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 4.6 million in the Republic of Ireland) 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.

And another: 20 ways to slice up Europe.

Comments (1,018)

1,018 Comments »

I love Germans and the way that they make there food and clothing. Also way to go Germany on the win at the world cup.

Comment by Ryan — February 23, 2015 @ 4:58 pm
As usual the Scottish were lumped in with the English who we despise!
I personally like the Germans….but then i grew up in Germany, and their language is easy to learn…a lot of the sounds are very similar to Scots Gaelic (gutteral). They have great garden parties, their cooking is great and they have a dry sense of humour that the scottish appreciate.
The French and Welsh are disliked by us as they are rude and ignorant, and will make a point of deliberately speaking faster and in their native tongue as soon as they realize you speak english…even though they were speaking fluent english moments before.
The Irish are great and share our celtic sense of humour and general zany-ness.
The Dutch and Polish are excellent workers, and straightforward people.
Likewise the Austrians are forthright and tell great jokes – good fun to be with. Germans Austrians and Dutch are dependable and make solid long term friends.
Many of the scottish get on well with Russians also as they share our dour rather dry sense of humour….so perhaps they best understand us.
We hate being called British as we hate being associated with the English in any way shape or form. If there is any one nation we despise above all others it is the English. They are liars, thieves, and two-faced, not to mention murderers who committed mass genocide against the Scottish during the clearances – putting men, women and babies to the sword, burning us out of our villages, robbing us of property, birthright, wealth and titles, as well as the numerous crimes and offenses they inflicted on us for hundreds of years before that. They broke every worthless treaty they ever made and their word cannot be trusted. Given the choice I’d take my chances with a German or Russian any day before throwing in my lot with the English.
Americans seem very loud and common, but when you get to know them, they’re actually ok for the most part.
The Spanish excel in looking good and what looks good rather than anything with any real substance, they seem nice enough but come across as being very emotional and superficial.
We love all Nordic races = swedes / Finns / Danes Norwegians as they just get on with things and don’t create a huge song and dance if 4mm of snow falls, grinding all traffic to a halt.

Comment by Tiger — March 4, 2015 @ 5:02 pm
You say that the British who like the French dislike Americans (and vice versa). You’re generally right about that, which means I am weird.
I like both.
With you lot – Americans – it’s fairly simple. Like it or not, you are the stroppy kid, good at heart, who might have left home early but still retains a lot of how we raised you. Your 2nd Amendment, for example: we like to huff and puff each time a yank accidentally blows his neighbour’s head off, but it is based on our old Militias – for centuries, across England, every boy over 12 years of age had to to target practice and be armed and ready for action – and NOT at the control of the monarch, who was not allowed his own military and had to ask us nicely (hence we have so many historical pre battle speeches.)
As for them across the water…
We have a weird relationship with the French – and it’s mutual. We have a sort of grudging fondness/admiration, coupled with annoyance and contempt. It comes from about 2000 years of baling each other out when the other was under attack (we even helped each other fight the Romans) but in between we kicked the living s*** out of each other. And of course, the best thing is to get one over on each other, however self-destructive. You say that the French are the American’s oldest allies – don’t forget, they only helped you out because they thought it would damage us. In so doing, they bankrupted themselves and plunged into revolution. And what did we do? Booted them out of India so as to get the raw materials we could no longer get from America. Voila! Result!
Britain and France are two grand old dames of countries and we fancy the a*** off each other.
We are opposites which attract: the French are Catholics who pose as secular, pragmatics who pose as romantic, traditionalists who pose as avant garde. The British are pagans who pose as Protestant, romantics who pose as phlegmatic, eccentrics who pose as traditionalists.
We sheltered their revolutionaries in exile, then we sheltered their escaping aristos, then we fought off their Little Corporal, and then we built an Entente Cordiale which led us to die together in hundreds of thousands in blood, mud and horror, when La Belle France was threatened by the cousin of our King, who we loved.
I was living in France in 2012, during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and the place was draped in Union Jacks, and strangers shook my hand and when I asked why all the British flags the proud republicans said “They are for THE QUEEN!”
They say they hate our food, but cook them a traditional English meal and they swoon with delight; we sneer at their cheese obsession, but most of us would eat an old shoe if it was covered in sauce and given a French name. (We both know that the only reason beef is the traditional English fare, and the French eat snails, is because snails are easier to catch than cows.)
Neither of us will learn anyone else’s language properly – we have huge ex-Empires (we carved the world up between us, slapping each other’s wrists to get at the best bits) so we have plenty of people we can talk to, without having to bother.
But we share a core, passionate belief in freedom of speech and personal liberty which often binds us together in the face of people who we might generally find more congenial. We go back a long way.
And when – not if – Chancellor Merkel’s latest attempt at Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer falls apart, it will be because of us. We will follow Churchill’s advice (“If Britain must ever choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea) and the French will try to play both sides against the middle, before deciding that they can manage quite nicely with an amicable divorce from Germany (and NATO to ensure that the ex doesn’t start trashing the place.) They will be politely regretful, but it will all be over, if only because when we take our £60 million per day out of the coffers, the French will have to have shorter lunch-breaks. We will all close the door, hear of the Poles demanding free movement into Germany, and sigh at the wasted years.
And the French will steal all the light bulbs on their way out.

Comment by Lou Lou — March 26, 2015 @ 10:31 am
Greetings to all present and reading 😉
Seeing this article and reading through ALL the comments (OK I missed a few from Spain :P) I have decided to write a small summary.
Its too complicated to get involved in citizenship, internal politics and historical debates as it deepens the already troubled and diverse European history so I ll proceed.

To know and to judge a nation firstly you must go there and live or spend some time in that same country to give even a glimpse or have the right to judge that country. Based solely on stereotypes, we Bosnians love/hate/respect/disrespect only our neighbouring coutries like Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro nad former Yugoslav countries because those are the countries we had more contact with. Sure I could copy/paste former stereotypes or even start hate/terror speech against Croats, Serbs etc. because we have some unsettled scores from the past and the 90s war, I wont, it would be disrespectful and demeaning and above all unethical. I declare myself as a Bosniak-Agnostic (3 ethnic grups in Bosnia, 3 main religions and one nation and inbetween negating eachother – yeah its politics 101 XD), which falls out of all stereotypes even in my country, and it matters to Europe how? At least 40% of Europeans cant find us on the map (popularly called the Savage Balkans :P). Should I be offenden, definetly not, why, because we have pressing problems in our countries, economy, politics and corruption. Would it be nice to be known by Germans, Brits, Scandinavians (another stereotype to put them all together)? Yes it would but give people a chance. Come to the country, we have great cuisine, hard hitting liqur and generally happy attitude.

