’t land.”
Brilliant piece of writing! Im dutch, and work at a holliday park, so i meet a lot of ‘m, and its all true!
Keep up the good work!
i dated a finnish girl, who told me that all finns believe swedes (at least the male ones) to be gay and effeminate
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The Irish seriously dislike Romainian’s, on account of a lot of gypsies coming here, although they might not be from Romania the general opinion is they all are. Most of the gypsies are very beggers.
Our only opinion of the Portuguese, Hungarians & Bulgarians are in relation to their football teams.
And we now have a LOT of Poles here, although we too see them as quiet, and in a way see ourselves from 30 years ago in them.
I am german and I do have to chuckle about these jokes.
also that summary of europe is very accurate. Good job
The Brits, of course, have the most mixed feelings about the French, though. One half the country hates them, the other half loves them. Those that hate the French tend to like the Americans
Err, you’re mistaken, I’m a “Brit” and I hate both of you.
Regarding the joke:
Shouldn’t they be speaking Russian since they lost the war?
Just saying… Russia did by far most of the fighting.
The Portugese hate the Spanish. And the fact that the Portugese also extensively shop in Spain because it’s cheaper there makes them hate the Spanish all the more. The Spanish relationship with the Portugese is somewhat like the English relationship with the Scots or the Irish.
If anyone has any opinions about where the Portuguese fit in, I’d love to hear them. For business and personal reasons, I seem to have a growing connection with that country but I still don’t have a feel yet for how they fit in with the rest of Europe.
The Spaniards hate the Portuguese and vice versa (basically the latter never forgave the former for invading them in the 1600s and the Spaniards resent being pushed out). Galicians, while technically part of Spain, feel ambivalent, as linguistically they are closer to Portuguese and isolated overall (much like the Basques).
Romanians and Hungarians (Magyars) have “issues” as well, based on the minority population of the latter in the former.
Ireland has over 6 million people and Northern Ireland (part of the UK, but you didn’t mention them in the section about Britain) has perhaps 2 million people.
Ireland is of exaggerated importance because the Irish diaspora numbers 80 million and a good portion of that number were immigrants and children of immigrants to the US over the last couple of centuries.
In my dealings with the Icelandic, as well as picking up the general vibe from others in England, it seems most people either don’t know anything about the Icelandic or find them to be somewhat like the Scandinavians, shy but fun and not afraid to be different in a somewhat hip way. In return, they have little hatred for anyone else, although they seem to have this innate, but unspoken, feeling that Iceland is really where all the action is, and that the rest of the world is missing out. Either that, or they really do hate us and don’t act on it at all..
Ummm… the Scandinavians are all lumped together, but the biggest omission is Portugal – kind of hard to understand, not exactly a country with little relevance in world history, let alone Europe.
I’ve found the British part funny, but perhaps lacking in considering the full picture… I’m Welsh though
As for the nations you don’t have data on, I can tell you that there’s no love lost between the Romanians and the Hungarians, that’s for sure. The Hungarians, as far as I can tell, consider the Romanians to be a bunch of hicks, and the Romanians return the love by seeing many Hungarians as stuck-up.
I work with a Bulgarian guy. He said that the Bulgarians relate mostly with the Greeks. He likes Russia, and Russians. He hates gypsies. I have not ever heard him say anything bad about other European countries.
I’d like to comment on the Poles description (as I’m one of them
First of all: we Poles like the Czechs very much, for their humour, great food and general ‘coolness’.
Slovakians are somewhat neutral.
We dislike Russians because we think they are thugs and drunkards (although I’ve heard from some Russians that in fact we drink much more).
We don’t have any strong feelings for the Germans, neither positive nor negative. It’s like we know they are right next to us, but we don’t really want to know them. Although, I must admit, Poles have some respect for the Germans, you can sometimes hear older people saying that when germans occupied Poland there was order (a thing we lack a bit now). Also it is not true that we have no jokes about Germans. There is a whole series of jokes that start with “There was a Pole, Russian and a German…”, in which the German always ends up being the stupidiest.
I’ll try to give you some idea about what stereotypes we have in Hungary about others.
Romans: they steel, they took away Transilvania from us, and one other interesting thing is that everyone except Romanians and Hungarians mix the two capitals, Budapest, and Bucarest.
Russians: they invided us after WWII for 55 years. Ah, and also in 1956 they came in with the tanks.
Russians, and Ukrainians are considered to be the maffia in Hungary.
Croats, Slovens: as far as I know, everyone is OK with them.
Serbs, Slovaks: they don’t treat the Hungarian minority in their country too well.
The Austrians: well I think Hungarians admire them, because they were on the other side of the iron-wall, they have higher standard of living.
When you say in Hungarian “Balkan”, it means chaotic, dirty.
> In Hell…
> * the chefs are British
Actually, this is one case where the stereotype is flat-out wrong. Many of the best restaurants in the world are in the UK according to food critics. From Wikipedia:
> In 2005 British cuisine reached new heights when 600 food critics writing for (British) Restaurant magazine named 14 British restaurants among the 50 best restaurants in the world with the number one spot going to The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire and its chef Heston Blumenthal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_cuisine#International_and_fusion_cuisine
My Latvian grandparents told me that the way to swear in Latvian is to just say the same word but in German or Russian… i guess because they’ve basically spent most of their histing being occupied by either of those countries.
The Greeks absolutely hate the Turks. Turkey’s isn’t part of the EU but is geographically part of Europe and part of Asia, the border being the Bosphoros / Istanbul Strait
The Greeks and Italians seem to like each other too.
The English like the Scots and will most likely support Scotland in an international football match. The Scots dislike England and will most likely support England’s opponent in an international Football match.
Hi,
Most Scandinavians that I have talked to do not consider Finland to be a part of Scandinavia (as well as Iceland).
Great post, though I’d like to see more about your take on the Balkan countries, considering the wars and rivalries between them are so much more real and recent than the rest of Europe. (And yes, Greece is in the Balkans, but they don’t consider themselves as such
Nice article, Since I am Dutch, I can give some remarks about the Dutch and their position within Europe.
Things aren’t as sharp as posed in your article and some of it can be categorized as caricature. Europe as such is a balancing act of many culture clashes and the borders are more or less correct according cultural borders, still, people living in borders areas of both neighboring countries share much of their cultures. Political the European borders are more strict than it’s cultural borders.
For the Netherlands there are 4 main cultural areas, Holland and the southwest share their culture with Flanders (Belgium) but the more north you go in Holland the more anti authorial the people are. I live there, so I know a bit of them, they are mostly attracted to Anglo Saxon culture and somewhat to Francophone culture, we live on the crossroads of 2 cultures, we speak a mixture of Lower Saxon and Lower Frankish, our dialect is imposed on the other parts of the Netherlands as being standard Dutch, we are the most cocky people from the Netherlands, maybe it’s because people from Holland created their own land.
The second area is Friesland, this is an older culture than the Netherlands exist, they are Anglo Saxon and Scandinavian oriented and because they have to live they are oriented towards Holland, But I am not sure whether they just tolerate us or like us, probably the former, they speak Frisian and Dutch.
The 3rd area is the eastern part of the Netherlands, this part is oriented towards Germany, they are more rural oriented and tend to rightly mistrust people from Holland because their life speed is slower and people from Holland tend to use their speed to intimidate or conn others, the people east speak Lower Saxon and Dutch. It is also the poorest part of the Netherlands.
The 4th is Brabant, they share Belgium culture, this is a rural part and was somewhat industrious and second poorest part of the Netherlands, here the people speak Lower Frankish and Dutch. They have the same relation with the people from Holland as the east has.
The 5th area is Limburg, this used to be a quite large country at it self spanning large areas in Germany and Belgium. They speak as far as I know High Saxon combined with Lower Frankish, and of course Dutch, like others they have to eat and make a living in the Netherlands. I do not know a lot about Limburg culture.
As far as people from Holland hating Germans, as most from the east don’t hate Germans at all, they share culture more than with people from Holland. The hate is fading here in Holland, we mostly admire Germans for their honesty and hard working, The Netherlands also has the largest economical ties with Germany and then others. In Holland we tend to like Anglo Saxon humor but in other parts of the Netherlands this is different.
The nice thing of Europe is that what I just wrote down is true for all countries, everywhere you go is a crossroad of cultures, more than you can count. Also culture in Europe goes much deeper than the current political system and will probably survive it too in the long run.
Actually heard the “I want my bicycle back” joke in West Flanders (Gent Belgium) in 1989. Plant where I was working had a German contractor working in the control room. Belgian operator said this after German left the room for lunch.
Another: Why are the avenues in Paris lined with trees? So German soldiers can march in the shade.”
Bartender at hotel in Gent was very nice to elderly German couple as they returned from dinner. Then, after they disappeared around the corner toward the elevator, he snapped off a Nazi salute at them. heh.
Descriptions of Belgians, Dutch and English are spot on.
The Basque Country in the Pyrenees between France and Spain is probably the biggest reason for tension between the two countries. ETA, the Basque nationalist terror group, are active on both sides of the border, since their historical territory currently falls within both countries. The Spanish side is a bit more lax toward the idea of Basque autonomy, while the French are typically resistant.
I’m amazed that you articulated your observations so well, although I have to disagree with you on the Norwegians, all the ones we know were very friendly (although they have the tendency to be a bit crazy sometime!).
You can add that the Swiss think the Austrians are idiots. The jokes about them are available in abundance. Especially in the border regions.
And the Germans are considered stuck-up. With their nobility titles ‘Von und Zu’. I guess that comes from its founding when they kicked some Habsburgian butt to get their independence.
Some people think the Portuguese speak Spanish, which really pisses them off because they don’t really like them, perhaps because they are in competition for the quality of oranges, olives and wine and generally lose.
In the Algarve there are a lot of pale British and German holiday makers – colloquially referred to as ‘bife’, or beef, the colour they go in the sun. They are generally disliked but tolerated because the region relies on tourism. The British expats throughout the country are judged by how well they integrate, which mostly means pretty pooly.
You are right about the like the French/hate the French divide amongst the English. The likers tend to be the intellectual, upper-middle class liberals who enjoy the sensual language and literature, revere the food and idolise the French country-side and rural way of life. The haters are the bourgeois, Conservative, anti-Europe, middle Englanders, to whom meat and two veg is the right sort of meal for an Englishman, none of that poncy foreign muck thank you very much. You’ll see them reading the Daily Mail and complaining about young people. I dislike them as much as they dislike the French. It’s not that simple though, even though I love French culture and food they’re still a bunch of arrogant cheese-eating bastards.
I’ve got to say those national assessments seem pretty spot on. Germans can be such a stiff, prickly lot but I still like them. Also, I actually really enjoy German cuisine (probably says more about me than German food but, hey… it is good stuff).
You want lousy cuisine? Go to Finland. I lived there for a year and at one point ate potatoes twice a day for 30 days straight (I was in college at the time but still). Blood sausage? Check. Blood pancakes (yes. they really eat this. I’m not kidding)? Check. Liver casserole (maksalaatikko)? Check! To be fair, Finns are a solid, strong people (and they have awesome salmiakki and koskenkorva. Google them). Certainly I have a positive opinion of them… it’s just… that food.
Hah! Exactly right (on perceived stereotypes, that is), at least as far as the ones that I’ve had experience with. One of the jokes I heard about the Finnish while living in Germany:
How do you tell an extrovert Fin?
He’s staring at YOUR shoes when he’s talking to you.
Q. What’s a German without the fantastic sense of humor?
A. A Swede.
A few stereotypes to fill the void: Hungarians are incredibly atrocious drivers – aggressive and scary, even if their cars are midget-sized. Romanians are lost in medieval times. Andorra is a giant outlet mall. Spain is 30 different countries waiting to break apart. Swiss hire Germans to be their maids. Germans regard Austrians as a third world country. Danish people are incredibly racist against Eskimos. Iceland has the most beautiful population in the world because they are the descendants of all the hottest women the Vikings kidnapped from every other country in Europe. And Welsh are kind, wise, soulful, sexy, geniuses
Another one about the Germans:
An American pilot was having difficulty following the lights at the Berlin airport; the traffic controler sneeringly asked him if he had ever been to Berlin before. The reply was, “Just twice, in 1944, but I didn’t land.”
Hi
I’m was born in England ( North) of Irish descent and have lived in Australia for many years, when I travel I tend to be a chameleon. So:
In Aus i’m Australian
In NZ i’m English
In Europe i’m Irish
In northern England i’m English ( northern)
In southern England I’m Australian
In Scotland and Wales i’m Australian
In Canada i’m anything
In Ireland I’m Irish
I haven’t been to the US
C’mon – Norwegian considered racist? By whom? The rest of scandinavia? And towards whom? I really would like to know this, and how you’ve come up with such an idea.
Norwegians have jokes about Sweden, and Sweden have jokes about Norway – it’s not racism, it’s mere quarreling between siblings.
..the rest of the article is however pretty accurate. Nice observations throughout. (Which is part of the reason I want to know about that racism part – you might just have something; and we might be completely oblivious to it, as we tend to be towards a lot of things
That was really entertaining to read. And completly true
Unless you’re talking to someone who was over the age of 14 during WWII, you’ve got no business making fun of Germans for what their parents did; *that* is racism.
[...] What Europeans think of each other @ Dailycandor [...]
[...] Read the rest of the post here [...]
Good article!
When I read about the Dutch I thought like.. “Yep, that’s me allright!”!
You forgot one thing about the French though which whole Europe seems to dislike, the fact that they don’t speak english and if they do, they won’t.
And the Belgiums are considerd dumb by the Dutch (which is not true) and the Belgiams think we are cheap (which is true)!
The reason North-Europe seems to dislike the south is because they are “lazy”. But in my opinion it’s because the south has more culture and enjoys like, carpe diem! North-Europe is more like, life to work! So I admire the southern countries for that one, they do know how to live their lifes!
Great article, very true and entertaining!
do some study before you post anything – no german jokes in poland (but i can’t expect you to understand polish, right?), czechs resisted resisted germany (not much really), i don’t know much of the dutch and danish but trust me, poles (especially older people) have as much love to germans as – according to you – these other nations do. quiet nation (true or not (more likely) i’ll take it for the silence is golden).
I think this article can only been have written by an english or american for their ignorance about completely ignoring (or not even knowing) Luxembourg which is located in THE HEART OF EUROPE!!!
Being Germany myself (thought living abroad) I have to disagree just a little bit. I respect a lot of the dutch for their sort of economic habit of saving, however there are others I feel that are just as stupid as the drunken- stuck-up ass hole brits. (which pretty much sums up my opinion of the brits).
I respect the Czechs and the Poles for being hard workers.
The Danish are pretty insignificant so I haven’t heard of the deep resentment that you mentioned.
If anything most of the racism that I hear is against the Turks who are often remarked as “Overrunning the Country with Cheap Labor” even though from a more economic stand point the Romanians work for much less.
[...] likes the French. Here’s a look at what Europeans think of each [...]
Here in England we refuse to be part of ‘Europe’. We have no need for them as we already rule (own) most of the world!
The US, India, Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand are still part of our empire and we don’t want to hear anything more about it.
about the Danes:
we generally dislike the germans because of the war, but are keen on working with them because they are good, precise workmen.
Poland is disliked because of the great number of cheap workers they have uphere. The whole “they steal our jobs for lesser pay” deal.
the swedes and norse are our siblings, so we both love and fight with them with a passion.
We always try to present us as a good rolemodel for the environmental issues and other related topics. Mainly because we want to be noticed in the international society; We are a small country after all.
About Germans:
“they look down on their Eastern neighbors, particularly Poles. They, oddly, have some mixed respect for the Czechs, who have resisted German aggression.”
I strongly suggest you read up on history before you put up stuff like this.
Czechoslovakia (at the time) capitulated after a few weeks without much fight (there was resistance of course, as in most places) while Poland was fighting back for a month, while Soviets were attacking from the other side.
a lot of speculation and ‘i heard this from one guy so the whole country must think this’ knowledge.
on some accounts right, but a lot of falsehoods in this article.
Emily M. I really hope you were kidding about your profession
Ey, you should have noted (i.e., I’m Dutch) that *everyone* hates the French because every peasant there considers himself to be the Sun King compared to foreigners. France, as is widely known, is a fantastic country if only those ghastly French wouldn’t live there.
And you missed the Great Garlic Divide. Any country that has garlic as staple diet (roughly speaking, all ’southern’, ‘Catholic’ countries which includes half of Belgium (Wallon, culturally integral part of France)) is considered self-centered, unclean and smelly (guess why) and disorganised by the Northeners who consider themselves model citizens in modern societies. Personally, I’m unsure whether that latter is acknowledged from the South… ;-]
As said, Belgium isn’t one country. It’s Wallon in the South, very French, and Vlaanderen in the North, considered substitute Netherlands.
Oh and that part on Dutch misers: When a Dutchman and a Belgian are in a restaurant, the Belgian will sneak off leaving the bill for the Dutchman, who on average tips much more generous than the Belgian… You should have known, I tell you!
Having lived in several European countries, I agree to most of what you wrote, but the stereotypes you portray all are a bit dated. It feels like something that would have been dead-on around 1990ish, but since then a lot has happened.
“Spaniards consider themselves white and European, and would be deeply insulted if you suggested they were Latin American of any kind.”
Are you surprised! They are European, and you’d have to be very ignorant to think otherwise.
OK, piece of junk. But what should one expect from not EU citizen.
Anyway if you want to learn sth:
- Poles are loving jokes about Germans and Russians (everyone knows that – since I was child we were talkin’ those)
- Czechs DID not resist nazis! Where have you been when history was taught?
Truth is – that car stealing WAS a problem – and it WAS true.
Nice
One addition: the north west part of france really *loathes* germans (because of the war I guess). I you are on holiday there and speak a ‘german sounding’ (to the french) language like dutch/danish/norwegian/swedish you need to open every conversation with stating you are not german, or you will we treated quit unfriendly. Luckily this phenomenon mostly applies to the older generations, who cannot hear the difference between german/dutch, so if you are on holiday there as a german it is easy to just tell them you’re dutch
As someone living in the UK, i wanted to point out some facts. The English are very arrogant, the only people I have met more arrogant that the dutch or french. They sort of have a right to be, as they haven’t been conquered in 800 years, and had a huge empire that contained 1/4 of the world population. It is correct, 1/2 hate the europeans, 1/2 hate the americans.
The Scots hate the british with a passion, mainly because they are all bitter and miserable. It doesn’t help that they get even worse weather than England, and are not very good at any sports. The scots love the French and vice versa, but it is more a common hatred of the English. Surprisingly, this hasn’t united Ireland and Scotland as much.
Nobody hates the Irish, partly because they are very relaxed people, partly because they are a small country.
The brits see Southern Europe, spanish, italians and greeks and lazy and inept. This doesn’t just come from the world wars, but from dealing with them on a continued basis. If you know that you are going to be dealing with people from there, you need to take that into consideration, and add extra time to your project. They see the Eastern Europeans as criminals, and slightly lower down than them, but this is an attitude throughout Western Europe. They know that they are hard workers though, so won’t mind hiring, but would like to keep an extra eye on them.
The Brits themselves are quite lazy, will try to do anything to get out of work, offer really bad customer service, are polite and quite smart.
The Portuguese have an inferiority complex towards their Western European neighbours. They even feel inferior to their former colony, Brazil! They don’t much like the Spanish due to a history of attempted invasions. The Portuguese, in turn, are looked down on by the Spanish but you need to go to France to really get a reaction. The Portuguese emigrated there in mass numbers to staff building sites, become farm labourers and concierges and therefore tend to be the butt of jokes. The Brits have long used Portugal as a cheap holiday destination and are locally known as “Come-on” because they constantly say this when dealing with lazy Portuguese labourers. Many companies refuse to do business in Portugal as they never pay their bills and the court system doesn’t work.
Having said all that, the status of Portugal is now on the rise as Eastern nations find lower rungs on the European ladder.
Missed Spanish consider Portuguese a bunch of losers. Also, there is a great divide between Northen and Southern Spain: Catalonians consider Andalusians lazy (and, oh yeah, Madrillians upstarts) and everybody else considers Catalonians mean and too nationalistic for their own good.
I think you got the part on the Spanish wrong. They tend to stay in their country, do not speak any other languages and whenever they leave Spain they keep talking about Spanish food and how bad it is everywhere else. They tend to ignore the Portuguese even though they are their only neighbours except for France. To go to Portugal on holiday for the Spanish is like going to Poland for a German.
While this is vaguely accurate for Belgium, it does not properly break the Belgians into two groups – the Flemish (who speak Flemish/Dutch) and the Wallonians (who speak French). This does not change what either the Dutch or French speak, only the return … Although, most of Europe sees the Belgians as bureaucratic.
Flemish think the Dutch are unthinking assholes and think the French are stuck up socialists.
Wallonians think the Dutch are socially and culturally inept while the French are too pompous (for example: about pronunciation).
Also, I’ve met quite a few Irish who dislike the English (though they tend not to have problems with the Welsh or Scotts). And the English love to rail on the Scotts or Welsh while the Welsh love to rail on the English and Scotts and the Scotts love to rail (drunkenly) on everyone (in incomprehensible drunkenese).
At least, in my experience….
@isabella snow: Nice how you allege an example for 2 points mentioned in the article, a) the retarded compulsion of the Brits to tell jokes about Germans+WW2 and b) to look down on other Europeans.
Nicely done. I would have comments but no quibbles — the essay is the kind of converstation that happens in Europe among those who have long lived in Europe.
I’m English so can only really speak from that perspective.
Dislike of the French is so core to the English phyche and has been for over a 1000 years that put simply you can’t be English unless you dislike the French.
We’ve faught two world wars against the Germans, but we STILL like the Germans more than the French.
On the subject of Europe.
The thing you have to remember is that we have more in common with America than we do with the European mainland. In America they speak English, in Europe they speak a vast number of pointless languages (including French) so our culture pulls us one way and our geography another. Europe in the form of the European Union coalesced because they needed each other, they were neighbours, we on the other hand had a choice and because of that have never felt we needed to be “European”. So indeed alot of Europeans see us as Lapdogs of the US and likely as not it’s not far from the truth, the problem is we see the alternatives as worse, Europe talks and does nothing, it’s largely ineffective at anything outside it’s borders and usually it has the French trying to do everything the wrong way and while we would like a unified european foreign policy the French would like to impose a thousand petty rules which stifle us (over generalisation I’ll grant).
So basically if you got rid of the French everything would be fine.
However I must point out, please hurry up and elect Obama, for the love of god we’re getting tired of being the lapdogs of country run by an idiot.
Coupla things:
- the Spanish and no real dislikes by or from or between?! What about the Basques?! (And to a lesser extent, the other regions with strong identities that really don’t like Castilians.)
- the Dutch are not perceived as quite the biggest misers in Europe, instead it’s the Scots. But the Dutch are some of the most travelsome people in Europe, whereas most Scots are — heh — too cheap too cross the channel, so it’s mostly the English who know about the Scots’ extreme thriftiness. The Flemish do have many, many jokes about miserly Dutch (to counter the Dutch jokes about spendthrift, stupid, feckless Flemish).
- Austria is not merely “said to be” the birthplace of Hitler, it was.
- Europeans “mercilessly teasing” Germans about WW2? Not bloody likely. Teasing implies lighthearted fun, and WW2 and Nazism are still grave, sore points across much of Europe. And they will probably remain deeply sore points until the last survivors — which includes children born during WW2 and any who associate the post-WW2 rationing systems they experienced with things they heard their parents say about Germany — have died. “Never let the Germans forget for a minute,” yes. “Tease,” no.
That EU joke notwithstanding, my experiences with German police over the past 14 years have been far and away better than those with cops in almost any other country. You can actually walk up to them, ask them a question and they’ll answer you. Rather than harassing some guy across the street from my flat this morning and towing his car because it was at a bus stop, the cops actually tried to help him get his engine running.
Cops here are generally helpful and respectful, and much of their training focuses on situation de-escalation. Even the border cops are generally a good lot. French and Italian cops, they’re right up there with the Eastern Europeans and the US.
The only other inconsistency I found was that in Scandinavia, “stupid” is normally applied to Norway, not Sweden. This is probably because within ten minutes any conversation in Norwegian turns to the Vikings and how they might’ve been a bit less developed than other invaders but they were still “pretty all right” as far as invaders go,
It’s a good list.
As a Brit though I can tell you that you got it wrong about the Spaniards! They have a reputation for being lazy procrastinators.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%C3%B1ana_attitude
I’m English and have lived abroad (in Europe) Since ‘99. In that time, I’ve lived in Germany (1.5yrs), Belgium (1yr), France (3 yrs) and now Holland (nearly 3yrs) I’ve learnt and spoken to a relatively high level German and French. I’ve had girlfriends in all of these countries but not necessarily of the nationality of where I was living (Swedish, Hungarian, German, Belgian, English, Spanish … ). And, I always try and settle into the local way of life as-much-as-possible.
What I’ve learnt through all my experiences are that, the English have more in common with the Germans than we don’t have in common. They do have a sense of humour but it is about 30 years behind us. They love Monty Python, for example.
In Belgium (Antwerp), they just like to have a good time and I think Belgium just gets bad PR.
France …….. Planet France, I call it. I’m an Anglo and found it very difficult to settle. As an intelligent, white person coming from a rich country, I was still looked down upon to a certain degree. I can only begin to imagine how difficult it must be for North Africans to make a go of it. But, the French people are warm, just difficult to get close to. And the women are gorgeous to look at but difficult to get close to.
And the Dutch make me laugh for their honesty and tell-it-as-it-is approach. That’s the way I like to do business. But the food is atrocious.
During these last 8-9 years, I’ve also spent 3 months in Australia and NZ. Lovely countries but I couldn’t wait to get back to Europe to be surrounded by the languages and cultures. We are very lucky over here and we should cherish what we have.
As for England, I don’t miss it much.I like English/British people but we’ve lost our way. We look west too much towards America instead of looking South and East to our lovely European neighbours.
As for English food …… traditional English cooking (done the right way) has to be the best I’ve tasted.
Best spot in the world for me ….. standing in the middle of Waterloo Bridge a few hours after the sun has gone down with a clear night sky.
Just my thoughts, but I think I’m quite in a position to say my piece.
You forgot Slovaks, you insensitive clod!
actually the police in hell is American and not German, trust me!
Emily M. I worried that either you’re a teacher who teaches English, or a teacher from England. Either way, grammatically the sentence “I am going to look more into live abroad”, to steal a phrase from the Americans, sucks.
As someone from England, I slightly disagree. There is a genuine warmth from the English towards a lot of Europe. The Scandinavians, Dutch and Irish in particular are well liked. The French and Germans are also liked, but more in the way that a Jets fan might like a Patriots fan over in the US. What seems to irk some Brits about Europe comes from the vitriol in newspapers that portrays Europe as shorthand for the European Parliament.
We Brits seem to have more issues with other Brits. Yorkshire folk hating Lancastrians, Cornish looking down on Devonians, Nottinghamshire people thinking people from Derby are a little too affectionate to their livestock to be healthy. That kind of thing. Oh, and most people thinking that the Brummie accent makes them sound comedic.
How do we know that Jesus was a Greek?
Well he took after his father’s proffesion.
He lived with his parents until he was 33.
He thought his mother was a virgin.
His mother thought that he was a God.
I really enjoyed your post, which to my experience it’s pretty much on spot.
In Heaven… the chefs are French
omfg… we are the worst chefs ever. Frenchs speak 8 hours before taking a stupid decision.
Reading what I’ve just written, maybe I shouldn’t be throwing stones whilst in this greenhouse.
That should’ve read “….affectionate towards their livestock….£
Being a dane, i’d have to say the comments about danes and scandinavians are largely inacurate.
There’s no general hate towards the german people, nor is there, to my knowledge, any generally accepted feeling that norwegians are racist and that the swedes are stupid and uptight.
If there is any general tendency in Denmark, it is that swedes, when in Denmark, tend to get rather intoxicated.
you were wondering why some spaniards dislike the french.
well, that is easy: north spain and south france would like to be a country of basques. well, some of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA
I shall add that Italians don’t really like the french “cousins”, and a big teaser is that they won only one World Cup while Italians have 4…
Interesting take on us Poles and very outdated.
Nowadays we really don’t mind the Germans and the Germans really don’t mind us. They come here and buy things cheaper, have a cheaper haircut, cheaper medical service, they hang out in our pubs, because smoking is still allowed here.
And us Poles come to Germany to buy their used cars for cheap. This mutual exchange of goods and services, combined with the Schengen Agreement (no border checks) results in the fact that we’re not actually afraid of each other anymore. Yes they might fear us when the job market opens in Germany for us, but it’s open now in the UK and guess what, everyone wins there.
And the Germans are a lot more politically correct when it comes to jokes, but can’t blame them, what with all the history.
We on the other hand also don’t actually tell nationalistic jokes about any nation… why would we? We don’t hold a grudge I don’t think. We don’t like Czechs or Slovaks? What? That’s news to me. I go down south each year. We all love beer.
Indeed Russia hates us, because we’re pro-European.
But, we’ve actually contributed and helped with the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, so they have no reason for hatred, we’re actually partners. And even more reason for Russia’s hatred towards us.
What infuriated me is the most uninformed comment about us being the nation of car thieces. That’s like beating the dead horse. Where are you taking this data from? Early 90’s?
Besides, no-one talks about the reason the Germans callED us car thieves. They came here specifically to have their cars stolen (it was arranged) and then gather money from insurance companies.
>you never, ever hear jokes about Germans in Poland.
Howgwash. They were probably just too polite to tell them around you. Polish people tell jokes about Germans constantly. They’re far better than German jokes about Poles, too.
>Really, the relationship between Germany and Poland is similar to that of the United States and Mexico
Wrong. It is the way it is because the various incarnations of Germany have incessantly invaded and tried to trick Poland with their Vatican gimmickry. Open up a history book.
>Poles really shore up their hatred for their eastern & southern neighbors, primarily Russia and Ukraine, although they don’t like Czechs, Slovaks or Lithuanians either.
Simply not true.
- Polish people do not hate the Russians or Ukrainians. We hate the Reds, not the Russians. We like the Ukrainians, although they don’t generally like us back because of our turbulent history (mainly because they weren’t given equal rights to Lithuania and Poland in the Commonwealth).
- Polish people make fun of Czechs and they make fun of us. We have a bit of a tough love relationship with them.
- Poles are largely indifferent to Slovaks.
- Most Poles are either indifferent or positively inclined towards Lithuania because we share a fruitful common history.
ITT: americans telling other americans what europeans think of other europeans
and surprise surprise, they’re messing it up completely …
I think you missed the boat a bit when it comes to Scandinavia. With the increased Polish emigration to Scandinavia, stereotypes have begun to take hold about the Poles in the region. Poles are viewed negatively, but in an empathetic manner since they are commonly poor.
Norwegians and Danes don’t think of Swedes as uptight, but rather lazy instead. I think out of Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes, it’s the Norwegians that are seen as uptight and the most introverted, only second to the Finnish.
The Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes all share the same common root language, yet the Swedes and Norwegians always joke about Danish being incomprehensible gibberish.
Why are French roads lined with trees?
So the German army can march in the shade.
A wonderful insight to our European countries.
Another German Air Traffic Control story: British Airways flight asks for directions to taxi to the terminal at Frankfurt. Busy Ground Controller snaps back “Haven’t you been here before?”
“Just the once, but it was a while ago, it was dark, and I didn’t land.” (About 1943, flying a Lancaster!)
As a Finn, I concur about what was said of Finns. I usually hate all articles about stereotypes but with this I have no problem.
You did not tell anything about eastern europeans. What about hungarians, romanians, etc.
[...] Un articol interesant despre diferentele dintre europeni. Si o chestie faina la sfarsitul articloului [...]
Czechs resisted Germany? Thats a new one. Spaniards doesnt hate anyone? Good one – heard about Basks? No jokes about Germans in Poland? Lol. Greeks consider themselves as European – please go to Crete. Well, maybe 4 years here is still not enough for you. Please, come here again anyway, you’re gladly welcome.
Fun, but not very acurate in my eyes. Basicly most of western europe have no problems with people based on theyre nationalities. But there are ofcourse stereotypes.
well I wouldn’t say this is what the peoples deeply think of each others … this is more like the clichés we have. But it fits perfectly well with the joke at the end !
I have to agree with you about the irish. I’m British (Cornish) and I’ve never met anyone with a bad word to say about the Irish (apart from say 10 years ago).
It really does make me sad to think about all the ball bags that go to Ibiza and Amsterdam etc and make tits of themselves and our country. These are the people who hate Europeans and dine predominently on chips (french fries kinda) and name their children after drinks.
Oh and Poland you nailed that one. Everybody in Western Europe hates Poles. I was walking past a library the other day and noticed someone writing anti Polish slogans on the wall outside…..spelt incorrectly. Damn I hate Britain sometimes.
You could almost write the Eurovision Song results from that analysis.
I’ve lived in Europe for a while, mainly in Spain and I can say for a matter of fact that mostly like Spaniards since they’re suppose to be the most open and happy European people but on the other hand they dislike Latin Americans and they don’t think very much about them also because of all the history there is between these two cultures.
The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one’s gate parking
location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following
exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206″:
Speedbird 206: “Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway.”
Ground: “Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven.”
The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: “Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?”
Speedbird 206: “Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now.”
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): “Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?”
Speedbird 206 (coolly): “Yes, twice in 1944 — but I didn’t land.”
I’m English, and I like Europe. I’m planning to expatriate to Italy with my girlfriend (who comes from Southern Italy, as she calls “the heel of the boot”) after we finish University (and I’m studying German and Russian, which probably says a lot). But yeah, the majority of English people are pretty anti-Europe, and complain endlessly about the EU. Not because of the Americans though, but because of our crappy media.
I read only the part about Poles and neighbours, because i come from this country and after reading I felt quite dissapointed. Most claims doesn’t exist even as a stereotypes about Poles. Ex. you say that there are no jokes about Germans. When i was young many jokes started with sth like: “There was Pole, German, Russian and devil”. I think you guess what was the ending of the jokes. The claim about southern neighbour is also false. We would joke about their languages, which are funny for us (just like in opposite direction). But we don’t feel any kind of hatred.
However it is true that Poland is considered as a country of car thieves by Germans. But nowadays it’s rather strereotype than real truth.
And last thing: the sentence “they, [Germans] have some mixed respect for the Czechs, who have resisted German aggression” is not historically correct.
you are all a bunch of idiots
Very good article and also very true.