The rest of Europe should be as it is already, Scots should be Scots, Welsh should be Welsh, Finns to be Finns etc. and not mind the stereotypes, and why?
Because stereotypes keep us as chains keep a caged animal, devoid of contact and scared of eachother (not scared scared ,just, you know, more like distrusting :P).
Germans like this, Brits like that, oh those Russians like that……hold up….ever been to Russia, Germany or UK? No. Then sod off -.- and how dare you send mixed messages about people you havent even met or been in their country thats hypocritic at least.If you have been to their countries and met them, please do tell us how they are, manners, cuisine, did you see the monuments, how are they as hosts and such.
Do not stereotype a country, why, because you ll need the whole population to participate. Generalisation and stereotyping have brought us nothing but mistrust, disappointment and suspicion.

Have a pleasant evening to you all from a savage Balcanic Bosnian agnostic from a bosnian muslim family with so few prejudices you l lthink I dont exist XD.

Pozdrav komšijama koji me razumiju 😉
(Greetings to neighbours who understand me 😉 – because its rude to write in your own language and not translate it (another Balkan stereotype oh and I have a small head (the upper one XD)).

Comment by Bosanac — April 10, 2015 @ 3:50 pm
To number 675, Bertrand Feuvray.
I’m Spaniard. Bertrand, I’m sorry that you think that Southern Europeans are the ones who do not leave Europe grow, maybe if you looked further, you would see that precisely the idea of Europe arose in Greece, and “thank you” to the European Union, we have dismantled our agricultural and industrial production systems, to make us to consume the Germans products rather than manufacture ours. Another comment of a Nordic says that the southern European countries subsist thanks to the money they give us by tourism. Let me tell you that perhaps you subsist on the products that you exported and we buy to you. You Bertrand, say that Spain does not learn from their mistakes, maybe you, as French and superior and pluperfect mind who is never wrong, you can give us the recipe for success. I doubt you do, because you French, as German, as Scandinavian and as English, think that you are the perfect ones who never fail, however you lose all major wars and drag others in your errors. No matter, for that matter, the Spaniards do not care what Northern Europeans think of us, indeed, we laugh at your supposed superiority and do not change our way of life for yours boring. We know that we had a great empire and we have a beautiful culture, not in vain our language is the second more spoken by countries and by people. We do not care about the Black Legend that British invented against us, because this is only a reflection of what they actually did. And of course, we don’t care about what many European think about that we are lazy: we work very hard, but we also enjoy the vacation moment; when tourism comes to Spain, we Spaniards are also in our holydays, so we don’t work in those days, that’s why they think we are lazy, but the rest of the year, we work hard as hell. In any case, we are Europeans because being geographically in Europe, but the real Europe: the Mediterranean Europe; you Northern people are another thing, but not the real Europe. The only European countries that we feel affinity with are Portugal, which despite what many think, we love, and also with Italy and Greece. Our hearts always have been in the Americas. If we had to choose, we would prefer to be with any country in Latin America, Brazil or the United States than with this Northern Europe.

Comment by Juan From Madrid — April 19, 2015 @ 8:28 am
I’m from northern Italy, I’m frankly shocked by the ignorance of some people. Italy is formed by many ethnic groups, here in the north we work 12 hours at day, at least my family and friends.
Dear Dutch, if you think all Italians only think to pasta and mamma, should I think all Dutch are druk that destroy cities? (Do you remember what some of you, perfect, kind, nice Dutch have done in Rome?)
Should I think all Germans are nazi?
Please stop being narrow-minded. Please get an education because you seem very ignorant.

Comment by Giovanna — April 26, 2015 @ 12:18 am
Giovanna, Your calling a whole country as a reaction so i supose to awnser.

What Feyenoord supporters did itsnt the fault of the county itself, im Ajax fan and Feyenoord fans destroyed our trains & giving us the fault and the police agreed that time. They even giving our bords stickers as Rotterdam so the italian “fans”
think its Amsterdam they need do destroy, they are frustrated most of the time, That why the trainor Fabio Capello sayed “Feyenoord is from the country of AFC Ajax” Go to Amsterdam, and talk about the Rotterdam public, then you get your awnser.:)

Comment by Baggeraar — May 14, 2015 @ 7:11 am
I´m Dutch with an Indonesian and upper class Dutch family which helps me really understand the ridiculous pathetic calvinist culture of my country overall. They are all arrogant but that arrogance at the same time irritates and leads to aggression among Dutch. They are indeed the biggest misers on the planet. They call them direct and saying like it is, while in fact that directness and saying like it is is without exception negative and critical, so it´s just the famous rudeness. They pathetically take pride in this without exception negative and indignant directness. I think it´s disgusting how they actually take pride in this kind of national identity. They act like they have traits that make them somehow figuratively speaking steps ahead of the world. They also consider themselves economically conscious and real traders, while they´re actually calvinistic irrational savers and plain cheap bargainers. They´re cheap in every way and there is hardly any class left since it is dangerous to show any class in this middle class culture. There is no rationality here, the tax office IS very organized though, so everyone IS paying these ridiculous middle class terrorist taxes and fines are high if you don´t comply to the highly informed system. But the Dutch think organization is good and rather want to see higher incomes dead so their taxes are their greatest joy. What the rest thinks of the Dutch is right, and that the Dutch look down on anyone is so true. I like to look down on these Dutch, with caravans and stuff though like I said class is very dangerous and Dutch fake class by looking down and being critical, that somehow shows class. They´re a disgusting little people with no show, full of shit about some empire once, foreigners, slaves, organization, but I think every country has similar ridiculous mass opinions. There is a lot of hate to go around I see and it´s all visible since the internet, now you know what all those unimportant nobodies are thinking, it´s scary and funny. Who´s reading those shit papers and voting those shit parties is connected to internet so you´ll see plenty of those now. Brits by the way are all good, the drunken party kids are most pleasant and polite to be around and the other Brits are all so much more sophisticated than the rest of the world, especially the rude Dutch who in turn mostly hate English the posh ones and the drunk ones alike, and rather have Hitler back in charge so they´re middle class incomes will rise 100 euro, which is quite a bargain for those bargainers, or some other hateful irrational bullshit. Swedish are blithering classless arrogant idiots, though I have seen nothing but the prettiest girls ever there. Germans actually learned their lesson and are pretty pathetic living in the 80s but polite and easy. French are all very normal in fact. Italians are most fun and I can level with them on the matter of all pretty girls for me, their women are very fine, friendly and foxy too all wearing high heels. All South-Europeans are good and this blithering nonsense about their being lazy they still work the same hours right, but somehow Protestant countries like to act like they work so hard since God and culture will punish them otherwise. Its frustrating having nothing but work so thats where this nonsense comes from. Spanish are total dorks and all ugly. East Europeans are like the hobbits but nasty, I think it´s safe to say they´re all ugly degenerates and all we see is crime. They are the Whites West-Europeans look down on the most they can´t understand how that utter shit is somehow related and feel ashamed to be seen like them. And Belgians are sweet friendly and calm, and their opinions on the Dutch are completely justified, to quote a Belgian lady, “All Dutch say is so ridiculously critical when they open their mouth I go: AAARRGGGHHH”