I would like to say couple of things about Italians, though. Northern Italians, especially those from Milan, tend to behave like a mixture between the Brits, Swiss and the French. Blunt to the point of rudeness, rigid and uptight with no sense of humour, nacionalistic, arrogant, considering anything Italian – the best, and looking down on anybody from less developed countries. One characteristics that makes them similiar to the French is lack of knowledge of foreign languages, primary English. However, this is more likely due to the poor schooling system in Italy whereas the French are simply proud and consider their own language more important than any other.
I’d just like to say that this post is a useless pile of crap and I wish i hadn’t bothered skim reading it. The British are rude and obnoxious drunks. I totally agree. The British do no dislike being considered European since it is a matter of fact! I know that a scary percentage of the American population actually believes Europe to be a country. I expect you are in fact American and that why you think brits think like that. I’m Scottish and I’m euro peon because I live in Europe. I don’t personally hate any nation. I really dislike Dubai since they lock up young people from all over the world for having tiny dust particles of drugs on them. Dot ever go to their airport. Jet-lag pills can get you 4 years. As for Americans I worry about the percentage that take religion to seriously and the ones that are as thick as 2 planks. There are just too many of both. I love the Germans and I don’t mind the French. At least all these European countries have their own language unlike some of the younger nations in the world. ;0)
European stereotypes about other Europeans…
By way of John Scalzi, a primer for Americans on how Europeans think about other Europeans: The Scandinavians ? Widely respected by most other Europeans, because of their high standard of living . . . and blond hair and blue……
Stereotypes in former Yugoslavia.
Slovenians- The rest of former Yugoslavia considers them a nation of very feminine homosexuals. Most Slovenian’s think they are Italian and try their very hardest to act so. Slovenian’s look down on the rest of former Yugoslavia due to their economic superiority and because they’re very westernized, much more so than the rest of former Yugoslavia.
croats- They are looked at as a nation of traitors and whores, who suck up to whoever seems strongest at the time, and whoever will give them the most personal gain. This is historically true as throughout history they have constantly jumped ship. Prior to WWI they were mates with the Austro-Hungarian empire. When they were defeated, they wanted in on Yugoslavia. In WWII they sided with the nazis, but after WWII wanted back in Yugoslavia to escape war crime convictions, and effectively masked their involvement in a mass genocide. croats consider themselves forward thinking and westernized, more advanced than the rest of Yugoslavia, while they may be more accepted by the West than Serbia and Bosnia, they are still very far behind Slovenia. Incredibly delusional.
Bosnians- Everyone thinks they’re stupid, they think everyone’s stuck up.
Serbs- Arrogant, uncompromising, strong willed, nationalistic. Serbs ran things in former Yugoslavia, so are greatly resented by all the other ex-Yu countries, especially the croatians who played second fiddle to the Serbs. Serbs have a siege mentality because throughout history they were always fighting with powers much stronger than themselves (Always resisted the ottoman empire, preventing their spread into Austria-Hungary, eventually helped force them back to turkey. The fiasco that sparked WWI. Fierce resistance against the German’s in WWII. Resisting the Western powers in the 90s’). The Serbs are very proud of themselves, and look down on the rest of former Yugoslavia because they were always the strongest of those nations, causing much resentment from the rest of ex-Yu. Serbs stand by their traditions, refuse to sell-out like the croats, this is often detrimental to themselves because Serbia is still very much Eastern European compared to croatia and slovenia. If Serbia was an English football club, they would be Millwall FC… ‘No one likes us, and we don’t care’.
@isabella snow: Why is an enlish pilot sitting in a German airport tower? Please explain!
The English are loud-mouthed, obnoxious drunks while in tourist places? As an American that keeps a low-profile while in the UK (or at least tries to do so), that amuses me greatly.
I’m about to move to Scotland to get married and live, and I really hope they can ignore the fact that I’m from the US given enough time. Probably not though.
And the Portuguese? We are not Spaniards you know…
Based on your post the way Europeans feel about Portuguese is just ignoring us. OK by me…
Nice work!
Its nice to read and most of this is true (in some way). I really love to live in europe because of this differences .. u have a lot to argue about
Greetz Manuel (Europe, Germany, Berlin)
But what do the Europeans think of Americans?
“Spaniards consider themselves white and European”???? Spaniards ARE WHITE and EUROPEAN you f…..g redneck .
It is amazing how only in American protestant-derivative-of-British-arrogance collective mind a Spanish speaking person could be considered or implied to be non-white simply for – speaking Spanish. Contrary to what you might think, “Latin”, this American colloquialism (as usually deprived of every effort to study things into some detail), is not a racial attribute!!
Yes, descendants of various Indian tribes in Americas who today speak Spanish (due to Spanish colonization) are obviously not white, but that doesn’t mean that all Spanish speaking people are not white.
This stratification of the US society to white people and all the rest (which included white people who were not protestant and did not speak English) is simply a manifestation of some deeper pathologies stemming from arrogantly exclusive mindset of the society dating back to the time of Puritans. An average (white?) American is obviously hard-wired into such misconceptions.
Do try to use whatever you may have between your ears from time to time. One’s racial attributes are not determined by the language one speaks …. or country of origin for that matter!
Yes, here in the UK we are the lapdog of the US and in England we seem to hate even those neighbors within our own borders (the Scotts, the Welsh).
Tragic really.
You’re missing The Portuguese
Irish generally dislike Romanians, BUY A ROSE, BUUY A HAAT!
In reference to the Scottish…they are tolerated because no-one knows much about them??
WEll maybe the author doesnt but whenever I travel abroad and I say I am Scottish…the smiles come out, the drinks are bought and everyone says “thank god you’re not English”
Have you seen the “Last King of Scotland” about Idi Amin who wanted to be Scottish?
“Spaniards consider themselves white and European, and would be deeply insulted if you suggested they were Latin American of any kind.”
Um… they ARE white and European… as perfectly white and as perfectly European as anyone can possibly be… so…. um… how dumb would you have to be to think they were Latin American?
That collection of stereotypes does not qualify as information…
JM this is excellent. I printed this out and hung it up over our bar. You’ll have to take my Word for it, it’s a place of honor. Many inspired conversations have been sparked.
Best,
Veronica
Europe is full of English expats, and the longer they live abroad, the more they seem to hate their host country. And yet they never seem to want to move home.
Amen!
Having spent much of my life in heavily international schools, a lot of this rings very it’s-funny-cos-it’s-true. Piping up from the Irish perspective, for the elucidation of the internet at large: the only people the Irish hate are the people who insist on believing they’re Irish.
(Also, I suspect your estimated population of Ireland might date from the 1996 census, or thereabouts; IIRC, we’re hovering around the 4 million mark now, give or take a few hundred thousand.)
What about the Russians?or the Serbs?or the Bulgarians?
How about the Hungarians?OR they aren’t even “nominally”
Europeans?
Nice writeup – waiting for your report on the rest of the world
You say you have not met an Irish person who really loathes the English. Clearly, we have not met. Nor do you know many of my Irish friends.
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Not sure where you got the notion that there are absolutely no jokes about Germans in Poland… there are thousands of jokes that start with “Polak, Rusek i Niemiec”, meaning “A Pole, a Russian and a German”… with the German inevitably getting the shortest end of the stick…
That was pretty enjoyable and seems fairly accurate, but there’s one perception that’s off I think. Far as I know, from German friends (and for the obvious reason), Poles loathe Germans and many young Germans in a Polish bar or club have frequently found himself at risk of a beating. But this was in the early and mid-90s not too long after the wall came down, maybe that has changed somewhat at this point.
Best description of how Germans feel about Austrians is that they are perceived in the manner Americans view Canadians: as their less bright, less sophisticated and more happy-go- lucky dorky beer swilling cousins. (Obviously that stereotype is ridiculous. Except for the beer swilling part.)
Very nice article. You manage to keep it realistic and yet entertaining without casting the countries too much as stereotypes. Your observations suit my own very well, and I especially like your note about British people living abroad… soooo true. And I know, because I’m sharing a flat with one in Spain.
From an American: Although I have a great respect for the German people, I found them very rude; also, very rude to the disabled. They are not only rude to Americans, they are rude to each other. I found southern Germany and Austria a very nice place with very nice people. If I were to ever live in Europe, it would either be Ireland, or Austria.
About the CZECHS you have maybe to live there for a while before souch a thinking (that they are bright spot of EastEurope probably because of Prague). The nicest thing about them (together with moravians) for me is that they are probably the most peaceful nation in area (also historicaly), maybe in EU.
“Poles don’t have much good to say about them (czechs)”
who are the polish, fleding their country in milions (and it`s not because they are the biggest country as they like to say. It`s apparetnly multiple number per capita than other nations in the eastern europe.
They are not able to make conditions and atmosphere in Their Own country worth living there. Yet they feel no shame, having so often (in EU politics) the biggest mouth.
[...] know about Europe ? Here is a funny summary of Europeans and what they think of each other. Not to be taken too [...]
- Naturally, this is a huge irritant to Greeks – It is ironic when you consider that even the word Europe originates from Greek history.
any true scot would have a heart attack by being included here as British. They hate the english. And it is a different country (like Ireland).
One nice thing we noticed as we traveled throughout Europe last year for several months was that we experienced virtually no lack of warmth for americans. Now, if you were to express support for the Bush administration….well, good luck to you.
This is such an inadequate perception of Europeans, probably because its only from personal experience. The resentments between each country takes no actual seriousness in reality. look at the Union, though i know that all of these “attitude” stereotypes are real there is much more decency and respect within the European community. Complaints are complaints.
long time since i read such bullshit! It took over 100 years and a civil war before the U could be placed before SA. In Europe we’ll do it in 25-30 years in peace
) BTW: I’m Dutch and love the Flamish but .. to be honest dislike the Walons a bit. It’s all culture and respect man
real recording from the early 1950’s
english pilot flying into dreden has trouble with the landing .
German tower: finnaly says in think german accent:
what! Have you never flown to Dresden before?
English Pilot:
Yes…
But we didn’t land…
breif silence before
tower carries on with landing instruction
It deserves more than three diggs
Been globetrottin for at least 25 years.
Agree with every word. Respect !!!
(what’s amazing – an article doesn’t sound insulting to anyone. Double respect !)
It is amazing how you can write such a lengthy and supposedly authoritative post on what Europeans think of each other and then destroy all your hard work by lumping the Finns together with the Scandinavians, thereby showing your non-authoritativeness on European topics.
Portugese vs. Spanish:
The Portugese are considered to be poorer than the Spanish, but have more class.
The only thing I disagreed with was that the French-speaking Swiss are almost exactly like the French. That is only true of those from the Canton of Geneva, who aspire to be French in all that they do. However, the rest of the French-speaking Swiss are much more laid-back, polite and unassuming. In fact, they are made fun of by the French for their slow speech and unhurried ways.
Just for the record, Finland is not, and have never been, in Scandinavia.
This is very obvious for us living here, but it is a common mistake from people living far away from us to think that we have anything to do with Finland.
Having seen both German and American police in action, I think the police in hell are much, much more likely to be American. (I know it’s a post about Europe, but, humor me. ) The Germans of today are nothing at all like the stereotypes people want to believe. The police are respectful, even facing great disrespect. I even saw one policeman answer a physical assault with a smile. The situation ended peacefully. When was the last time that happened in the USA?
The scandinavian bit is wrong.
The swedes view the other scandinavians are drugs. The Swedish stereotype of a Finn is a drunk with a knife. You don’t get in fights with Finn because everyone knows Finns carry a knife. The Finnish ferries are a great example of the Finn love of booze, once the VAT is off they will consume til near death.
When I was in Belgium there was a great divide between the Dutch and French. The French were sensitive about their culture thus their TV stations would not subtitle movies, but dub them where as the Dutch channels would subtitle everything.
Poles are vilified by even the Jewish community in Europe. The Germans have apologized and paid for their actions, the Jewish community understand this. But the Poles, they play the victim in World War II and refuse to say apologize for their behaviour under the occupation of Germany. The Poles outted their neighbors as Jews just to take their things. Sure many Poles died but many more Jews died at the hand or of the finger pointing of a Pole. The Poles refuse to apologize and continue to play the victim.
There is a joke about this in my community: Why did the Pole say he was a victim was a Holocaust? Because he hurt his back loading his neighbors, the Jews, onto the train.
For more reference:
http://www.kimel.net/jewpol.html
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I truly love this sort of insight to places that I’ve never been. Thank you for the post.
About Romanians: they hate the Russians deeply and nominally love France the most. But no longer learn French, only English. Historically pro-French in politics and pro-German in every other matter. In the recent years Romanians are migrating by the tens of thousands in Spain and Italy – related peoples and languages. Around: complicated relation with the Hungarians (dislike only when disliked), look down (don’t know why) upon Bulgarians, sympathize (without reason) the Serbians.
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“Spaniards consider themselves white and European, and would be deeply insulted if you suggested they were Latin American of any kind”
Hey and I kno why. Because we spaniards are european!You know, Spain being in Europe and that. And some of us are white too!
first sorry for my bad english, theres another joke similar to the first one
its the nice sunny day and the brit plane approaching the berlin airport, after a few unsuccessful approaches control tower cant believe that the brit pilot still cant land
control tower: you missed third approach, what kind of pilot you are, did you ever fly to the Berlin before
pilot: yes sir, I was 40 years ago, but it was the night and we didnt land
Best regards from Sarajevo
I’m European and didn’t know there were so much countries inside my big country
Most of people I meet in europe are humans with blood, happiness, fears, diseases, joy, fun, needs, culture, thought… Most of people I know have to work to earn money and have to speak to communicate. They have to have sex to make babies. Damn it looks like it’s like everywhere else in the world 
We are all brothers… “We are the world, we are the children”. That’s my dream !
There are still some old fashioned people living with clichés. By example the WW2 is still present in our minds. Is it for the best (not to do it again) or for the worst (annoying young Germans who are still paying for their grand parent’s mistakes) ? And no Italian and Spaniards aren’t starting their work day at 4pm anymore. And yes Brit’s can cook. And no Pols plumbers won’t rob our jobs
It’s as true as all US people aren’t as dumbass as son Bush.
I’m a french guy (sorry :-p) living in north of the country and I feel very friendly with Brit’s, Belgium and German people. Probably because we have common frontiers and surely because we meet each others in ours everyday’s life (Belgium Night clubs rock !!!). South France people are more inspired by Italians or Spanish for the same reasons. Life is more complicated than clichés.
Fun post anyway. I didn’t know bout easter countries :-p
Poles have many jokes about German
))
I’ve heard some Irish being a bit negative towards Spanish, thanks to hoards of Spanish students coming to learn English in the past few years. Also with the recent influx of immigrants I think Irish are a bit confused as to how to deal with this – Ireland historically hasn’t seen much of the immigration into the country, but the majority seem to be tolerant and friendly enough or like to appear so.
Ireland has about 6 million people, not 3.
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Hapsburg is written with a b! Habsburg. Another Eglish teacher. From the former Habsburg empire.
Your Scandihoovians could use some touching up:
Danes: Considered by Scandinavians (and their unfortunate immigrant population) to be racists. Have a writing system which, like Chinese, contains no information about the word’s pronunciation.
Swedes: Disliked by all their neighbors. Furthermore, Finns consider all Swedish men to be homosexual.
Norwegians: The Beverly Hillbillies of Northern Europe.
Finns: Alcoholic, knife-wielding sociopaths, both at home and abroad. The word “considered” has no place in that description.
The Irish humble? Come on…
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I lived in Prague for a short time, and I noticed that as a people the Czechs tend to be extremely quiet and reserved, though they a strong tendency towards self-deprecation. And they hate hate hate Russians. A lot of Czechs who were around during Soviet occupation speak Russian of course, but they’ll never admit it now.
(Great post, by the way.)
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Having lived in Ireland for 2.5 years i must say that you could add some details to the Irish….. First of all it’s over 4 million Irish not 3. The view on the Britts from the Irish when on holiday there or having britts visiting there country: They’re sluts! Both men and women. the Irish are internationally perceived as red haired lephracorns that love a joke and a party. Perceived as almost overly friendly and wiliing to help as well. In order to find this, you’re best off going out of Dublin. ow and half the northern Irish hate them, the other half wants to join them. It’s the same for the Irish themselves. The rest of europe is often referred to as Mainland Europe and pretty much any Irish I spoke to has been to Amsterdam for the crack as they say (meaning to have some fun)
regarding the Dutch attitude towards Germans! yeah it’s true we don’t really like them and i do have a friend who directs Germans to the highway home if they ask for directions. It’s mainly the arrogant attitude and unwilliingness to speak another languag and presuming that everybody speaks German. If a German doesn’t politely ask if the Dutch person speaks German, the answer will usually be NEIN regardless if they do or not.
Cheers!
cheers!
This should probably be entitled “What Americans think Europeans think of each other.”
With that little amendment it’s quite good, very entertaining.
lol!
your description seems to be a little antiquated…
greeetz from cologne!
“Spaniards consider themselves white and European, and would be deeply insulted if you suggested they were Latin American of any kind”
thats because theyre not american you knob end
There’s some hostility to Germans in Norway too, actually. Not surprising when you consider the occupation during the Second World War. Apparently some German veterans like to take their motor-homes to Norway, to revisit places they served in during the occupation! (No idea if that’s actually true…)
I spent two summers in Sweden and have Swedish relatives and can say that they LOVE slagging off Finns. They said that amongst the Scandinavian countries Finland is the biggest target due largely to the fact that their language is so different from all of the others, which have a lot more in common than the weird ‘alien Star Trek’ Finnish.