Comment by Soldaat van Oranje — May 23, 2015 @ 1:24 am
Dutch are indeed famously rude “know-it-all” smart asses. Now knowing is quite a philosophical concept and something you know is Always known subjectively. So, since the Dutch are mostly calvinist, even if they know what they should know, it is immediately tainted with calvinist or personal subjectivity. And like I read it is the most rude racist country so chances are it´s this kind of subjective knowing. When an Italian knows you drive fast he or she loves you, when Dutch know you drive fast he or she find you so utterly irresponsible it wants you dead for all the danger you caused. However irrational it is statistically. But a Calvinist is such a “know-it-all” smart ass any knowledge is repugnant since it contradicts his utter irrational “know-it-all” smart ass. Thus this “knowing” becomes intuitive and common. Driving a car is very very bad since 6 billion people are driving, cattle is polluting, industry is polluting, and in much greater proportion, but ofcourse he has just copied opinion, and there is science as he “knows” it there´s some global warming shit, see, this kind of “knowing” becomes rude negative, in Calvinist tradition, accusing, “know-it-all” smart ass. Or smoking, did you know a portion die of smoking? Statistically futile but this “knowing” becomes government prohibition since all that damage is “very serious”. You actually get accused of “irresponsibility” and then there´s the freakish “know-it-all” smart ass about food or love, sex, morals, it gets pretty nasty. I could go on and on about the neurotic irrationality of the “know-it-all” smart ass Dutch. Maybe if we´d set this shit straight here the rest of the world could become “rational” which is an highly abused term, especially in Holland, like I explained. Since plain rude “know-it-all” smart ass is considered “rational”. I get an electric shock everytime “know-it-all” smart ass Dutch utter irrationality crosses my path, so I understand all this foreign criticism. I think the Dutch reactions on this storm of criticism are very typical of what is criticized. You are foreigners, inferior, moffenhoerenkind, shit, and should stay out of their country. Not rude at all. Not “know-it-all” smart ass at all. But there´s Always another Dutch who also “knows-it-all” and where rude has prestige. Since in their “knowing” they are one of them unthinking asshole famously ´direct´ meaning pathetic rude “know-it-all” smart asses. And proud of it! I see them say a lot. It gives them “wir”-gefuhl I guess as they feel recognized for it at home or elsewhere. While all we see is this creepy nerd of a Calvin-crackpot looking all serious about it who blatantly quite rudely “knew-it-all”.
Most importantly, I think this critical approach of “knowing” can lead to more “rationality. Since all this cultural crap is pretty irrational like football club codes and never an excuse for “irrationality”. I hope we soon come to the conclusion we need to reinstall feudalism with a Celtic Emperor.

Comment by Philosopher of knowing — May 23, 2015 @ 4:54 am
“As a Spaniard myself and inhabitant of the Canary Islands I must say I totally agree with this article. 90% of spaniards feel utterly insulted if you dare to compare them or confuse them for a South American”.

First of all I’m from South America and you may be right about your comment. However, I want to let you (and the 90% of Spaniards) know that the feeling is mutual. Because I don’t like this confusion either .

I know that generalization is not correct , but I will say what I think about most of Spaniards (90% that you talked about)

You are lazy people that beleive that you’re superior only because you’re whites, but in reality you have inferiority complex towards the other western Europeans that do economically better than you.

By the way , I do feel proud to have Indian Americans blood in my veins. Finally, whenever you remember that we were your colonies, keep in mind that we defeated you in the 1800s when we got our independence and therefore kicked your ass out from South America.

Comment by Eduardo Castillo — May 24, 2015 @ 10:39 pm
I forgot to mention in my previous post that it also is a respond to post 115 :

“”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.”

Anyway , I’m wondering why French have this is pretty well known saying “Europe ends at the Pyrenees ” .Either they don’t beleive that you all are part of Europe or that you belong to Africa .

Comment by Eduardo Castillo — May 25, 2015 @ 5:44 pm
We as people hate to be stereotyped and lumped into categories we feel we don’t belong in just because the accident of birth. However, too often we’re quick to stereotype other people and feel it’s acceptable to lump people into east-to-remember categories. I am an American and I have been to Europe six times over the years and I have been to about a dozen different countries on that continent.. I still am no expert in understanding any one of these countries much less than the entire continent. I thought all of these nations were great in their own ways. I’d say that I identified the most with the Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English and Northern Irish due to a common language. The Romanians were very nice but the country was least to my likings. however, I was only there a few days. If somebody is decent to me, I return the behavior back to them. I go out of my way not to stir-up the pot with historical talk, politics or stereotyping. One takes and accepts what one finds. This jazz of exposing the skeletons in other people’s closets is dangerous and hypocritical. As an American I have been blamed for the atomic bomb slavery, Viet Nam, Saddam, inflation, the Great Depression, the Great Extinction, the massacre of Indians, George W. Bush and Sex in the City.

Comment by Steve Lonigan — June 1, 2015 @ 5:56 am
1. Turks are not Arabs. Learn the history first.
Turks are muslims but Turks are Turks, Arabs are Arabs. Islam is a religion, not a race.
British are christian, so Norwegian are. Can you say that they are the same?
2. Turks are not enemies of the Greek.
3. All the European countries without any exceptions just hate Turks. Once they hear your nationality, it makes them puke.
4. Turks are extremely friendly and helpful. They help without any purpose. If they don’t, they are not Turks. They might be Arab mixes etc..
5. British and Spanish are extremely ignorant against Turks except Irish.
6. The Turkish immigrants who live in Europe, most of them are the worst examples of our nation. If I see the most retarded examples of the other nations in my country, I would definitely start generalise it to the whole nation like the European does all the time. Turks have a good life in Turkey so they don’t even need to migrate somewhere else. I stay away from the Turkish immigrants as a Turk so…
7. Modern Turks are social drinkers, they even have their own traditional drink, the similar one with Greek Uzo.
8. Turks don’t suffer from racism, Arabs do. Turks suffer from discrimination and people are afraid of us so much.
Some of them just flee when they learn your nationality. What a stereotypes. So funny.
9. One of the most patriotic races in the world. That’s true.
10. Armenian Genocide is a huge lie as well. We didn’t even force people to learn Turkish language when we were Ottomans.
Some other nations were under control of the Ottoman Empire for 500 years, they never learned our language because we never ruin local cultures, but they became under control of the French only for 50 years and now their second language is French.. Tunisia, Algeria etc… Armenians even killed pregnant Turkish women and took their children out of their moms stomach by using their bayonets. Turks never ever do a genocide to any other race. Traitors stabbed their brothers. Arabs & Armenians killed their Turkish brothers and no one can blame Turkish nation for the genocide.
You guys will learn the truth when your politicians stop their role playing on this case.
Kim Kardashian is not a historian.

People who are stereotypes against Turks have no idea at all.
Turkey have high quality universities, some of them are even better than UK universities.
As a UK BSc degree graduated, currently being a MSc student; I can easily say that.

To the Polish; You hate Turkish erasmus students which prefer to study in Poland, but the same amount of Polish erasmus students prefer to study in Istanbul as well. People who prefer to study in the UK just turn into a racism machine.

You can’t even find a Turk in the UK easily. Major muslim communities are Kurds, Arabs and Pakistanis there.
So if something is going wrong with muslims in the UK, don’t even put Turks to your hatred list.

It’s so sad to see those stereotypes and some comments upwards which are extremely harsh.
They might be sued easily due to humanity crime.

DailyCandor: “Armenian Genocide is a huge lie as well.” Your country will be considered a joke as long as you maintain loyalty to this national falsehood.

Comment by Mr G — June 3, 2015 @ 4:11 am
those are true stereotypes, i am half french and hlaf italians and usually italians like french people and vice versa, About the so huge difference between north and south italy, it is no more no less than any other country, south and north of france are also very different, like in spain, Germany…
That teacher who said italians only care about pasta and mama is only stupid.

Comment by nico — June 22, 2015 @ 8:17 am
Reading these comments just confirms my doubts of how racist, xenophobic, and hypocrite western europeans are, and some eastern europeans too especially those who are wanna be westerns like Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Estonians. So sad.
In my country (Serbia) west is with good reason seen as definition of evil. Evil people, evil countries, evil governments. Especially UK and Germanic countries.
99% of bad things in this world originated in that part of Europe, heck even todays biggest world evil – America. Only hope for all normal people on this planet is that Russia and China take over so we can finally build normal, loving world.

Comment by okjkskmdfsd — June 30, 2015 @ 9:06 am
I cant believe you erased my comment. Whats so hard in admitting that western europeans and americans are evil and hypocrite? They are.

DailyCandor: Is impatience something you take pride in?

Comment by iikkkjhk — July 1, 2015 @ 7:46 am
YEAHH, I’m Dutch and I “know-it-all” !
Most of my friends are a lil bit cocky and they really like themselves, but in a funny way. Some do not really mean it but still xD
This article is SO accurate xD. We usually call the German people “moffen” 😉
Some people in my class (the stupid popular ones) Really hate germans and everytime they see a German car they yell :”Heil Hitler”
-_-. So stupid. I really hate those kinds of people who do that… I actually like Germans, and also the German language.We also call the Belgians idiots, but yeah more as a joke. But I went to belgium in May, and I spoke Dutch in a shop. Belgian people glared at me the whole time, and I was like WHAT. I don’t really think they like Dutch people very much …..

Comment by Lana — July 11, 2015 @ 3:50 am
You Greeks are idiots! Ugly creatures. I am not macedonian I am Fyromanian, and I not consider myself as true macedonian – those from ancient time. You have no european values, you are like country in Middle East. Nobody likes you idiots idiota. Sorry for these words but you are a trully idiota! Sadly, the land where Greece is located is so naturaly beautifull, but inhabitet by idiots who don’t posses european values.

Comment by Nikola — July 17, 2015 @ 6:47 am
Allso ancient macedonians were idiots. Yet I am writing from FYROM, an by nationality I am macedonian, at least my passport say that haha

Comment by Nikola — July 17, 2015 @ 6:49 am
And don’t forget the genetic analysis carried out by a Swiss institute that says that 20% (2,500,000 people) od Greece population wear Slavic genes, at the same time only 10% (205,000 people) od FYROM population wear the Slavic genes.

Comment by Nikola — July 17, 2015 @ 7:05 am
We from FYROM – R. Macedonia mostly from EU countries we love Germans the most. Then croats and slovenians. We would like greeks (who are idiots descendants from ancient macedonians) to not exist (they don’t posses european values, altough they are in the EU).

From non-EU European countries, we love Serbians, Albanians (albanians) and Turks the most.
We do love a lot the Americans, even to the point we could consider Macedonia to be 51st state of the USA. However, we do love also Russians.

Greeks took part from Macedonia in 1913, so maybe USA can help restore that (if we become the 51st state of USA).

Comment by Nikola — July 17, 2015 @ 7:20 am
I am Irish (south)

The French — The Irish consider the french very nice when they are in Ireland, but often rude in their own country. I would echo what people have said above about them skipping queues etc, they just have a bit of an ignorant nature. Having said that, the Irish have a lot of respect for the french and many choose it as a first choice holiday destination. The irish respect the french as a well educated people, but their tempers can be short.

The Italians — The Italians are liked by the Irish, are considered a friendly, helpful and relaxed people, but very loud(and their not even drunk)!

The Germans — Germans are liked in Ireland, and seen as a hardworking people.

The Scandinavians — Well respected in Ireland and we aspire to produce economies like theirs, we feel sorry for the poor Norwegians who have to pay 10 euro for a pint! The danish are just plain crazy

The Belgians — One of those countries that’s considered half way to everywhere else. We see them as a bit boring

The Dutch — The Irish really like the Dutch and see them as very friendly open minded people. There are a lot of similarities between the Dutch and the Irish socially.

The Spaniards — The Irish view the Spanish very positively even with the droves of summer students flooding in!!

The Greeks — Considered a different type mindset of people from almost all the other european countries. Thought by many to be quite a lazy people who do not like to pay taxes. We would also consider them loud and annoying with a very overbloated sense of their worth. Hard to believe their fall from grace..