Conversely I have a friend who is half Finnish who says that the Finns hate the Swedes, though I don’t remember the reasons he gave. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had to do with the above.
Small point, Ireland has a population of 4.1 million, Northern Ireland 1.7 million, so in total just under double the figure you gave.
As an American married to a Dutchman, I can confirm every word of what is said here as it pertains to the Netherlands – good stuff!
Finland is not considered part of Scandinavia.
the danes are the racists, not the norwegians.
/swede
As a Brit (and an Englishman) I’d say that is pretty accurate. I would add that the Czech’s loathe the Germans. On a visit to Prague my friends and myself were bought several rounds of drinks based purely on the fact that the English football (soccer) team had just beaten Germany 5-1. They’re not best fond of the Russians either.
The English antagonism to Europe goes way back, as the English national character from the 18th century on can be pretty much described as a rejection of perceived characteristics of other European nations: We’re not uptight like the Germans: we’re not foppish like the French; we’re not lazy like the Spaniards etc.
The Greeks, hate everyone around them! Apparently they believe they invented Europe so everyone should respect them. “Their father were philosophers when the rest of Europe was apes and rapes” (just their mentalitiy).
One of the oldest countries in Europe are the Albanians. Formerly known as the Illyrians they covered most of the Balkan, being limited only by the Thracians (Romania), the Macedonians and the Greeks.
The Albanians today behave like the Italians (lazy and joyfull), dislike Greeks and hate Serbians. (Of course, the reason is the slaughtery medieval war of the Serbs agains the Albanians).
Europe’s history is full of wars. No matter what he think of neutrality, our identities are always influenced by our history.
looks like ireland just lost a million people. and you really have to mention the fact that germans love the british, but love the irish even more. and the british either love the irish and feel slightly guilty, or resent us as a symbol of lost power. all of them.
nice read though.
thats not even a third of the countries in europe
As a Dutch myself I love the following one about being miser;
Do you know how a Dutch cook book starts?
Borrow an egg !!!
As someone who has spent a great deal of time In Europe, I can say that the above is fairly accurate. And hilarious. I have one thing to add regarding Scandinavians. The Swedes, Norwegians and Danes all seem to regard the Finns as unpleasant people prone to drinking problems (funny coming from the other Scandinavians) and bad tempers.
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I like this post and agree with most of the views. I’m English.
I would like to add the word stodgy, though to the description of Austrians.
The English ex-pats disliking their host country are not just confined to European countries. The ex-pats in Kuwait certainly complained about that country too.
Actually English people living in England are no different.They complain about England as a matter of course.
So the conclusion might be that the English are a negative bunch which is certainly a contrast to the Americans who have a more positive and supportive view of their own country.
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Very nice post! I’m Dutch and I was a bit surprised that we are seen as “know-it-alls”. Also, “van Duitse bloed” in our national anthem, does not mean “from German blood” at all! The old Dutch word “Duitsch” is why you call us “Dutch”. We would call a German “Germaansch”. Unfortunately I’m also aware the Dutch and German have their roots in common and we are very alike. Heck, I even work for a German company.
I love what you wrote there because it all seems true to me but as a German I’ll might have to add that we crack jokes on the Polish for stealing our cars but despite that we really like the Polish. It’s the Dutch we don’t like and probably every German would tell you that they’re bad drivers, by the way “Cheesehead” is a very popular cuss word foer them ( Kaeskoeppe). The English are disliked as well especially for always owning the best pool spots down in Ibiza and Mallorca. The British are called “Inselaffen” which means that they are “Monkeys from the isle”.
Thanks for reading and never underestimate the Germans we’re not that sensitive about WW2
Well, I’m a Hungarian, and here’s what we think about other Europeans and vice versa.
We do bear a grudge on every nation ever occupying Hungary (except for the Turks for some reason – they were considered noble enemies at the time, and highly cultured): Russia, Romania, Austria. Make no mistake, the Austro-Hungarian empire’s just a name, we were occupied, robbed and set up against all ethnic groups in the neighbourhood by the Habsburgs. We still can’t make our peace with the Treaty of Trianon cutting off two thirds of the country and distributing it among our neighbours, and it’s a pet peeve among the nationalistic youth. There is a major Hungarian minority in Romania, Slovenia, Ukraine and Serbia, which states treat these people like dirt – so we do hate them in turn. We tend to look down on those we don’t like, too.
Not that we can stand each other either: there’s a great rift between urban and country people and between leftists and nationalists.
We are a pretty hysteric bunch of people and are duly perceived as such, and our adaptability is usually interpreted as being sneaky, double-faced and opportunistic. Our only saving grace is the food and the wine…. Also, we’ve got a reputation of hospitability, but how that happened I can’t imagine – it’s not in the least sincere, at least towards tourists of every nation, but most of all the Germans.
And let’s just not begin about the gypsies (sorry, Romany people, otherwise I might get a knife in my back)…
Oops, sorry, a typo. Slovenia’s quite ok, I’ve meant Slovakia…
The Slovenians are relaxed, friendly and fun
Very entertaining.
A couple of observations. I don’t know much about them, but the Belgians are French and Walloon and very different.
I also think you slightly missed a trick with the Scandinavians. They’re not qute as chummy as you make out. The most brilliant illustration of this is dinner on the cruise ship scene from The Corrections. But our own experience of slagging off the Swedes to the Norwegians was interesting – we (me and my brother Americans and my Brit husband said) “they’re stuck up, rude and just hate fun”. The Norwegian thought this was funny, and then said “yes, but you know who’s really weird – the Finns!”
Only my husband thought that was funny – as he explained to the Norwegian that my brother and I are of Finnish heritage.
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Unfortunately, this will all be quaint memories in 20 years when everybody in Europe who is under 20 is named Muhammad.
Being a Swede myself, I can tell you what we really think of our neighbours. The Danes are a bunch of fat, arrogant racists, not the Norwegians. Finland is a nation of alcoholics, suffering from mutism when they occasionally happen to be sober. Norwegians are just peasants and somewhat a little behind. On the other hand: the Danes are also relaxed and more continental than we will ever be, the Finns have lots and lots of stamina and the Norwegians are stinking rich because of their oil from the Northern Sea. Sad, isn´t it…
I lived in Turkey for a year. The Greeks and the Turks absolutely despise each other. I have lived all over the world and never seen this kind of animosity.
Hate to be a pain but I am a Canadian living in Sweden for a number of years, and I have some things to add to your section on Scandinavians.
Swedes think that Norwegians are the lesser of all evils around them, then the Danes. It’s no mystery why Ikea only names carpets and flooring after Danish cities.
If you are only talking about within Scandinavia, Swedes hate the Danes. I guess 600 years of war will do that. Every Swede has a story about how the Danes came up and massacred all the royalty of Sweden, killed a bunch of people in their own town, etc.
Also, a great many Swedes LOVE Germany. It’s not just a small appreciation. I think worship would be more appropriate in terms of linguistics.
They think that Finish is a weird language, lots of ä’s everywhere for what seems like no reason. Fins hate the Swedish language because they were all forced to learn it in school until recently. Also, Finland has a bit of resentment for the fact that they were owned by Sweden for over 500 years.
The Norwegians also have some resentment about being controlled by Sweden recently, until around 1910. They pretend to hate the Swedes but I know a Norwegian who said that secretly all Norwegians feel shamed into talking Swedish when they are with a Swede because its just a nicer language, and seems more intelligent as well. But that was just one girls opinion.
Ok hope my observations and the evidence I have seen around me and from friends helps you out!
Various people will love this insight involving What Europeans think of each other where believers have commented that the exclusive info is astonishing. Thanks for the aid you have given.
isabella snow, “bloody” in “you lost the bloody war…” means blood and is not something to laugh about.
If you are American, then you do not know about the horrors of the WWII. After all, all your country does is make wars (and lots of them) in remote lands only.
Now the USA has supported disintegration of Serbia, started lots of separatists movements. You can be proud of the government which wants to make sure that the EU falls apart within the next 15 years
In the 60s an American pilot flying an airliner into Berlin was given very confusing instructions on landing. He asked for clarification and the German in the tower was rude and asked “Have you never flown into Berlin before?”. Replied the American pilot, “Oh, I’ve flown over Berlin lots of times, I just never landed…” Turns out he was a WWII vet who flew B-17s.
this has got to be american – utter rubbish . get out there and see for yourself what it’s like .
The Rebpublic of Ireland has a population of 5.5 million. I know loads of Irish that loath the English. They like the Scots, in general, and ignore the Welsh (Like everyone else).
They dont know about the rest of Europe.
Except the Polish. There can be quite strong anti-polish feelings in Ireland.
The British have some great chefs.
This is the kind of stupidity that starts wars
Hi from Germany – i agree, nice summary and mostly true.
Well observed!
(And yes, i laughed about the joke
)
Hmm, i don’t think the brit thing is correct. Pretty much ALL English hate the French due to the shear amount of times they’ve tried to invade us throughout history, its defiantly not a 50% like/hate thing. Its also now true that half of us hate being called European, we love being part of it, we just don’t want your weak currency.
it might be true that our government loves the US, but its not true of the population, most people don’t mind them, but if theres one over here they will get mocked.
The bit you did get right is the part about us going abroad as tourists. We defiantly are bad in that area
the Welsh are Scottish are tolerated, but are generally are teased and pushed away, theres not a hugely good relationship in the UK towards each other.
What about the portuguese? Are they so low in you consideration levels?
I wish I had the money to live abroad… i don’t even have enough money to DATE a-broad!
As a Dutch myself I would use the word frugal instead of miser.
Do you know how a Dutch cook book starts?
Borrow an egg.
What a f-g load of bullshit! A primer for Americans, hear,hear! No wonder you are hated everywhere if you believe in this crap. Don’t you have any “advice” on niggers, jews and arabs too?
Regarding the Spanish: They aren’t liked very much by the Portuguese, and if you try and speak Spanish in Portugal, chances are that people will pretend not to understand you, even though they can understand every word.
The Basques and the Catalans don’t consider themselves Spanish and consequently loathe Spaniards. I’ve found that you’re much more likely to get a positive response in Barcelono or Bilboa if you speak with a Latin-American accent than with a received Spanish accent. Mind you, speak with a Cuban Spanish accent and everyone laughs. Everyone thinks the Cuban accent is hilarious.
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Polish part is not very good, to be honest.
I know this one is a little late, but you were asking about more countries to your little sum up, and after spending some time on Hungary now I can perhaps add a little to your little story here. For though most Western Europeans do not really have a clue about Hungary, an increasing number are, as there is an ever increasing number of expats in Hungary, especially due to the large and increasing number of international shared services centres.
Most Western Europeans regard Hungary plainly as another gray part of the Eastern block, and at best they are known for paprika, palinka, and pornography, so it is considered on the one hand bland, and on the other hand ‘the wild East’.
The Hungarians themselves however feel cheated out of, what is ‘rightfully theirs’ due to unjust ruling results of WW1 and WW2. They generally consider the rest of Europe as a place to earn money, but never live, as they all come back, even though they all only have critical comments about Hungary in itself. If possible the Hungarians living in Hungary are more negative about Hungary then the English expats living there.
Here’s another one. After the fall of East Germany, the German parliament was divided between moving the federal capital to Berlin or staying in Bonn. So, a compromise was made and they voted to move the capital of united Germany to Paris. Hey, even my rigid German friends thought it was hilarious–but not my French ones.
ahah nice one !
hehe i’m french, what u said about us is more or less true.
but surprisingly we kinda like the germans, even if we fought so many wars agaisnt them, we don’t hate them. and german students enjoy coming in France for studying.
the dutch also like a lot France, they always come here for holidays.
English pilot, having a bit of a time navigating on the ground at Berlin airport.
Tower: Yes! Yes! Right at the next taxiway! Haven’t you ever been to flown to Berlin before!
English Pilot: Quite a few times actually, in 1945. Didn’t stop then though.
Yes, heaven is an Italian lover. How I adore i ragazzi!
you put amsterdam in with britan, it is in holland.
From Spain…so, we don’t dislike anyone. That are good news!
But it must be because we “hate” all each other depending on the zone we live, and that is quite sad, isn’t it?
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You should Include something about the Flanders/Walloon split among Belgians. Flanders (Dutch speakers) are a lot like Germans from what I’ve heard and look down on the Walloon (French speakers) who they consider to be lazy and live off the welfare state…
Here’s a classic joke to add.
—
The German controllers at Frankfurt Airport were a short tempered lot, they not only expected you to know your parking location but how to get there without any assistance from them, so it was with some amusement that we (Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground and a British Airways 747 (Speedbird)
Speedbird: “Good morning Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of the active.”
Ground: “Guten morgan, taxi to your gate.
The BA 747 pulls onto the main taxiway and stops.
Ground: “Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?!”
Speedbird: “Standby ground, I’m looking up the gate location now.
Ground (with typical German patience): “Speedbird, have you never been to
Frankfurt before?!”
Speedbird (cooly): “Yes, 1944, but I didn’t stop.”
I studied abroad in Denmark (coming from the US) and one thing I head several times was that the Danes think the Swedes can’t hold their liquor. And I’ve heard that the Swedes say that Danish is a throat disease, because the languages are so similar, but Danish sounds a little harsher and, well, phlegmier.
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Any one have something similar concerning Bavarians vs. north Germans? Got the impression when i visited, that the Bayerisch still aren’t reconciled to being part of Germany.
I need to add a few things from the Polish perspective (as I’m one myself).
1. Most of the things written above about Poles are true.
2. Poles do not like Germans either, but it’s true that they fear them also.
3. Czechs are regarded by Poles as a little bit yellow as they didn’t fight to prevent their country’s annexation by Germans (and small part by Poles) in 1938-39.
I don’t know anybody who does not like French food and French language. But I know hardly anyone who likes French people. Your research is so true!
Hi, I’m a spaniard who lives in the Netherlands.
From my point of view your description it’s quite accurate.
Definitively, some spanish people have strong prejudices about the arrogant frenchies mainly due to the spanish emigration to France after the Spanish Civil War.
Finns don’t like Swedes and if the “know-it-all” smart-ass reputation of the Dutchies it’s not true, it smells like that.
What can I say about Italians? We all love them but just if a party is involved.
It would be interesting to me to know what Americans think of each other.
Very good post
I love the end heaven and hell comparison.
It’s spot on! As a music fan, I’ve had the opportunity to experience german organisation skills and compare them to Italian. The fact that I never returned on an event in Italy ought to speak loudly enough. At first I thought 12 toilets for (supposedly) 50.000 people was a one off, then I was told, by people who’ve gone to the festival in previous years, that it’s a standard practice.
The germans though… Thumbs up. I mean, they even provided showers!
The Portuguese dislike the Spanish, and think that they are pushy and loud, and somewhat dishonest. The Spanish think that the Portuguese are stupid.
I find you comments about the Germans to be on course and than again way off course.
I am an American expat, living here in Germany for 14 years.
On course when you stated “Germans are considered industrious but uptight and humorless”.
While I was stationed here with the US Army in 1978-80 I found this to be SO true. I spent many hours with some I considered to be “friends” and never once did I see them relax and enjoy live. (I was in the Rhineland-Pfalz).
Later in 1989 I was posted in Bayern. I found the people to be even more uptight. Ask a Baverian if he is a German or a Baverian and he will proudly state that he is first a Baverian than a German.
So far I have agreed with your observations.
When I first lived here (after retiring from the US Army) I was accepted but I was not.
Only after you live as one are you really accepted! Only than will you see the Germans as they truly are….warm, friendly, funny (once you understand their humor) and loving. Also they are not really hardworking all the time!
Just my thoughts!
Pretty accurate… but as a Brit who lives in Switzerland, I think you’re too soft on the Spanish. It’s a country just as divided as Belgium (which won’t exist in a decade) and just like the other south Europeans, is full of city dwellers who think they’re God’s gift to humanity while secretly horrified at the impovishered, 14C nature of their countryside.
Plus.. ‘Europe’ now includes all those ex tin-pot, wacky east european countries which seem to be emptying rapidly .. and so they’re all lumped together as the ‘new immigrants’ and, sadly, widely despised and shunned.
“but I have yet to meet an Irishman who really loathes the English. ”
Trust me, there are Irish people who really loathe the English.
I can appreciate that the article should be taken with a pinch of salt. But to elaborate on how the Irish view Europeans,
Scottish, fond for the drink and bad eating habits like the Irish and great for playing in Rugby and both nations share a similar Celtic bloodline and a shared grudge against England.
English, 800 years of war and English rule, they imposed a famine on the Irish. Suffice to say the Irish love beating the English at sports. Especially English sports. English view us poor and barbaric and in need of their rule.
Germans, stuck a pipeline into Ireland and starting pumping deutsche marks or ‘EU structural funds’. Basically provided us with our current high standard of living and the Celtic Tiger. Not to mention good cars and good beer. Love BMWs and Warsteiner. They view us as having crappy roads compared to their ‘autobahns’ and poor public transport and health system.
Polish, at the moment there is a huge number of Eastern Europeans in Ireland at the moment. Ten percent of our work force is Polish. They are viewed as both hard working and hard playing ( can be a rough crowd) . Lack humour but love vodka. Polish see us in some ways similar to them. Very Catholic country, over dependence on agriculture in the past, love of drink.