The Poles — The polish are well liked and seen as great workers and quite social, those who live here are quite willing to adopt the culture. The Irish do look down their noses a bit at the poles and eastern europeans in general. For example many fathers would probably be not too happy if they heard their daughter was marrying an eastern european guy, although this mentality is changing and the eastern europeans are finally having a chance to show their worth.

The Czechs — Still viewed as eastern europe rather than central, mentally in many peoples eyes. The Czechs are well respected and seen as a smart people but with many social problems

The British – A turbulent history, but the British are well respected here (apart from a by a small minority) a lot of Irish say that they hate the english but this is mostly in jest. Relationships between the two countries have really progressed towards mutual respect and the Queens recent visit and the fact that she addressed the state using Gaelige was seen as very positive from the Irish people. The Irish and the scots get on great although they are not mentally as similar as people think. The welsh are just seen as a bit odd, but an abrasive race that punches above its weight. There is huge respect for the welsh that they have managed to keep their language despite such close meddling by the english. If The irish and the british could sort out the northern Ireland problem we would be very close allies

The Northern Irish — seen as a completely different people by the southerners. Many southerners do not get on well with the northern neighbours, cannot stand their accent, and have 0 interest in visiting the north as they consider it dangerous,anti-social and racist. There are many good people living up the north, but unfortunately this is the view by most people in the south.

Comment by Ed — July 17, 2015 @ 9:08 pm
I am Chinese who has been to several European countries, here are my impressions about them:

British: The older generation of the British are quite gentle, but the younger ones are a bit rebellious and cheeky. Quite pleasant people to talk to, although they can be two-faced sometimes.
French: French from Paris annoyed me a bit, while the French from outside Paris are okay. But for some strange reasons, the French that I have met during vacation are nicer although their English proficiency is quite poor.
Italians: Well dressed people, some Chinese view them to be racist because of the racism stories in Italy. To me, they kind of cheeky, happy go lucky, and loud although they are rather cunning and lazy. And I still have somewhat a nostalgia about Marcopolo when I am talking about the Italians.
Germans: A bit arrogant and stiff, but quite straightforward and to the point. The young generation of Germans are quite pleasant, although they can be a bit narsisstic.
Dutch: They think they know everything better than you do.
Russians: Some Chinese perceive them to be poorer than us, yet they are more mannered than us. The old generation of Chinese still connect the Russians with the “communist big brother” thing. Like to get drunk as well, particularly the men.
Ukrainians: Poorer than us, but I find their females to be particularly attractive.
Swedish: They are tall and reserved people, although I find them to be rather rude and uptight in comparison to the other Scandinavians. And I also find them to be very good looking people on average.
Norwegians: Tall, good looking, and soft-spoken people. They are rich because of the oil and gas industry in Norway.
Danes: Friendly and laid-back on the outside, nationalistic and reserved on the inside. And I also notice that the Danes are a bit shorter in height in comparison to Norwegians and Swedish, although they are still tall.
Swiss: Their appearance look neat and clean, but I find them to be too reserved and quiet people. They like to pay a lot attention to the details.
Spaniards: They always have this happy-go-lucky attitude, although they are not as cunning as the Italians. Some Chinese also perceive them to be racist because of the racism stories in Spain.

Comment by Han — July 21, 2015 @ 4:39 pm
My thoughts about other Asian nationalities:

Koreans: Kind of annoying, vain, arrogant, materialistic, short tempered, loud people but I get along with them quite well. On the positive side, I see the Koreans as very hard working, punctual, disciplined, and expressive people. And I also like their musics, electronic products, and fashion. Sometimes, Koreans would insist that everything Korean is the best.
Japanese: I hate their politicians (especially Abe) because of the denial over the WW2 and their policies regarding the disputes. But I praise the Japanese for their sense-of-honor, sense-of-respect, culture, food, products, technology, and their extremely high life expectancy. Japanese are mostly nice, polite, and gentle but sometimes some of them can be two-faced, cold, and not very honest about their own thoughts or feelings. Sometimes, the Japanese can be eccentric people with very weird taste on certain things.
Singaporeans: They don’t like being called Chinese, materialistic, uptight, rigid, stiff, and boring. But they are very good with business, speak English and Mandarin very well (although their English and Mandarin accent sound weird to me), accommodating, orderly, smart, have good food, and very law abiding. Sometimes, some Singaporeans would insist that everything their government told is right.
Hong Kongers: They try to differ themselves from Chinese of China, materialistic, a bit rude, short-tempered, hard-working, uptight, good with business, speak good English and Cantonese, smart, punctual, like eating a lot, have good food, and they like westerners especially British.
Taiwanese: They try so hard to distinct themselves from Chinese of China, they don’t like being called Chinese, materialistic, cunning, love money, somewhat friendly, they like Japan a lot, somewhat polite, smart, but I find their politicians to be insane.
Thais: Cheeky, happy go lucky, friendly, like to smiling people. They have good food, tasty rice, and interesting culture although the females sometimes have reputation for being loose or promiscuous. There are quite a number of transsexuals in Thailand.
Vietnamese: They don’t like Chinese, friendly, cunning, have good food (especially the beef soup), laid back, and the females are hardworking but the men are kind of lazy.
Cambodians: Poorer than Thais and Vietnamese but friendly and warm-hearted, and they are also lazier than Thais and Vietnamese.
Indonesians: I used to dislike them because of their discrimination towards ethnic Chinese in Indonesia during the Soeharto leadership period. But when I visited Indonesia a year ago my perception about them has changed. I see them now as friendly, warm-hearted, get satisfied very easily, and quite welcoming. But it is true if many Indonesians are still lazy.
Filipinos: Happy go lucky, temperamental, highly-opinionated, and proud people. But sometimes, I find them to be annoying because their “Pinoy Pride” and their tendency to talk too big about their own country. The women are hard working, but the men are lazy. They like Americans more than any other Asians.
Malaysians: More well-off than Indonesians, a bit rude, somewhat arrogant, uptight, accommodating, sometimes friendly, and they are good with business.
Indians: They speak very good English, talkative, like to debate, cunning, funny, good with law, good with IT, and their culture is fascinating.

Other nationalities:
Australians and New Zealanders: More happy go lucky, laid back, and a bit louder version of the British. But I find New Zealanders to be somewhat friendlier and a bit more welcoming than Australians.
Canadians: Reserved and gentle version of the Americans, open-minded, kind, and friendly. A lot Chinese like to pick Canada as the top immigration destination (aside from the US).
Americans: Optimistic, enthusiastic, expressive, assertive, self-righteous, kind, and accommodating. But sometimes they can be arrogant, short-tempered, take things for granted, superficial, overbearing, and ignorant. A lot Chinese like to come to the US for studying at US top universities like Harvard, Stamford, MIT, Yale, etc. or working in the US.
Israelites: Smart and cunning, they are very good with money and science.
Brazilians: They love playing football (soccer) more than anything else, laid back, happy go lucky, and welcoming.

Comment by Han — August 3, 2015 @ 8:43 am
CZ has nothing to do with Eastern Europe in common, except for so called iron curtain that lasted for some 40 years (1948-1989). Go back to school and learn some lessons on history. Czech lands were part of HRE with Prague (situated in west of Viena!) as its imperial residence, the seat of the rulers of the West. Bohemia was unified with Austria in personal and administrative union after 1621 until 1918. The communist came to power only in 1948. Unemployment is very low in CZ. General standard of living is higher than in West- even low class people can afford to live in normal appartments and afford to go to gym or go to restaurant and get drunk every weekend, get university education for free, get a highly qualified doctors and dentists and no poverty over here.

Comment by Jan — August 9, 2015 @ 9:57 am
“To go to Portugal on holiday for the Spanish is like going to Poland for a German.”

Well, in that case Portugal must be the favourite Spanish holiday destination, as Germans literally THRONG Gda?sk, Ustka, Sopot, Karkonosze and other Polish holiday places 🙂

Comment by Robert — August 24, 2015 @ 11:56 pm
This post should be call “What SOME Europeans think of each other” or just “Limbo” (place between Hell and Heaven). I’m pretty sure that you should not be an expert about all of the European countries… but you forgot the most of it, as well as: Ireland, Croatia, Portugal, and so on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comment by Carolina — August 27, 2015 @ 8:04 am
I am always surprised to read comments like “I hate the French” or “the Dutch”. How can you dismiss several millions people with just one sentence? I am French and I must say the only people I “hate” are racist Europeans who don’t like other countries. I went in many European countries, and all I can say is that although there are some true cultural differences, the main differences I see are among people. I don’t care whether you are dutch, german or brit if you’re a nice person,iIt is nonsense for me to say that I could “hate the British” or the Germans and for me any person saying that she or he hates the French, or any other people, is just particularly narrow-minded. In other words, I’m fed up with stereotypes, and as a psychologist I also think that if you believe too much in these stereotypes, you will see them more often than if you don’t.

Comment by Pierre — August 29, 2015 @ 2:10 am
your teacher told you the italians care only about the past and the mama? And the catalonians do not like the french? and the french do not like the belgians? i have never read so much crap in a post

DailyCandor: I said the French think the Belgians are stupid. (Maybe you can read more carefully before rendering a hasty judgment)

Comment by nico — September 18, 2015 @ 3:42 pm
Russian guy here.

So, from the comments thread (cherry-picked only about Russia, of course) I got the perspective that Russia is feared by most Europeans (except Serbs and Greeks) and mainly admired by China (which was a surprise for me). As far as I understand in geopolitics (though I don’t) that’s a good team to be in ^_^

However I too think of must Russian guys as thugs and bullies (even though I have to act accordingly sometimes), and I too support the “beautiful women” image of Russia – the beauty of russian women strikes me every time I (happily) return to Russia from foreign trips (with the exception of Denmark lol).

Peace everyone!

Comment by Vlad — September 26, 2015 @ 10:15 am
I would say the Italians from Southern Italy do not think the Northern Italians are lacking a “joy of life” or are “cultureless.” Rather, Southerners consider Northern Italians cold and more “German-like” and arrogant ! In turn, Northern Italians stereotype all Southern Italians as “tax evaders”, lazy, old-fashioned and efficient.

Comment by Magda Twahtskiy — October 3, 2015 @ 7:25 am
Slovenians do not want to look like Italians. Why people write these lies. We know who we are and we respect our origins. Thanks.

Comment by Robert — October 6, 2015 @ 10:31 pm
Let me educate you, self called experts, on Czech history regarding our resistance against Nazis in several points since some of comments were rather insulting
1) We had mobilized army and we built very strong and modern defenses. Our soldiers were ready to die for our country. The defenses were obviously near the borders.
2) Western countries forged with Hitler a so called Munich agreement, which is in the Czech republic commonly taught as the Munich BETRAYAL as western countries broke our pacts, abbandoning us for Hitler to take. Our side wasn’t even invited to the discussion – OUTRAGEOUS.
3) Our president Emil Hácha was force to take a decision – fight even though we had no chance alone or sign capitulation and be remembered as a traitor but save thousands of young men.
4) Many of our people escaped while they could and served in RAF and other parts of Europe. Our resistance was also very much existing.
If anyone is interested in details, there is plenty of articles around the internet.

Comment by Czech guy — October 9, 2015 @ 7:07 am
Hello guys, another French here.

I have to say I highly tend to agree with everything that has been told about our country. We obviously have a great culture, history, language, food (about this, eating frog in our country happens… well, almost never in a lifetime?)… – and obviously too, a lot of French people are simply awful to deal with.
I have no idea why, but when I was in Japan a few months ago, I felt way more comfortable than I usually do here. Because there will always be someone trying to pass people in queues, spitting in the streets, being arrogant towards tourists or locals and so on. Streets are made dirty and strikes happen for no reason because of littles bunches of, but a lot of people actually work way more than 35 hours per week.
I have had amazing experiences of kindness and assistance in Japan (you are awesome), just like as I do when I am in France : it is absolutely a pleasure to speak English with tourists and help them if needed.

Some people say Parisians are the worst : to me it is absolutely untrue. Parisians are usually in a hurry because of their busy lifestyle, but if you find the good ones they are usually the most educated people in France and they can easily be warm and nice.
On the other hand, I will never recommend to anyone the Côte d’Azur (Nice, Marseille, Cannes…) : I lived there for a few years and that is where I met the most arrogant, disrespectful and hypocritical people that you can imagine.
Also, I have lived more than 20 years in Paris and I NEVER EVER heard someone criticizing provincial cities and people, however people from these cities will like to whine about how Parisians are this or thus, how it is always rainy in Paris, etc.

Apart from Paris, I recommend Bretagne, Normandie, Loire and Nord which are beautiful regions with pretty nice people, as well as Toulouse. Corsica is horrible even for metropolitan French themselves, people there are too proud about their little island and will never make you feel comfortable.

About European countries, I personally have no problem with any :

– Britain : many people in France will say their food is not as good as ours, but British are usually told to be class and polite with many great places to visit. And it is only my opinion but England has a great history at least as rich as ours, and produced the best music for the last century with amazing bands from the Beatles to Queen, with Dire Straits or the Stones. And God save the Queen.