I’m a very subjective Greek and I dissagree with the coments about Greeks. Do your homework people. Other than that, all the rest very funny, although not always true….
||| Sorry I mean –>Objective
In regards to Portuguese -
They DESPISE the Spanish. They recent them for their more prosperous economy and find they to be back stabbing and double talkers. According to the Portuguese, one should never trust a Spaniard. However, the Spanish don’t harbor such feelings towards the Portuguese. Mainly because they see the Portuguese are below them and thus inconsequential. This of course irritates the Portuguese to no end. Plus I’m sure there is trifle that goes back to the voyages of discovery.
This is really funny…I stumbled it.
It’s also a bit helpful, like the Copenhagen part.
Love the poster part
“…you never, ever hear jokes about Germans in Poland.”!!!!!!
you never, ever should write never, ever. that’s what came to my mind when i read your text; is the rest of it similarly true?
Good third part of polish jokes are about “Pole, Russian and German” and believe me, it is the last one who always gets the beating.
“nominally considered European”…
MEGALOL
even the name “EUROPE” is…. Greek!
…and if i may ask what would “Europe” look like today if the Marathon Battle had a differnent outcome…
PLEAZE DO US ALL A FAVOR AND EDUCATE YOURSELF
This such a lie. Nothing you said here is true. I’ve been living in Europe all my life. I have been everywhere in Europe, traveling for 20 years now. And what you say is a big lie. You’re generalizing opinions from so few people to whole countries. Think before you act and keep it to yourself.
[...] If you want to find out what are the other Europeans “REALLY” like click here. [...]
Hi,
I am Czech myself and I think that you pretty much nailed the whole article. And yes, lot of Czechs come across as cold and rude but that is their “hard shell”…deep inside, they are just a little cuddly bears
I liked your article so much that I linked it to my blog, the Czechmatediary! THanks!
[...] Daily Candor ” What Europeans think of each other [...]
well for europeans all, i wonder what do they know and think about Turks. Well for us, europeans are very bad people that are always seeking ways of fuc.ing our behinds. that is what we are taught to believe. i wonder do people in europe really belive that we are just muslim barbarians that live in caves and women have to wear that black dresses? and in every fuck.ng minute we try to find ways of bombing somewhere? Is it really true that some europeans believe this fuckng shit? come on i really wanna learn.
“Poles ……., although they don’t like Czechs, Slovaks or Lithuanians either.”
That’s bollocks. Poles like Czechs and Slovaks ! And they are neutral for Lithuanians (with a bit of likeness).
well about ROMANIANS if i may say ( im romanian so i think i may ) – they hate the Bulgarians – though we sometimes call them brothers from the south -. We hate them because there`s this permanent competiton among us but we always seem to end up at the same table and almost equals ( though we are better
). At the moment we hate them because they have managed to improve their toursim sector – sea and mountains – more than us.
We also hate the Hungarians for obvious historical reasons. Fellows, Transilvania is OURS and it will stay that way! We have given you too many rights already. In some cities in Transilvania if u ask a Hungarian for directions he will never speak Romanian though he understands the language. They`re so mean, man!! Go back to your country! ( the problem is that their host country hates them too)
The Hungarians from Hungaria though, i dont know why, seem to like us. I ve seen some cocktails in a bar in Budapest with the romanian flag. That cool!
We looove the Yougoslavians though we ve kinda kiked them in the ass few years ago to prove the US our love and dedication. Maybe the guilt made us love them more.
I dont even want to start on the Ukrainians! I personally hate their guts. They think theyre so superior and they make fun us considering us the worst species ever. Oh how I hate them!
We hate the Russians too, the Moldavians – so and so but i think they hate us more – donno why since we ve tried to help them so many times during the history – that Russian regime, for sure.
We just looove the Americans and that sucks! You should see the fireworks here on july 4th. We also love everything from the west as we long for beeing so developed as them.
Im courious about others` opinion about Romania and not only!
I bet Isabella Snow is English… Brits have such a strange humor.
The Brits have a tendency to look down on the Poles because many Polish people have moved over here in recent years in search of work. They are known for working for very cheap wages but also for being hard workers (considering how little they are paid, and the fact that many of them are working tough jobs for long hours just to help out their families). There are currently many Polish people living in England especially, and they can often be seen working in bars, pubs, and fast foot outlets.
Just a little info.
I feel bad for the Germans. It really is a great diverse country, well over Nazism.
[...] at the excellent What Europeans Think of Each Other article at Daily [...]
Ha ha, good ones.
Made me laugh.
Anyway, please people, check your facts! Finland’s not part of Scandinavia.
Only Sweden and Norway are, due the Scandinavian mountains. Altogether these countries that usually get called “Scandinavia” are actually Nordic Countries. If you’d like to add Finland to Scandinavia, it becomes Fennoscandia. Finland is not part of Scandinavia by language, culture nor geography.
And we Finns dislike Swedes as well. ;D
i have lived in europe and apart from belgium the whole contient is pretty crap in terms of peoples atitides and genreal freindliness
What a load of shit. Whoever wrote this garbage clearly knows nothing about Europe. and certainly nothing about the UK.
What a twat.
just for 1 example you wrote
“but I have yet to meet an Irishman who really loathes the English”
Have you been living in a cave for the last 30 years?
And while i am at it, here is another one
“Scots and Welsh are tolerated and liked, inasmuch as that no one really knows too much about them outside the UK”
Why don`t you fuck off back to America, you are embarrassing yourself on this continent.
Nobody knows about the Scots outside the UK?.
That is probably the stupidest thing i have heard in a long time.
If there was another list pointing out the American stereotypes then you would be a prime example
you weak minded, ignorant, poorly educated, gormless pleb.
(also you are probably morbidly obese)
quite sad when you consider that the war has been over for over 60 years now…
Hmmm. I can’t agree about the Dutch. Being dutch I can pretty much say, most of us don’t like the french, most of them are either drug tourists visiting our country or, when visiting theirs, totally unwilling to speak anything but French.
We look down on the Belgians for being stupid. We dislike the germans, not so much because of WW2 but how we lose from them in soccer matches. We have no problems with the English or Italian people. Although the Italians are infamous for stealing girlfriends
We hardly have an opinion on the Swiss, we just go to switzerland for skiing. Oh, I thought the Dutch were seen as open minded, liberal people. Not stuck up know it alls…
The Portuguese hate the spanish for messing up their reputation and the english for messing up their night clubs and beaches with loud-mouthed-drunkness, the south parts are practically ruled by brittish tourists in the summer.
The portuguese are considered brazilian by the spanish and spanish by the rest of europe. Portuguese however wish to have nothing to do with their former colony and are very piky about the fact that their language is different from both spanish and brazilian dialect, even if the difference is minute to a foreigner.
For some reason they seem to have a soft spot for the italians and eastern europeans, possibly because of sharing their standard of living, set much below most of the rest of europe, especially germany and the nordic countries.
You are soo wrong about spaniards…I´m from Mexico and they love us there. I´ve been to Spain 3 times and everyone is just open and very warm.
Special treatment in bars, nightclubs and restaurants (special treatment as in free drinks and stuff like that).
Maybe other latin countries, but if you’re mexican they are gonna love you.
I know few polish jokes about germans.
A good definition of the Europeans, but there’s one thing I have to disagree with – Poles are not scared of the Germans. We just think that they have no real souls or personalities and are real perfection freaks, so are not worth noticing.
I am german, no european has EVER teased me about the war. So is this made up or what? BS
What you wrote about the Poles is inaccurate. I’m Polish (born and raised). Poles don’t hate the Lithuanians more than the Germans, and you do hear jokes about the Germans in Poland all the time. The article is just plain inaccurate. As for German animosity towards Poles, I’ve only experienced it in small far apart doses. Usually they get on, I would say.
Be brave, Americans and tell us also about your own inadequacies before pissing over the Europe you ‘ld like to ‘do’ so much.And remember most of you are not the real thing,but come from yes this tragicly hip Europe
You forgot the Icelanders.
Stupid stereotypes…
Amusing writeup!
Some things sound very familiar to me, but some don’t
Especially the myth that germans don’t like the polish – I have lots of friends that came from poland. And I can’ t say something bad about them.
I also don’t know if it is good to spread such old-fashioned prejudices… people should form their own opinions…
But I’m just a humorless german
Best wishes to all !
Jonas
Well…I should say that the Portuguese and the Spanish are almost brothers but if we look back in history we see that Spain, for more than one time, tryed to conquer Portugal, but with no succes. Maybe because of that some portugueses don´t always like the spanish
Sorry for my bad english!
portuguese are quite the same as spaniards although less racists (yes, they are a little racist…)
The “van Duitsen bloed” in the Dutch national anthem actually refers to William the First (1533-1584), not to the Dutch in general. William was a German nobleman who is considered the ‘Father of the Netherlands’. Hence the reference to his German ancestry.
Overall a fabulously written text. I have some pointers for you though:
The Czechs did not resist Hitler’s aggression. They surrendered without so much as firing one shot!
The Poles tell as many jokes about Germans as they do about other nationalities. It’s usually a joke along the lines of: “So there is a German, a Russian and a Pole…”
The Irish like Poles because of the parallels in history (being under almost constant occupation) and because the pope was Polish. The Polish like the Irish in return
The Poles go to Slovakia for cheap alcohol. And speaking of Czechs – we have this expression: “Czech movie – no one knows what is going on”.
The Czechs and the Slovaks find the Polish language funny, and understand each other pretty well, whereas the Poles think the Czechs and Slovaks speak a diminutive Polish (that’s how it sounds to us) and have slight difficulty understanding either of them.
The Lithuanians hate Poles for the time when our tanks assisted the Ruskies in pacifying Vilnus sometime in the 1980s or sth. …and no one blames them, that was a dumbass thing to do.
Hungarians are a Pole’s best friend and vice versa – we had the same one king once. We have a saying in Polish (and Hungarians have the exact same translation!!!) stating “Pole, Hungarian brothers two, both for drinking and for hew”.
The Hungarians do not speak any other language than their own “hellish” tongue
They have the best parties in Central-Eastern Europe and they drink a lot of red wine.
Poles drink anything from beer to paint-stripper, as long as it’s got alcohol in it (the more the better).
… plenty more where that came from, sadly I have no more time. Cheerio!
Matt
Hitler was born in Germany
we talked about that at school last week
btw come to Austria before you say such silly things about us!
You don’t know what you are talking about.
You need some extra lessons history. The Germans gave Hilter power… –> we don’t like them^^
consider updating your text
I’ve been told that Hitler’s Austrian accent, to Germans, sounded very “yokel”. That means the Fuhrer sounded more like one of the Worzels or Justin Lee-Collins. Think of that the next time you see one of those grainy films of the Neuremberg rallies.
And at one place I worked all the Danes hated the HR woman who was German: now I know it wasn’t just because she was a stickler for the sick-pay rules …
what about the portuguese??
I dont get the joke…but then again, im not english…
Actualy, the Danes are the one who is considered to be racist, not the Norwegians. They’ry just stupid, and they talk really funny.
Emily M. , you’re really an English teacher? That explains a lot about the kids I see on the intertubes.
Romania, Slovakia and Serbia love each other on grounds of their genuine hate towards Hungarians. It’s weird to see hard-liner nationalists hugging and kissing other countries’ radicals but that’s the way it is because they share the passion of wiping up the floor with ethnic Hungarians (there are millions in each country).
In return, Hungarians have always considered them savage peoples, joking about them having no history and culture (because they oppressed them for like 1000 years). Hungarians tend to believe they are inherently more sophisticated than virtually any other nation in the world just because they got to learn the most complicated language on Earth.
You probably ignore the fact that Spaniards are viscerally hated by the Portuguese. The reasons are: stupid sounding, guttural language (as when compared to Portuguese, a very similar language); the fact that Spaniards seem to relish ignoring other languages and cultures (probably because their culture is so strong but their perception of the strength of their culture is even stronger) and because of historic rilvaries: the Portuguese and the Spanish have had land disputes from the founding of Portugal in 1143.
I am one exception to this generalisation about Brits:
1. I can cook very well. Plus I also think that this ‘British food is crap’ myth is just that nowadays, a myth. Besides, what is British food now? Indian curry could just as easily be considered the national dish of England.
2. I do not hate all Europeans, preferring most of them to my own race. Except the Parisians. And anyway, most of the French despise them more than I do.
3. I live abroad [Japan] but still love the good things about my country. It’s just that the list of good things was getting shorter every year I spent there.
4. I dont hate America, just George Bush and his cronies.
5. I enjoy foreign languages
6. I behave myself even when I am drunk
I am Dutch and I don’t like Germans and Belgians. But I prefer Scandinavian countries.
I’m Portuguese, we’re probably the only european country with negative stereotypes towards spanish people which is due largely by repeated wars: first to found Portugal and then to expand. Later to negotiate what parts of the discovered world belonged to each nation and continuous batles to fight off spanish invasions.
Spanish people are regarded with suspicion, seen as loud and arrogant, sometimes tacky, but also perceived as merry, extroverted and having excellent food.
Near the borders the stereotypes are forgotten and people co-exist peacefully.
You are quite wrong about the Poles. The hate to Russia is, as I just said, just a hate to the state of Russia, but when a Pole and a Russian meet they are usually good friends from first sight. The aversion to the Ukrainians is common only among older people form east of Poland, mainly due to Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis. But among young and middle-age people they’re commonly respected for their recent democratic aspirations (they are now going the path we’ve done 20 yr. ago).
What you’re completely wrong is our relationship to the Czechs. They are, I’m not afraid to use such word, beloved here for their beer and movies. The Slovaks are considered “the other Czechs” and we like them as well. The Lithuanians are liked too, because we once formed a one state, but they rather don’t like us (because we once formed a one state)
I can not imagine what kind of Poles you had meet to get such opinion about our opinion about the Germans. There is a lot of upfront hatred to them in Poland. It’s source is of course WWII and their comparative welfare, believed so undeserved.
Best regards (hope my English do not hurt you)
Very interesting.
Romanians — hated by Italians, Spaniards, Germans and French for being thieves (actually it’s the rromani ethnic minority that does 90% of the looting).
Also Romanians generally hate Hungarians and Turks (due to historical reasons). And they also carry a deep disdain for the rromani (gypsies).
Generally Romanians are considered moderately good chefs and a rather witty people, yet also laziness and corruption are considered national traits.
Internal conflicts: Transylvanians hate Moldavians and sountheners for being lazy and corrupt, Moldavians and southeners hate Transylvanians for being both arrogant and hungarian lovers.
Hi,
In my experience, you’ve got it mostly right. As a Finn I’d like to add that we really dislike swedes. Most commonly we consider all swedish men gay.
One thing about the Greeks: they really, really hate Turks. Gotta say that I haven’t met an European, who thinks that Turkey is in Europe, or that the Turks are European.
As a real Dutchman I always take my own potatoes on a holiday to France.I love the french because they have ALDI’s
My caravan saves me a lot of hotel costs !
I love the Germans because they all speak english with a world war two accent.
What about the Portuguese?!!!
I am originally from England and moved to California in Auust ‘07 and I couldn’t agree anymore with the last sentence of ‘The British’ section as I definitely do not want to return home anytime soon, only when I visit family etc.
Quote: “Europe is full of English expats, and the longer they live abroad, the more they seem to hate their host country. And yet they never seem to want to move home.”
I am a Pole and I think what has been written about my people is completely wrong. Anyway, that does not really surprise me as generalisations are never true.
I don’t hate anybody and I am not quiet, nor are other Polish people. This is the way somebody wants to see us, for some irrational reason (but there must be some).
I don’t understand why you think there are only 3 Million in Ireland, there are just over 6 Million, thats like saying there is only 150 Million in the USA!
I’m still laughing. I’m an American expat living in Amsterdam and formerly lived in Spain. Right on target this is!
I’ve always like the Irish!
Have to disagree with poor French mechanics. They led the world in motor engineering and aeronautics, especially in the early days.
Also, having been stuck in rural France with a broken motorcycle engine to have a precision part actually MADE to fit the engine within a couple of hours left me with permanent admiration for their skills
K (British)
Hehe, good guide, but I can say that Swedes and Spaniards dont like each other that much.
There is no truth written about Poles. I’m Polish We are considered quiet? I’ve never heard it before. And we have very good relationship with Czechs, Slovaks and Ukrainians. But in fact there is ambiguity about Russians.
We “don’t really care about Germans”? Many Poles -mostly older people, who remember WW2 – hate them. And there are many jokes about three people – German, Russian and Pole.
[...] look at what I found a cute, wonderful blog today that summarizes what Europeans think of each other. The Scandinavians — Widely respected by most other Europeans, because of their high standard of [...]
Interesting viewpoints, thanks for the article. I might reference it in a future blog post
Terri
http://goscandinavia.about.com
I’m from Luxembourg, between France and Germany and under Belgium.
It’s not wrong what your writing, maybe something missing.
I know a lot of Portuguese, they are strong workers and the family is very important for them they are even very Christian, maybe because it’s a poor EU country. In some parts they are not very liked, for example in the opinion about the Iraq-war, but in this case they have to share the American opinion, because of the subsidy they got from them like the Marshal plan and others. They have also a lot of American weapons on there territory like a lot of other countries, but WTF do American has European weapons in there country? No
the greeks are the best of the europe and better lovers than the italians…haven’t you heard about greek lovers?