– Scottish, Irish, Northern Irish and Welsh : seem kinder than Brits.

– Spain, Portugal : good opinion from French people, where a lot go on holiday.

– Italy : a beautiful country sharing the same roots than ours, with sense for fashion and good food. But many people in France will think about corruption too.

– Switzerland : they have been great neighbours for us but it seems like there are tensions as some French people come to work in Switzerland to take advantage of the good wages.

– Belgium : the situation of Belgium is odd, because the country is divided into 2 parts : the Francophone one (Wallonie) and the Dutch one (Flandre). I absolutely love our Wallon neighbours, where I often go : lovely people, lovely food (beers, chocolate, waffles or fries). We like to joke towards each other but it’s always kidding. However, there is a growing animosity between those two regions of Belgium, people from Flandre seem to hate on Wallons and I really did not feel welcome the two times I went to Oostende and Gant. Even when I spoke English to be “neutral”, they seemed to detect we were French speakers and automatically disrespect us.

– Germany : some French people will see the Germans as cold and rigorous when others will see the country of beers, blondes and Oktoberfest. Nowadays no one seems to care about the wars we went into in the past.

– Netherlands : good overall opinion.

– Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark : good opnion too, most people think that people there are kind and welcoming although they may also be strict. And they will usually think 99% of the country is populated with blonds.

– Poland and Czech : beautiful cityscapes.

Comment by Rob — October 12, 2015 @ 8:36 am
As the Czech author Patrik Ourednik wrote in “Europeana”:

…and long after the Second World War, which was called the war of civilization, people still thought more in terms of nation that of civilization, and every nation had its specific characteristics. And the English were pragmatic and Englishwomen had big feet and Italian woman had big breasts and Italians were carefree and Germans were hygenically minded and had no sense of humor. And the Irish were permanently drunk and the Scots were good walkers and the French were arrogant and the Greeks had hang-ups and the Czechs were cowards and the Poles permanently drunk and the Italians boisterous and the Bulgarians backward and the Spanish cheerless and the Hungarians bigheaded. And sculptors and masons were glad they had a lot of commisions. And the French had SAVOIR VIVRE and the English had a sense of FAIR PLAY.

…And the Spanish danced the flamenco and the Gypsies cast dark glasses and the Russians were arrogant and the Swedes pragmatic and the Jews devious and the French carefree and the English bigheaded and the Portugese backward. But…people’s lifestyles in Europe gradually came to resemble each other and sociologists and historians believed that it was outmoded to think in terms of nation…and that there was actually no such thing as Germans of Romanians, Swedes, etc, that they were simply self-projections into social stereotypes and prejudices.

Comment by Jack Neefus — October 23, 2015 @ 2:04 pm
Hi all,
I’m English – British and proud to be. I’m also proud to be European. We have a love hate relationship with the French. I know I do not speak for all English people but I respect our strong neighbour and our entwined history. Our recent relationship with Germany has been the fuel for bad feeling over the past the quarters of a century but I think that is all changing now. Germany is probably the powerhouse of Europe – very efficient and industrious – and very liberal and socialist with Merkel in charge. I love Scotland, Wales and Ireland … but I know that love is not returned but that’s okay – I’d probably feel the same if I was Welsh or Scottish. We can be a bit uptight and we have had difficult issues – especially our treatment of Ireland which was just wrong. Irish people are warm, funny and kind and love the craic. English people can be arrogant but its important to remember that most English people are not uptight and arrogant, most are just like other people all over great continent – just want to do our best for our families and love time to relax. English people are a mix of many nations anyway – Angles and Saxons from Germany, Normans from France just for a start. I am proud than we kick started the World we live in today (good or bad) with the industrial revolution. With the modern way of working came ‘allocated leisure time’ … Good health was promoted as a Christian attribute – healthy body/healthy mind. From that we helped develop football, rugby and many of the Worlds favourite sports that other European countries are much better than us at. We produced amazing bands in the last 50 years – Beatles, Stones, Led Zep … Stone Roses, Smiths, Oasis … and some awful ones. I think we can be creative and smart … but we can be lazy. Scandinavians are trustworthy, loyal and beautiful. Italians are passionate … but a bit lazy (like us) and impulsive. Eastern Europeans … I must admit a few years ago I thought people from Eastern Europe were a bit under educated and untrustworthy but I was completely wrong. I have Polish and Slovakian friends who are warm, kind, very intelligent and lovely people. We are voting to stay in the EU in the next year or so. I really hope we do … We are stronger together but we get frustrated at the way the EU is run. It is going to be a close run thing. Love and peace my European brothers and sisters.

Comment by Nick — October 24, 2015 @ 1:10 pm
Chinese people think Spaniards and Italians are loud?? Christ, are you people tone deaf to your own languages?

Comment by ha — November 15, 2015 @ 5:19 am
Portugal is the best country in Europe. If you don’t believe me, just ask the Americans. It’s bright and sunny, the beaches are fantastic, the food and wine is excellent, great lifestyle, very low cost of living, lots of culture and interesting places, beautiful landscapes, some of Europe’s most beautiful cities, and Europe’s best climate. No wonder the Spanish don’t like us. However, we are a nation which has always had its back toward Europe and its sights set across the oceans. We are the country that kickstarted global trade and brought flavour and variety to European cuisine. Even though Northern Europeans may think they are somehow ‘superior’ to others because of their wealth, they (British aside) will never match the great feats of little Portugal.

Comment by Tuga guy — December 12, 2015 @ 1:20 pm
As a portuguese.

We are among the most hardworking peoples in Europe, and for the sake of franco-german products our industry was destroyed by the EU, and our polititians that allowed it, so do not come to me with shit.

Our opinion.
Dutch too arrogant, fortunatelly we fuck them in every football game. 😀

British they are polite indeed, specialy those out of London, but yep the problem is that they are double edged, they say one
thing,while thinking precisely the opposite, good, for nobles and kings, not so much for normal people.

Germans, cold minded psychos, some are nice and honest people.

Austrians, lovely and polite psychos, XD, Vienna, and Mozart “SANCTUS!!! SANCTUS!!!” in my head, while imagining people being killed LOL,pathetic.

Denmark, Hitman, nah, probably the nicest people in the world, I would give Europe for them to rule!!!
They like being small.
Would not accept a inch more.

Swedes, more reserved, but extremely nice people.

Norwegians, richer scandinavians, extremely nice people.

Finns, silent, and strong, good material for war.