Very factual observations – even if only meant as humor.
Hey, czech part is not quite accurate
“Czechs are a bit like Germans, though — a bit rude, blunt, and cold”
) and run to south. Nothing from that happened.
- Czechs dislike germans because they are rude and blunt. The correct is: Some czechs are unfriendly to strangers, becasue of communist dictatorship they are really cold. Also dont behave much “freely” – dont want to step out from crowd. We like our Slovakian brothers, we like poles too, or we dont have reason to hate them. We dont like germans, not because of WW2, but because the way they eat food (they grunt), also we dont like austrians because they kept blocking southern border and kept shitting on our very unstable nuclear powerplant at their border ( :d ), and also because they consider czechs thefts and criminals – they were scared after EU border opening that we will become refugees (
[...] – and animosities remain until this very day.I had to really laugh out loud when I found this great blog post on Daily Candor about the characteristics of all the different Europeans and what they think of [...]
My grandmother was Hungarian. I don’t know if she was typical of Hungarians, but here goes: She hated the Polish, the Czechs and the Russians with a passion so great that swear-words in English were apparently unable to properly convey her sentiments. She respected the Germans, but the rest of Europe was useless and only good for vacationing. She loved America so much she migrated over here and became a citizen. She also hated a bunch of people named the “Roma” that she said where worthless gypsies that needed to be killed on sight. She also said that no one in Hungary shed a tear when Hilter carted the Roma off to the concentration camps.
Very very nice article! Even tho i’m european i’ve enjoyed it thoroughly! nice job
Did you know there are tree kinds of Dutch?
answer: the Amsterdamn Dutch, the Rotterdamn Dutsch, and..the other damn Dutch….heh heh…
I disagree with some of the morons that have posted here. Obviously illiterate Swedish white trash that neither comprehend the English language nor the geography culture and history of their part of the world. Even though the Finnish language differs from Norwegian Danish annd Swedish, the Finns share so many cultural social and historical ties with their Scandinavian neighbours that they very well can be, and often are considered as being Scandinavians.
I share the view of the writer that the Swedes are disliked by their Nordic neighbours. They are thought of for historical reasons as the cowards that chose to stay out of the last war and instead collaborate with the natzis, why their countries(Norway Denmark) were occupied.The Finns who literally were fighting for their lives against their colossal Soviet neighbour feel the same way.
Furhermore the Swedish men are thought of as emotional feminine sissies and drunks that cannot handle their liquor, that when abroad are loud hysterical and ill-mannered.
The Danes are icky and lazy.
Some remarks from a Swede on the Nordic countries.
First of all:
Scandinavia = Sweden, Norway, Denmark
The Nordic countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland
Between the Nordic countries, we seem to bicker and bitch a bit, but it’s mostly just teasing, because we actually like eachother, but then again, we get annoyed with eachother too sometimes. So, I guess we are just like siblings, except Iceland, who is more of a cousin.
Languages: To a Swede, Danish sounds like someone is talking with their mouth full, Finnish sounds strange, ugly and sad, Norwegian sounds jolly, funny and a little stupid, Icelandic strange and intriguing and every word ends in “-ur”.
Sports: To the Swedes, Finns are rivals in ice-hockey and athletics, Norwegians are rivals in skiing. Danes are really not rivals (possibly in football/soccer), because they are not that good at sports. If Sweden gets knocked out of a soccer tournament, Swedes tend to cheer for Denmark instead. We would not cheer for Norway.
As a Swede, I would think of Danes as laid-back and outspoken, Swedes as rational, polite and introvert, Finns as sad, manly and extremely introvert, Norwegians as jolly and proud, but a bit in the back-waters, Icelandics as… well, we tend to forget that they exist, but they are usually very nice people.
Swedes like, envy and admire the Danes because Danes seem to be able to enjoy life more, and not take things that seriously. So, Swedes also think Danes are a bit lazy and less industrious. We laugh at Danish workers who drink beer in the morning. On the other hand, Swedes often have a bad reputation in Denmark as drunks behaving badly. Danes seem to view Sweden as a very bureaucratic country, and Swedes as uptight. I always get the feeling that Swedes like Danes more than they like us.
Swedes tell jokes about Norwegians and vice versa. We don’t tell jokes about Danes, and seldom about Finns. I guess the Danes don’t really care about us that much, and the Finns are probably busy boozing and knife-fighting in the sauna. Or maybe it’s because telling a joke about Swedes would force them to actually say something. ;.)
Sweden is politically correct, Denmark is not. So, in Denmark, immigration problems are discussed openly, which makes Swedes see Danes as more racist, although they are just more frank.
Sweden is the largest of the Nordic countries, and we tend to forget that the others don’t want to be bossed around, and that they resent us when we think we know better. And most of the times, we think that we know better.
The largest Nordic immigrant group in Sweden is, by far, the Finns, and some Swedes seem to look down on them a little. On the other hand, there is a small Swedish minority in Finland that divides that country a bit, and many Finns resent the fact that they have to learn Swedish just because of this small minority.
If Finns think Swedish men are all feminine (and even gay), I understand why. We deserve that reputation.
The Irish do too hate the English. I know like two guys who fondly reminisce (I am in Scotland) of their grandparents hiding shotguns etc in their houses during the troubles, and how whenever the troops said “hi” they would just spit on the street and keep walking.
this is all bulshit. Europeans only bitch about the states becuse they all sit on their fat asses and think they control the whol world. And most European countries get along with echoter they dont bitch about the other countries only if they due something really stupid. I dont know where you got your info but its all a bunch of bullshit. And it dosent sound like u know anything about Europe.
What a bunch of crap!
I can tell you one thing: Most Europeans will have their prejudices about Americans confirmed by viewing your ridiculous allegations.
Nope – you are way off with that.. Wrong on too many levels to count..
Nice article there
As an American, I’ve learned several things, especially from the comments: the Irish are very sensitive about the size of their population, the Spanish are very sensitive about any implication that they may not be white or European (they’re certainly both, for the most part, but why the anger?), and that quite a few Europeans express hatred of ALL Americans when one American stereotypes them.
Also interesting to compare some American attitudes about Blacks and some European attitudes about the Roma (Gypsies). The difference being that we’re far more likely to elect a Black leader than any European country a Roma leader…
Very true, Bricker. I’ve found that Europeans in general are a lot more sensitive around nationality than we are. They know more, but with that seems to come a host of very specific, incontrovertible prejudices. That is a generalization – I’ve certainly met a few exceptions – but it’s one that holds true far more than for Americans.
I also await the day that a European country elects an ethnic Arab or Turk to head their government. (I don’t think it will happen in our lifetime)
European nations, I’m afraid, cannot get rid of stereotypes. Some of these are well grounded in the past and the nature of the nation. As a Pole I cannot think well about Germans who murdered several members of my family, millions of Poles, destroyed Poland almost completely – my home as well, and never tried to pay a pfenig of war damages. Owing to the war we had communism which combined with war ruined our economy so that now many Poles like slaves have to look for employment abroad. That is why Germans will remain the most hated nation in Poland.
But it is not true that Poles hate all the rest – Czechs with their culture, language, films, humour, etc. are very popular in Poland. Slovaks are generally liked as well. With Russians and Ukrainians we had rather complicated relationship which finds reflexion in an ambiguous attitude towards these two nations. Lithuanians do not like us because we took Vilnius before the War – but in Poland people tend to think – still – well about them because for centuries we had a common state. There are, of course, grumpy idiots everywhere, who seem to hate everyone else, but it would be most irrational to describe nation’s feelings towards other nation on the basis of what those grumpy idiots think.
Swietnie powiedziane, Pawel. It helps to understand some of the historical context to some prejudices, like you’ve done.
as a german i can say the following – the ‘ive been in germany before….but we didnt land’ seems to be the most popular joke ever
else, about england – they all look the same (esp the ghastly women) and have sticks up their bottoms
the scots are fat & mainly eat fried mars bars
italians scream for their mothers when climaxing
all of scandinavia is seen as sweden which is seen as that cook from the muppet show
[...] It’s pretty interesting to see what Europeans think of each other. [...]
Well, as a Czech I would rather deny that Czechs are cold. They are cold on the first sight toward unknown people, that is right, but after they get to know the other side better, Czechs usually throw off that cold shell and change themselves into charming hosts and good friends. Just do not push hard on Czechs, give them some time to have a sniff at you. You will not regret that
. As for Slovaks – people from Slovakia are our closest friends, I personally have lot of friends and customers in Slovakia and generally I feel at home in Slovakia. We consider Poles as religious bigots a bit, but generally we like them (some of my most impressive vacations have taken place in Poland). We hate Russians for being such imperialistic thugs taking no regard toward us (a relict from the Soviet occupation era). We also consider Austrians as “cold noses”, overlooking us and blaming us for the end of the austro-hungarian empire. The Germans still are accepted with rather negative feelings (wounds from the WW II are still live here).
Hi, I am Czech and I have got a comment to this discussion, not to the article above.
Many here say that Czechs did not resist the Nazi Germany.
Well, just imagine the possibilities: if you are a 40 million nation like Poles, you can have this luxury of fighting against german tanks on horses or you can have this luxury of declaring the policy not a step back when you are 200 milion Soviet nation. But what to do when you are a 10 million Czech + Slovak nation and you await confrontation with a nation of similar technical level, but 8 – 9 times larger and even fanatical? Especially when all your neighbors are his Allies against you (even Poles).
I am proud of Czechs who killed One of “top ten” Nazi leaders (Heydrich), I am proud of Prime minister of WW2 Prague czech puppet government, who was unmasked as leader of antinazi underground movement and I am proud of members of prewar Parliament fighting in guerilla forces.
Of course Poles and mainly Soviets were needed for the victory. I would say nobody in history sacrificed like Russians to fight such evil.
But I do not feel shame for czech way of thinking.
And by the way the article is a piece of crap.
You´re right Jura. When Munich Agreement was signed by Neville Chamberlain (GB), Édouard Daladier (France), Adolf Hitler (Germany) a Benito Mussolini (Italy) we hadnt many options to defense. Chamberlain with his policy of appeasement which never works sold us to Germans. And French Daladier didnt worry about breaking military alliance with us. M.A. demanded on Czechs to give up their border areas called Sudeten.Key fact in this is that in Sudeten were most of our border defenses and military equipment as well. The only possibility to fight against Hitler was guerilla war or escape from country and fight side by side with R.A.F.
And to the article, I hope nobody gets it seriously. At least half of it isnt true, but I think main purpose of this article is to entertain and it did. American view of Europe will always be out of focus (and vice versa). And I must add:
.
make fun of them, but you can also meet attitude of “know-it-all fatheads” who spend all the time by sitting in pubs and talkin about stuff they dont know nothing about but have solutions to all problems of the world.what a pity they dont move their asses and do somethin:).
- Czech imagination of German is fat stinkin loud guy wearing Bavorian garb
- Czechs make fun of Slovak because of their nationalistic vein.
-Czech dont like Gipsies because most of them just get social security benefits and dont work, steal, make mess and noise.
-Czechs as one of the most atheistic nation in EU dont understand Poles, very small amount of them hate them because they think Poles are bunch of thieves and fakers, but generally theres no hate towards them
-Czech rather than have a mad on politicans, sportsmen representing their country and failed, politicans and politicans
=>this reminds me my former P.E. teacher and his advices. Once we took part in basketball tournament and one of my classmate, Adam was really good at it and the teacher really pissed him.
F.E. he was about to shoot 3-point and the teacher was like: “Dont shoot Adam, OMG!!”, Adam scored and teacher: “Oh yes, great Adam , thats how I like it”
uups sorry for my english, i forgot theres no double negative it should be stuff they know nothing about
[...] Read more Posted by bobak Filed in Psychology [...]
I am actually waiting for the Asian version of this stereotyping.
sub – so a I! Asians are oddly reticent when it comes to talking about their neighbors. All I can tell is that the richer ones look down on the poorer ones.
You f***in moron. You think by living 4 years in Europe and by talking to a few people, you think you can understand the complex relations, that europeans have with each other???
You’re my internet douchebag of the week!
Btw, everything you wrote down here are stereotypes!!!! You didn’t realize that? Oh maybe that’s because you’re a conservative blindfolded dumbass american!
I’m so sick of all the people, who think we germans are villains of europe, never able to laugh or to cook a decent meal! Ah just wastin my fuckin time on you, freak!
FUCK YOU!
It’s only a stereotype until someone like you confirms it. Danke schoen!
Sweden is looked down upon by other Scandinavians because we, just like England, take after the US so much. And we really do and I totally agree with them even though I’m a Swede. I can’t stand the americanizing. Otherwise it’s like someone else said; we tease eachother like siblings do.
Interesting article and comments.
As a Brit, I think your remarks about us are pretty much spot on, especially those about Brits living elsewhere in Europe.
Personally, I’m a big fan of France – a beautiful country, nice people and great food. However, on the world stage, I find them a bit arrogant (but so are the Brits) and generally not team-players.
I’m also a big fan of Germany. Everything seems to work very well – and on time – but they can be very rigid and a bit stuck in their ways.
The Dutch are very self-confident and, yes, a little self-righteous, but also very friendly and easy to get along with.
I think Belgium is all too often overlooked as a country, which is a shame because it has lots to offer and absolutely amazing food (and beer!).
The Poles that I work with are very polite and have an excellent work ethic. They are also pretty quiet, but give them a drink and it’s a different story!
The Irish are great fun – a bit mad at times (in a good way) and very likeable.
The Scandinavians, generally speaking, are either too weird, too serious or too boring (sorry!).
Agreed about Belgium – underrated. I really like Brussels (although I felt Antwerp was a bit underwhelming).
“Poolse Landdag”, an old Dutch saying about a completely disorganised parliament / parliamentary system, also used when confronted with a big meeting of squabbling people who cannot agree about anything.
The saying is centuries old (stems at least from 19th century) and yep, since the brothers Kaczinsky moved in, the Poles are living up to this expectation again.
You missed the Albanians. The most current joke is now:
“Come travel to Albania, you car has arrived already”
Hey there.
The Poles don’t dislike the Slovakians. They just think they sound funny. Supposedly, Slovakian sounds like a baby form of Polish…..so the Slovakians sound like children.
Also, lots of the south western Poles dislike the Germans because the past.
Oddly, Poles pretty much hate all other Poles. I’ll give you an example: In the south west there are two towns next to each other which hate each other because they each used to be in different partitions when Poland was wiped off the map. Crazy!
Great post!
Cheers, Tom
First, too all those that (typically) call this article “crap” or “bullsit”, and otherwise take offense: you miss the point. Yes these are stereotypes that don’t apply to 95% of the people. Most people are pretty much the same. But it is human nature to focus on perceived group differences. No intelligent person takes them seriously.
To all the Spaniards: the comment “Spaniards consider themselves white and European, and would be deeply insulted if you suggested they were Latin American of any kind” is not supposed to be read literally, the author was using a literary trick (called “tongue in cheek”) to paint a picture from a different speaker’s viewpoint with the understanding that it’s not true. Poor choice for an international audience, but those of us fluent in English “got it”.
On the Scandanavian/Nordic issue: thanks for educating us “New Worlders”. The ignorance on this issue is due to our education, we are taught that Finland is a Scandanavian country, and memorize it as such. But I doubt that many ‘peans know the differences between Montana and North Dakota. I suspect that it is somewhat like the Holland/Netherlands issue, those who live there know better, but become tired of trying to educate the ignorant (Americans, usually).
==
Now, on to my contributions to the stereotypes:
I’m not much of physical world traveler, but:
Germans: (from 1976) I got yelled at by a German shopkeeper for not saying “hello” when I entered his store. (I’m genetically 100% German, btw)
I used to work for Finns: Compared to American WASPs (like me), Finns expect each other to do what they say they will do, and don’t tolerate deviation well. Progress reports aren’t expected, final results are. Most are nice, but the few that aren’t, are real jerks. They are real clanish, they will only buy Finnish products, even if those products aren’t the best solution. Their software interfaces are atrocious. The only male Swede that I worked with *was* effiminate, but was a breath of fresh air compared to the Swedes, and the other Swede (a woman) is the only one from that firm that I stay in contact with. She was fun and feisty (and not blonde). I didn’t experience the drunken, knife-wielding, but I worked with white-collar professional sorts, who by the way, would never have lunch with production staff back in Finland but tolerated here in the states, when forced.
I’ve never met a Pole in person, but deal with hundreds online. Most are (justifiably) bitter about Germans, many of them would love to rewrite history (there’s a whole legion of them on WikiPedia, conducting never-ending edit wars). Between the Germans and the Soviets, they’ve been beaten down forever. They are one of France’s only real friends (due to Napoleon’s brief “liberation”).
Mmm,
Scandinavia consists of Norway, Sweden and Denmark
NORDIC countries, which for the Nordic Union are Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
I’m a Swede and I think that finns only say that we are homos because they have no better insults to come with, you mostly hear such things over the internet, I for one have never met a finn who have dared or even wanted to say that in my face, also I don’t view finns as violent drunkards, mostly maybe because I have finnish friends.
? ?? ??? ? ??? ???? ????? ??? ?????.
Nice read,
I am an Albanian, only a couple of comments on us here; by the way the joke about Albania was funny. To a certain extent one has to create some stereotypes, in order to be able to deal with people of different nationalities. I have had the chance to meet Greeks, Macedonians, Turks, Dutch, Spanish, French, English, Poles, Italians (of course). My stereotypes (not necessarily right) are:
Greeks…too much talk about nothing people, lazy, loud
Macedonians…wicked but ordered
Dutch…hard working, smart, not funny people
Spanish… explorers, loud a bit like the Greek, friendly
French…wine drinkers, mono-language, strange culture
English…think the rest of nationalities are crap
Poles… quiet, non agressive, sometimes meaningless and not funny
Italians…lazy, mafioso-type (especially south), cook well and make loads of unnecessary gestures
Albanians…impulsive, hate being fooled, lazy, euphoric
As a Finn, I can tell you that the hate of swedish people is mostly just in the southern and western part of Finland. Here in eastern, in russian border, we have a real hate of russians.
We have here thousands and thousands of joke books full of jokes about swedes, which starts: “There was a Finn, a Norwegian and a Swede…” and the swedish dude always draws the shortest straw.
Yes, we think that all swedish men are gay and that norwegians are rich, eats fish and burns up churches.
We don’t have a common opinion of danes and icelanders
[...] What Europeans Think of Each Other [...]
HOLY CRAP !!
AN ALBANIAN JUDGES THE GREEKS!
I’TS LIKE THE PARASITE – A FLEE FOR EXAMBLE -JUDGING IT’S HOST, THE DOG!
OH, AND… MACEDONIANS?
WTF IS “MACEDONIANS” ?
SORRY, NO SUCH THING AS “MACEDONIANS”… MAYBE YOU MEANT “SCOPJIANS” ?
BUT THEN AGAIN, YOU’RE JUST AN UNEDUCATED IGNORANT LITTLE PRICK, HOW SHOULD YOU KNOW?
I love learning about all peoples, countries,
and have some friends in many countries around the world.
I wish that we can all be kind to one another and learn.
I have European and Native American heritage.
My country is the world.
I run a website where I make earthquake, severe storms and volcano predictions. I care for all people equally.
I love geography and learn where all the places are in the world.
It is only through understanding and learning about others we come to know ourselves.
May all learn to live in peace and help each other.
Pam
As a Serb, it is a bit hard to say anything good or bad about us, after so much propaganda in the last 15 years about us. We as a nation are the most keen on Russians and Greeks, because of strong bonds from thousands years long history. We also respect Germans, as hard workers and honest people. We do not like English, because of lot of troubles they put us in through history. They put us in the war with Hitler only because they wanted to save their own ass for a while. We consider them as cold, polite, and very dishonest. We generally do not hate Croats, as they hate us, but we carry unforgetable wound from the WW2 by killing and torturing millions of Serbs by Croat Ustase under Hitler’s regime and then not getting any responsibilities or punishment for it. We as people are very impulsive, temperamental, honest, warm, unrealistic and sometimes a bit too proud of ourselves. We are also very disappointed about the whole injustice on our nation caused by USA and their EU followers only becaues of some big geo-political games, but we forgive everything as we know that God will have the final word
(
I’ve visited Europe 3 times and am still amazed how openly racist people are. I mean, this website is for a bit of amusement but if it was around in 1935 we’d probably be laughing about how the Germans don’t like the Jews!!!
I live in Melbourne, Australia; my country certainly isn’t perfect as far as prejudices go, but I know we’re a lot less tolerant of racists and bigots than in Europe. I’ve had the good fortune to teach in schools in Western Melbourne where there is a high migrant population, up to 50/60 different nationalities in a school. And you know, when 1 or 2 racial groups dont dominate in a school, race almost ceases to be an issue.
Another thing; my ancestors came to Australia about 130 years ago, but many Europeans couldn’t accept that I was ‘Australian.’ I was British, Cornish or Irish because my ancestors were from there!!
Brilliant piece here. I myself am British.
The worst thing about peoples opinion on the UK is its mostly based on the snotty uptight rich snobby wanker unbelievable useless politicians who for some reason run this country due to a rigged voting system for the past 100years or so. OR the drunk loutish people who seem to roam our streets or everyone else’s street plastered causing havok!
I admire the rebuild start a fresh attitude of most Europeans. unlike Britain rebuild the old ways bollocks
true to the fact we don’t like being called Europeans.
we love to winge about how crap everything is but who doesn’t? its good for the soul well kinda.
One statement in particular that we all love Americans is a load of crap. we hate them and we hate our government who seem to endlessly bend over and take it from the USA.
As I said above we don’t like being called Europeans but we would rather be that than the USA’s lap dog.
[Ed: Reread my post. I make it clear the Brits hate everyone, esp Americans. Anyone who's spent any reasonable amount of time with Brits knows them to be misanthropes.]
Hi!
After reading most of the article and some of the replies esp about Poland and Poles (since I’m one)
I’d like agree that some of the antagonisms really exists but I don’t won’t to focus on them becouse it’s in my opinion pointless and serves no purpose. I’d like to however to turn your attention towords the element of friendship between countries and nations. I’m sure one of them exists and should definitelly be practiced more; it’s the nobel idea of firendship between Hungary and Poland (as Matt already mentioned).
Polish and Hungarian people to some extent I believe are aware of it but to other of You – who would like to know more – I suggest to google “Pole, Hungarian, two good friends” and you’ll see an interesting article about it in Wikipedia”. Excert from the article about already metioned proverb “Pole, Hungarian, two good friends” might be a “bait” for You to read it entirely:
“The full Hungarian text of the proverb often recited during drinking is „Lengyel, magyar két jóbarát, együtt harcol s issza borát,” that is „Polish, Hungarian (are) two good friends, they fight and drink their wine together”.
The Polish version: „Polak, W?gier, dwa bratanki, i do szabli, i do szklanki,” translates to „Polish, Hungarian (are) two brothers, both for saber, and for (drinking) glass”. (full text: Wenger Polák dwa bratanki/Ido Szabli ido szklanki/Oba zukhi oba zsvavi/Nekh ikh Pan Bog blogoslawi)”
No other similar widespread bilingual proverb exists about the mutual relations of two nations.”
…Or does it?
I don’t know which countries are expecially fond of each other but after watching couple of ‘infamous” eurovision contests I’ll noticed that some countries repeatedly vote for each other and regardless of the artist’s performance they give highest notes almost every time.
Such tendecies I’ve observed comply to countries like:
Finland – Estonia
Turkey – Azerbaijan
Grece – Armenia
So if anyone of you knows about some special friendly relations between two countries I’d be eager to find out.
Hi!
I’m Portuguese and I would just like to sort some things out here.
Yes, we do have a long story of competiton with the spanish dating back to the discovery times and lots of portuguese dislike the spanish. But not everyone thinks like this. Lots of people think of them as “nuestros hermanos” (our brothers) and like them.
The only thing that bugs us is that even though our languages are much alike, when a portuguese is in Spain he will always do whatever is possible to be understood by them, but when in Portugal, the spanish always refuse to try and understand our language. Either we speak spanish or they won’t understand what we say. (even if they do, they will say they don’t)
PS: I know not eveyone is like this and there are exceptions, but my experience tells me that this is what happens.
Here’s my take on what Croatians generally think of other Europeans….
Serbians – hated by the extreme nationalists (who perceive them as genocidal tribal illiterate primitive brutes). Surprisingly, admired by many (mostly urban/leftists) who marvel at their lack of “inferiority complex” and a very, very relaxed attitude about their “balkan mentality” (unlike croatians, they haven’t been brainwashed into thinking they’re part of the civilized, clean, cultured “Mitteleuropa” and that all things balkan are basically filth). Serbian literature, movies and (especially) music are extremely popular and generally considered to be vastly superior to croatian home-grown, ahem…culture.
Slovenians – viewed as cold, stuck-up, arrogant (not even remotely true, in my experience). Probably even more unpopular than the Serbs these days – Slovenia-bashing seems to be the growing trend. It’s mostly jealousy (they’re miles ahead of us in terms of economy, social order, etc) with a bit of blind nationalism and propaganda thrown in.
Bosnians – backward, primitive, daft (by far the most popular joke-materials) .
Macedonians – their existence is mostly ignored, but the few people who have actually been there said that they’re the nicest folks in the world
Hungarians – even though we shared many centuries of common history with our northern neighbour, nobody seems to have anything to say about Hungary these days. The language barrier is too strong, probably. Oh, a lot of people have said nice things about Budapest (amazing city) and Hungarian women (hot and…..easy? apparently)
Germans and Austrians are generally perceived as “our friends”, for various reasons : our inferiority complex, Austro-Hungarian empire, hundreds of thousands of Croatian guest-workers (gastarbeiten) making a living in Germany in the 80s, both countries being among the first who recognized our independence. I dunno, it’s weird, they’re generally respected and thought of being on “our side” (I’m sure they couldn’t care less), but anyone who’s been there or lived there always points out how cold, unfriendly and individualistic they are.
English : arrogant bullish snobs. Some people, e.g. my father, seem to hold the English solely responsible for all the “tragedies” of Croatian nation throughout history. Doesn’t matter what it is, there’s always an English connection.
British sitcoms/comedies are extremely popular though, especially Allo Allo and Mr. Bean.
Italians : 2 opposite stereotypes : 1) warm, handsome, pretty, good looking, cute, beautiful language, blah blah blah (this is a more common opinion) 2) dirty, smelly Gypsies /racist Nazis (bizarre, I know, but this is what some people actually think. In my experience, they’re very similar to us, especially the South)
Romanians love everybody on the account of taking all the gipsies
( well… not all of them … yet! they’re still rolling )
Romanians hate the Hungarians because they didn’t get enough gipsies … apparently they have more than enough of their own.
There are extremists both in Hungary and Romania who hate the others, but it’s not a “feature”. Most of the population (in both countries) doesn’t have anything against the other people.
However Romanians have something against the Russians for 50 years of communism… That’s not easy to forget.
Romanians also doubt the cerebral activity of those who label Romanians as Gypsies.
This is great read, I’m from Belgium and mostly evrything is spot on! one thing was forgotten though, in Belgium we believe that every other country has horrible beer. many belgians who are proud of their beer would say “I’d rather drink water from a toilet boil then drink (insert foreign beer brand)”
I’m Bulgarian. We are quite perky people able to be part in any given society in the western Europe, and the western world for that matter. Gypsies are quite a problem in Bulgaria as they are a developing minority often associated with small time scams and thievery. However there are a lot of decent people amongst Bulgarian gypsies.
Regarding the Romanians, I’ve been there. They are are developing better than us in some fields and their infrastructure is better around the capital. International roads nearby Danube are low maintained and when you enter Romania from Hungary and try to pass the Carpathians you will have to watch out about your car as the road is in a very poor state. At 3 a.m. in the morning it is common to see people walking between villages, sometimes even young women with their children. However I’m left with the impression that young people are more likely to find good jobs there.
Not much is said about out neighbors – the Macedonians. I went there a while ago. It felt like Narnia – people playing a game of “Country”. All they need is a talking lion. They still believe that they are the remains of the once strong Macedonian Empire. In modern times when even wars waged not more than 60 years ago are now not a reason for two nations not to cooperate for mutual benefit, it is just simply immature to beat yourself in the chest and argue with the world that everything they have they owe to you. Young Macedonians don’t think that way. I had the pleasure to be in their company .
We just try to be a part of the world.
Some historical adjustments
1) Hitler WAS born in Austria (like it or not) – Braunau
Ey, where did Haider come from again? Finally he got the right curve…
2) The Roma (or better “Sinti”) AREN´t Romanians, this is a popular but wrong misunderstanding. They have a long history in Europe, coming from far east (India?), centuries ago, and are a separate people group. They were hunted and humiliated almost like the jewish over lng time in history. Historically, they life from artcraft, music, show, and, yes, begging. They had a strong line into France, and one of th biggest populations today lives in Germany (~60k). They have – very unique – no country, but their own legislation, culture, language, etc.
And yet, there are some very poor Romanians begging in western Europe.
Its funny because I’m from Nothern Ireland. When I’m on holiday no-one really acknowledges that I’m Northern Irish. We may be part of the UK but we are our own country, we even have our own fry if that counts for anything. We’re either English or Irish so I just pretend I’m Irish because everyone loves the Irish. If you say you’re English they tend to think you’re just a drunk and should be wearing a football top of some kind.
Cant Believe there is so much disliking present in the days of globalization…..come on ppl …
Funny !
disagree with most of it, but still… should just be read for fun
I’m Belgian, and I don’t hate Dutch people, but the can act stupid. I noticed in Amsterdam they began to speak English immediately, when I spoke to them in Dutch, maybe because we have a slight accent. The strange thing is, we both speak Dutch, but still we don’t know a lot about eachother. The Dutch are ignorant for what’s happening in Belgium, I guess.
Belgians are proud for surviving the World War’s, certainly the first WW is considered as a heroic and brave war, while our influence was not that large.
As a Swede, I’m getting FUCKING tired of all the hate from Finland. They always mock us and make fun of us – for no apperent reason.
The Norwegians are seen as another part of Sweden, we can communicate well with eachother. We are a little jelous of them because they have their stupid oil.
The danes are loved but their language seems like a joke, and therefore we joke about it alot.
Germany is seen as a great country, Europe’s “super-power” with incredible industrial strength.
Finns are ridiculed for their language which sounds NOTHING like the other nordic countries. Otherwise they’re seen as our brothers, or even closer, seeing sa it was another part of seden for 637 years.
Despite bitching about the swiss being stuck-up, I know more very kind and charming people from Switzerland than many other countries.
I’ve been to many different european countries, and have met a lot of different people there. In the time I went travelling across Switzerland, I met a whole bunch of different types of people. While in central Switzerland the stereotype does match a lot of times, in the other parts, like Basel, Lausanne, Ticino or Chur, the people were very friendly and charming!
I think of all stereotypes brought in this article (which is great btw!) the one about the swiss being stiff and rude does match the least.
I’ll bet a lot of people have experienced this.
Que giro, favelados a dizerem que os Portugueses têm inveja do Brasil… só mesmo para rir. Alguma vez temos inveja de uma cambada de favelados que nem sabem que são os pais? (pergunta retórica, escusam de responder.)
The portugueses, doesn’t hate the spanish, just some atitudes. For example when we are in Spain and we try to speak with the spanish they say “No comprendo!” (despite the fact that they do understand us), while the portuguese try to understand them. The portuguese have to answer to them by gestures because they never understand portuguese, portunhol (spanish with portuguese) or even english.
Best regards.
Having lived in Germany for over 20 years, I can only say that luckily the majority of people here don’t bother to spend that much time hating everybody else. There are a lot of harmless jokes, obviously, but I rarely met anybody who took them seriously, even though after reading the comments, you can only draw the conclusion that Europe is full of people who resent each other for various stupid reasons (which get weirder the further you read).
Still, it was funny seeing all these guys pop up, claiming they speak for an entire country and providing all those obscure explanations for stereotypes most people probably have never even heard of. But of course something always seems to fit, like with a horoscope. And it always fun to explain the intricacies of your culture and country to a foreigner, even if you’re just making it all up on the spot, right?
Also, kind of sad that most posters could only come up with negative stereotypes.
Oh, sure, X hates Y because they’re all stuck-up. Also, Y thinks of Z as backwards. Z doesn’t bother to learn foreign languages and also has a healthy dislike for X. Probably because of THE WAR. And don’t you ever dare calling X an Y, except you’re ready for a fight until death. Europe really is serious business.
Portuguese people don´t hate the Spanish. If they are arrogant with us, we are ironical with them. We tend to be more introspective and melancholic. Fado expresses that quite well.
First off, this seems very ignorant and American.
The Poles love jokes about the Germans.
Also the British and Spanish both dislike each other. So do the Brits and the Greeks.
Ian: Thank you for proving my point about the Brits (you hate Americans, and just about everyone else)
As for the bit about Poles and German jokes: have you lived in Poland? Are the Poles you’re talking about actually Polish, or are they Brits of Polish extraction? I lived in Poland for a couple of years, befriended countless Poles, and never heard a single German joke (heard plenty about other nationalities, though).
As a German who has been living “abroad” in the Czech Republic for some years, I’ve got a few things to share.
Prague is almost an entirely different country when compared to the rest of CZ. Those from Prague are widely regarded as rude, crazy drivers, snobs, and they have silly accents. (The difference between a Czech who has lived in Prague and one who hasn’t is enormous!)
Not to mention Czechs have a horrible habit of being passive-aggressive, and will blatantly lie to you about almost anything. Though I’ve got to say, they’ve got great beer, and a friend will near always share a bit of their “garden” with you.
I love this forum, I roll on the floor gasping for air with laughter at some of the entries lol
Anyway this below is in Finland the common conception of the Swedish male :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leRsWGF3mSc&feature=related
[QUOTE ContorlsFreak, on September 6th, 2008 at 6:24 am Said:] On the Scandanavian/Nordic issue: thanks for educating us “New Worlders”. The ignorance on this issue is due to our education, we are taught that Finland is a Scandanavian country, and memorize it as such. [/QUOTE]
I wouldn´t worry too much about that if I were you lol
What you have been taught is not too off the truth. On this forum we obviously have a lot of hobbyroom geographers and ethnologists who let their personal emotions cloud the issue. Here is how Wikipedia describes Scandinavia:
Scandinavia is a historical and geographical region in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark;some authorities also include the nations of Finland and some might even include Iceland.
Regardless of how the term Scandinavia is used outside the region, the terms Nordic countries and Nordic region are used officially and unambiguously to identify the nations of Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, the Danish territory of the Faroe Islands, and the Finnish territory of Åland as politically and culturally similar entities. “Scandinavia” is a common reference to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, but also includes Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia
The Encyclopedia Britannica views it like this:
part of northern Europe, generally held to consist of the two countries of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Norway and Sweden, with the addition of Denmark. Some authorities argue for the inclusion of Finland on geologic and economic grounds and of Iceland and the Faroe Islands on the grounds that their inhabitants speak North Germanic (or Scandinavian) languages related to those of Norway and Sweden.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/526461/Scandinavia
Even though Finnish is not a Scandinavian language, culturally and historically it has very close ties to Sweden, Norway and Denmark making it notably Scandinavian.
hi i am from berlin germany but both my parents are irish. i agree with you in some ways and it saddens me. for most other europeans view ireland is just a small isolated country, maby as you said humble people.
the thing is irish did move to mainland europe but they integrated much more like irish in mexico and argentina.
a good proportion will know at least something to do with the problems in the north-for example massive protest was held in paris when bobby sands died in 1981.
many teenage spaniards visit ireland each year and have done since the 1970’s seeing as spanish parents would rather send their children to catholic ireland rather than protestant britian to learn english.
i don’t know really, i would prefer if europeans would have better understanding of each other.
I think you are all nuts! All genetically the same but culturally think you are better than the next. Think of yourselves as all equally fucked up people who dislike others because they thing you suck in return. As for what divides countries war and other bullshit, wars never end they just move around and evolve. So today the large countries fight economically/politically etc. and the small weak ones get blown up. By the way the same ass holes who cause the shit in the world wars ect still here fuck ups!!!!
Get along kids!
Just wanted to say to that pathetic piece of shit bob (which he thinks he is Greek but he actually is a stupid lazy never-showered gipsy) to shut the fuck up.
I’m Polish American teen (though I’m also Irish German Scottish Polish by heritage-wise) and just wanted to give a bit of insight on the Polish views. I have visited Poland several times, most recent being last month. I personally dislike Germans, and find the Czechs annoying; the Russians for me is a hate/love relationship especially because of past with Soviet Union (dislike); however there is a strange closeness with the country via of language and culture (kinship).
From what I observed from Polish friends and family, Polish people tend to now (due to E.U.) go to Ireland and U.K. and find it very charming. Many Polaks (thats right, we are not offended by the term whatsoever) prefer the British Isles than the countries surrounding them. they also seem to fond of France and it’s chicness. It used to all about Germany, but now a days Germany it treated as oblivious. A Polish woman I know, whose used to live in Germany for a couple of years, found the Germans to be quite dull and devoid of any vigor really. She frankly told me that she was so happy to living back in Poland where everybody is so much more cheerful and outgoing. Another Polish man told me that German cuisine is quite awful, and that Germans actually prefer eating Polish cooking when compared to their own. But lastly I want to state that there is a split view towards Germany and Poland. Polish people thoroughly distaste Germany’s past (WWII) but for some reason don’t show much animosity towards the post WWII Germany (indifference). I find that strange since I’m a bit prejudice myself against Germany and its culture.
Also Polish people tend to be very proud and cheerful of their country. They’re in no way introvert. They are very ambitious, and with the country becoming part of the European Union, Polish people are ready to go explore and experience other cultures.
By the way: I am in no way saying that the ANY of the countries I mentioned are any better than anyone others. This is just from what I see, hear, and know and are not intended to disrespect anyone. And I find it really insulting that some other posters out there think they’re hot shit when frankly they’re assholes with an overinflated ego. This was meant to show and explore how others see each other, and if you keep portraying yourself like a complete douchebag, you are only hurting your own image and your own heritage/nationality. You really REPRESENTING yourself poorly.
Search Entropa by David Czerny. Probably it can give a few more stereotypes on how Europeans think of each other…in the Czech point-of-view.
if you dont like the english dont speak english and that includes the irish who hate us because of the famine
what abt romania? or isnt romania in europe? and hungary too…
I’ve visited Netherlands, Belguim, France, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Austria, and Hungary.
I agree that the poles are incredibly inert, self contained and don’t exhibit any of the snob nonsense observed in the UK (Which by the way has an average IQ score well below that of their european counterparts including Poland).
Polish food is healthy, limited and tasty, czech food similarly is german in character with a few beverages typical of the czechslovak past.
Hungarian food surprisingly is much varied, mostly western by standards. French food is tempting if a little over the pricey side. And netherland have some of the cuisines typical of german sausage but advertised as dutch with influences from belguim and france. Sweet food might I also add in belguim/netherlands is also influenced in the UK. Sausage and cheese less so and not a popular import from both sides.
The UK is a small, lousy smelly country which is influenced by the capital in which all towns and cities are routed towards.
No real culture, appaling manners, popular crime resort, a mass of immigrants who arrive and instantly gain UK citizenship, lousy southern snobbish behaviour characterised by those that have little to show. I’m unsure of the motive behind what is driving the UK. Sadly the capital is all that the UK has to show, an overly populated area dense in pollution with little character and high living costs.
Indeed an appalling country to be apart of, and would instantly work longer hours and less pay in another country with decent people.
To Romania!
The only experience I ever had with someone from Romania is the woman who used to cut my hair. She was very professional and nice and have to say gutsy too as she hardly even spoke the local tongue, yet had the courage to start her own saloon. Furthermore she didn’t succumb to threats from local competition, not even after someone one night trashed her shop. A very remarkable woman. I don’t have that much to say about Hungarians either, the few I have met here in Sweden and abroad have been good friendly people. Swedes are a timid people that rarely openly admit disliking anyone, however, due to failed immigration policies, the country has received half a million Muslims and the misconduct of many of them evokes anger and disgust. Studies show that Arabs and people of the Islamic faith in general, with the Romany (Gypsy) are the most undesired groups of people in the country. The differences expressed by the Swedes, Finns, Danes and Norwegians is nothing more than brotherly bickering.
By the way, thanks for the interesting article! I read it with a smile as I did the replies from various other readers.
well, as a turk, i don’t have the slightest feeling of belonging Europe and this EU relations piece of crap. but relations with Europe are unavoidable due historical reasons. Now put the “Europe” beside, we only hate England( England is a part of europe here for us) for being the reason of every evil all around the world and contrary to the general perceptions, using americans for their issues. to french people, we just share the common feelings with every other nations against them. and French people should not worry for their peasants because we are not joining EU. Germans, we like them after all because they are honest people and absolutely not “more” racists than other countries (i know how they feel about my people). we feel nothing about scandinawians, they dont seem to have feelings after all. South Europe? es geht. they are lively. we do Not hate greeks or Armenians, simply we do not care about them. (this is plausible, because we used to be a main historical figure in the last thousand years and had sovereignty over them, they may have the reason to hate us, we don’t). Balkan countries, same with greeks. now, we respect russians when they are sober. America is not wellcomed in any single corner in this country, obvious reasons no need to explain.
lol.. oh, i’m Greek allright.. but i would rather be a stupid lazy never-showered gipsy than a drug dealer-child molestor- albanian scumbag!!
Go ask the French-Italians-Germans or anyone who had the “pleasure” of having you albanians lowlifes in their countries.. they’ll tell you the same thing…
Now shut your pie hole and get back to work.. those ATM’s won’t rob themselves!
Very good post, close to the mark and it is funny to hear an \outsiders\ opinion…
This has been a wonderful read.
It is particularly amusing to hear how incredibly “American” this piece is by a few posts, then have its conclusions completely confirmed by the next 12 posts.
This is what swedes tend to think about other europeans.
Germany: “Haben flaben deutcschen sterben, hitler hitler hitler”
Very strict and disciplinarian in a more effective way then the sometimes selfloathing swedes. Terrible tourists, just like us.
Norwegian: Something like ike in south park, our retarded little brother that can´t speak properly. we also think they are lazy ex-heathens who just happened to luck out on the oil that made them rich. In turn they resent us for our actions during WWWII, and us forcing a union between sweden and norway.
Denmark: Slightly older brother that speaks a form of gibberish that vaguely resembles Swedish. We also think they´re racist, hate us more then we hate them and have red noses. This in turn is attributed to their perceived constant drunkenness.
Finns: Friends and enemy´s. We have closer ties with them then with either norwegians or danes, and despite the fact our languages arent even slighlty related we are genetically the closest to them. some resentment due to historical occupations, although numerous swedes fought in the Finnish-Russian war.
Russia: Pretty much the same view as americans, cold, grey, vodka, stalin, communism. Historical enemy´s.
Poles: Poor, but hard workers although a bit sketchy.
Considered pale, and thin.
The chzech republic, hungary, austria, slovakia, romania, bulgaria, etc: little or no data.
Balkans: No man´´s land, although since the immigration of ex-yugoslavian refugees we´´re pretty sure who hates who by now. Serbs hate everybody, everybody hates Serbs, and Albanians pretty much just love themselves
Greece: Good food, good weather and hairy, beach prowling casanovas. Sometimes considered inferior although they found what much or most of our civilization is based on.
Italia: same as the greece, with the addition of wine. Also, scooters and mother issues.
Spain: Lazy and funloving, love football. Not much else register.
I didn’t see many americans posting so i thought i might add a little American perspective. This is what America knows about Europe.
Germany: BMW, David Hasslehoff, Hitler. The end.
Russia: Communism and Karl Marx, not huge on smiling, but plenty of snow and sexy bitches
Franch: sounds like ranch.
Greece: Socrates, 300(?), they have big, fat weddings.
Italy: my best friend is this big fat italian bitch and i’m not even gonna go into what i know about italy cause its probably a pack of filthy lies.
but also, the mob and delicious food.
Norway: possibly like Sweden.
Spain: they get to sleep in the middle of the day and i heard they drink a lot which makes them o.k. fine by me.
Poland: invaded by David Hasslehoff in 1945, possibly also like sweden.
Czech Republic: supposedly, there is a great mexican restaurant run by a dude from San Diego somewhere in Prague, probably worth a visit.
Denmark: ? dams? maybe the netherlands? no holland is the netherlands…
Netherlands: sounds like a name for a crotch, legal weed and shrooms, possibly best place in Europe.
Belgium: waffles
Romania: near Transylvania
Austria: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Switzerland: neutral, chocolate, makers of K-Swiss
Britain: not a part of Europe
To those who equate ignorance and American-ness. Should i point out the irony of generalizing a group of people as ignorant?
the greeks and the italians have very high regard for each other. when a greek meets an italian (or vice versa) the common greeting is \una fazza una razza\, or \one face, one race\, meaning that the greeks and the italians are one of a kind–that they share ancestry and history. they’re VERY friendly toward one another.
Ukranians and Russians think Italians are greasy, lying, cheating, short and nasty type, predominately the males.
TO THEO
Ohhh, wow, I am American, and how to stupefy the Americans 101 by Theo. You are a bit harsh, but also wrong, Transilvania is a town in Romania not next to. Making it seem like Americans are that ignorant is harsh.
Portuguese point of view here as some asked
Ourselves: We consider us as pessimistic, tragic dramas, melancholic, smarter than the others in the way to solve things by imaginative and impressing last minute methods (not the most technical one), (a little like the Russians space stations thing…), to cheat is not bad in the moral point of view it’s sometimes a compliment.
The Spanish: We hate them, even who says no is just denying to irritate another Portuguese, usual considered as unclassed persons, loudly, rude and uglier (that is funny because we are physically identical, but every man will try to hide they had a Spanish girlfriend because it will score negative points in the sexual reputation). Oh, and we feel more intelligent as we speak 4 languages and them just 1, but in other hand I think they think it’s a sign of weakness of our mother tongue. Special exception: Galicia, the region is considered by us (not by them) half Portuguese so many look to it with sympathy.
The English: Special relation here, we have a kind of adoration/hate. It seems important for us their recognition. Their approval seems when a father watches a show of his son. We have a legendary sentence “build to the English look!”. In the other hand we consider them a bunch of hooligans for the men and easy going (in bad sense), and unclassy for the women.
The Italians: Welcome home! If there is a country the Portuguese indentify themselves and like to be compared with, is Italy. We think they have a way of life similar to us with the difference that they are happier. If we find an Italian outside of country we tend to look at him as he was from the same country sometimes.
The Germans: We dislike Germans and no reason at all for that, our history never had a special contact. But we have the image they are all psychopaths racists.
The French: Neutral. As all around we have an image of arrogance from there but we admire their culture. Some of their costumes were copied here.
Americans: Neutral in feelings but Naif, stupid, and dozens of negative adjectives. A common Portuguese have an idea that it’s impossible to argue with them because they don’t understand “things”.
Brazilians: Someone said we feel inferior to them (I don’t believe you went already to Portugal), that is the opposite and maybe the worse part of the Portuguese spirit. We feel the superiority of colonial era and racial too (90% of Brazilians don’t share our genes), they live in high number in Portugal and there are the general opinion that they are less capable or less intelligent. Many say they only know to Samba and to play football, the rest it’s better to leave for the others. We know that their jokes are about us too in Brazil but that is viewed how we were very important for them. But my opinion: They are simply cool, probably the happiest population on earth, they’re contagious.
Stereotypes have at the end no sense at all. Exist all kind of persons in every country in the world that’s what I know:)
“Or the Danish way, which is literally impossible to put down here”
When I was in København, my hosts said the easiest way to was to think “coo-ben-haven”.
I may be too forward, and my Danish hosts too polite, but that pronunciation seems to have worked well in my travels.
Take care
Italians (northerners and southerners) are united in their hate of Romanians and all things related to Romania. It is a commonly held belief among Italians that Romanians are responsible for everything that is wrong in Italy–crime, unemployment, illegal immigration, and the likes. My grandparents are 100% Italian and 100% hate Romania and Romanians.
Honestly, I’m very surprised that this post hasn’t ended in a massive flame war… shock horror could it be that Europeans generally get along quite well together. I think in the last 20 years a lot has changed in europe and the stuff in this article is a bit out of date. It is still a funny read.
As an English person I think we definitely have an ingrained ‘dislike’ of the french but its not like we take it in a serious or bitter way its just a bit of banter with a country that we have been involved in a huge amount of wars with (even wars by proxy around the world back before America was ‘born’). Of course knowing the French they probably take it far more seriously haha.
I think English people respect the germans and dutch mostly because we are more similar than people from outside of europe would imagine. The German’s are seen as efficient and yes we do like to make jokes about the war. I think we are perceived as arrogant with a drunken violent sub culture because of holiday makers and the whole empire thing
I’m French and i must admit you are spot on, but these are more some underlying stereotypes than real antagonism.
A quick rule of thumb about us, french people, our respect for a nation seems to be unconsciously tied to the quality of their food. (surprise).
For the countries with which we share a border, its more complicated than that.
We love Belgians , we are tremendous friends, but we like to joke about and with them (same goes for Quebec by the way).
Italians are tricky, we like the culture but we look down on them as being lazy effeminate show offs who are in love with their mama (which is a-ok, we are in love with their mama too, and the sisters, daughters… you catch my drift, hard feelings are located elsewhere towards Italian women *wink* *wink*).
Its strange but we do not have problems with Germans beside the conventional clichés, perhaps because they are not our historical enemies.
Which brings us to Brits… True enemies of France. They are everything we don’t want to be. But they tend to hate us while we only have a mild disrespect for them.
Well, I could go on and on…
I am European and I hate 98% of all European, they’re dumbass retrograde, masochistic, small thinking people thinking about their little town or neighbourhood and disergarding anything else. no sense of adventure, would return to the dark ages if they could!!!!
America come and save us!!!!!!!!! You are not perfect (see Bush and followers) but at least you are thinking of the future, and don;t have this “we’re born to suffer” stupid ancestral way of feeling not just of thinking that most europeans have!!! I am disgusted and deeply ashamed to have been born here
I am Swedish so here’s my point of view:
Everyone in Scandinavia hates us, except for maybe Norway. There’s a lot of jokes in Sweden about Norway, and they have a lot of jokes about us, so there’s basically just some sibling teasing between us.
We have this view of Finns as violent, alcoholic brutes who live in the woods and sit in saunas all day, and they see us as effeminate alcoholic pussies. Swedish men aren’t considered to be ‘real’ men.
We see Danes as backwards and racist, and they’re probably still bitter about the fact that we stole a big part of Denmark (Skåne) back in the days, and made it ours. Stockholm (the capital city) doesn’t like Skåne because we think they’re backwards and racist, and we want to give it back to Denmark. People in Skåne generally hates us in return because we make fun of the way they speak. Actually, Stockholm is also hated by most Swedes who don’t live there.
We’re kinda like the British when we go to tourist traps – loud and obnoxious drunks, only we’re not polite when sober either.
We’re also considered pussies because we let the Germans walk right through us during WW2 to occupy Norway (Strangely the Norweigans aren’t bitter at us because of that).
Iceland thinks of themselves as the best country in the world, and the rest of Europe thinks they are exotic, mysterious, beautiful and quirky.
Well i am from Sweden and i can really say that as i see noone mentioned the Balkans we are pretty much ignoring Eastern countries of Europe,Serbs and Croats are getting better along and they are very close to join the EU,they hated everyone but lately they are getting along with other countries so i say we should include eastern countries in our system they are very much of europeans,as for the western countries i think everyone knows what do swedish think of them