France, arrogant as the most influent country in European history that is normal, they are a sort of bigger Portugal, the ones we like the most.

Belgians, more polite,and silent, but also more psycophatic than french, wonderfull chocolate.

Italy, our loud cousins,easy go arround people, but when crossed…………….very fucked up………maybe it is the heat, Mafia is not the problem it once was, when it become a federation and Rome,gets fucked, it will be as rich as France.

Spain, Galiza, that is Portugal, or better Portugal should be Galiza, Castilians pretty much are like us except far more arrogant and hot headed,they do not like when we say “Europe begins in France”, Catalans,want to be independent or french,and I can´t blame them.

Switzerland, the psycophatic bankers, to where the worldwide corruption money goes,and the great filth of the planet also goes, very good place for a pro Putin Robin Hood James Bond. LOL

Russia, they are so like us, more crazy and stupid, yet tougher,and stronger people.

Greece, nice people, deceived like us by the EU, their yogurts are extremely nice.

Ireland/Scotland, our crazy celtic cousins, we all love braveheart(totaly innacurate I know), and whiskey.

Portugal, all I have to say is that we are diminutively superior in the inferiority of the superlative.
.

Peace.

Comment by Cortex — December 17, 2015 @ 6:09 pm
A lot of really interesting ideas here. As a British (English) person, I’d like to point out that most people in ‘England’ are not really aware/taught the history of colonialism etc at school and so are frankly a bit baffled by the apparent animosity directed at us particularly from the Scots and Irish (at least until they get older/make an effort to access this kind of information).

Personally, growing up, Britain was my country, and it was made up of four parts (England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales); I just happened to live in the England part. I never saw my country as ‘England’ (it isn’t in fact a country, politically or legally speaking) and my flag was the Union Jack. This is also how my family have always viewed it.

It seems to me very sad that so many Scottish people hate us for things that happened 100s of years ago and are keen to tear apart our very successful union with all its differences and idiosyncrasies – and for what I wonder? I think we are all most similar to each other – in language, culture, history, values – and this is unlikely to change. I fear Scotland would lose out if they were to go it alone, and unfortunately, increasingly, English people are happy for this to happen.

I also am a Brit who likes the Americans and the French – although both are better individually than in a group (probably like most nationalities) 😉

Comment by Britgirlabroad — December 25, 2015 @ 11:44 am
Only one question: How can the people from northern countries be so naive and ignorant?

Comment by Roberto Rosello — December 27, 2015 @ 2:41 pm
Pierre go it right, too many stereotypes. Many people are not able to understand other cultures so they stick to stereotypes.

Comment by Roberto Rosello — December 27, 2015 @ 2:50 pm
When will we ever realize that stereotypes is the widest gate to prejudice?
Why don’t we simply try to learn from the others? There’s always something the others can teach us.
Everybody is different from the rest and that’s what makes life so interesting if we open our eyes and ears

Comment by javier — January 7, 2016 @ 3:48 pm
From living in Germany, Wales, Cyprus, Scotland and living in England plus trips all over Europe as an Englishman.

Greeks-Cannot fault them. Really decent people.
Spanish-The same
French-Mixed feelings, which I know is mutual.
Scottish-The same, but on balance any mutual hostility is mostly friendly banter.
Germans- We all should get over the war and forgive, my grandfather who fought them did. Seen as close cousins.
Dutch-like
Danes-the same
Cypriots-Both Greek and Turkish, I liked equally.
Welsh-Admire them for keeping their language, dislike of English overblown, if anyone is a fellow Brit a Welshman is.

Comment by Ray Smith — January 18, 2016 @ 4:46 pm
Swiss here. Stereotypes :
switzerland : already a mess, we have so many subcultures in there. Mainly the swissgerman-swissfrench division. for another time. I’ll talk as a swissfrench.
france : at least tolerated, at worst hated. People in cities tend not to care that much, people in the countryside can’t stand them. rude, lazy, arrogant, egocentric, loud, arrogant, bad drivers, opportunists, arrogant, … “french”, it’s an insult in fact. sorry dudes, but seems we only get the worse of you
germany : psychotic hard-workers, know how to drink
italy : lazy laissez-aller where’s my nona-kids. seductive as fuck
austria : cheap skying resorts
lichtenstein : no one knows who they are, let’s say they’re swiss
danish : awful language, awful beers, cold and windy, but great country and living standard
swedes : blond busty gals
norwegian : tesla-driving countrysiders
finns : mute psychos
englands : the english version of the french, awful food, aristocratic. But we don’t see them often
irish : guiness and chearful
russian : those oligarchs who spend christmas and n-y eve in our sky resorts. We don’t see the rest of them 🙁
poland : poor things, drink a lot
belarus : poor things, kill that Lukashenko
romania : enough stupid people still link them to roms. However, hard workers who go back for summer
bulgaria : people usually have no idea where it is
yougoslavia : problematic teenagers, usually the “core” problem of the youth (for most stupid people). Younger generations have no trouble with them, integrated.
serbia : quite the same
tchekia : hard drinking russian influenced european
iceland : beautiful country, language, and people. excellent authors
belgium : beer beer beer beer beer beer beer. no joke : stupid people, we have jokes that go like “you know what a belgian that…”
ukraine : poor russian-influenced country
hungary : full of whores
greece : full of debts, you can’t trust greeks, they know how to fuck (handsome, seductive)
spain : seductive latinos
portuguese : low-skill workers, they all have a moustache, hair everywhere, many jokes about them

i don’t know who i forgot. Sorry eastern-countries, we don’t have many stereotypes on you, mostly on your country. This being said, they’re three layers of people in general, in the swissfrench part : those who hate all strangers (old people, mostly), those who hate french only (usually conservative young) and those who don’t care (leftist and the rest).

Comment by dudy — February 4, 2016 @ 2:56 am
Reading over all the comments from people in various places only confirms the deep cycle of confusion and chaos in the great Eastern front. Typically the racism and social differences in class is pretty black and white in America. But in Europe there seems to be so many cultural differences that every country has to deal with. It sounds like a mess, the entire continent of Eurasia in that fact seems like a difficult place.

As an American I’ve only randomly dealt with a group of Croatian people and a few Germans that were out of country visitors. Typically i felt the Croatians to be completely neutral to life with no open nationalistic emotions, they were both physically and emotionally rough though, industrial in a sense. The German people were OPENLY German, they spoke about issues going on in Europe and joked heavily in a cut throat fashion. They were genuinely optimistic and happy, but secretively judgmental, i could tell they had very calculated thoughts opposed to other European people i knew. The smiles and happiness from the German’s seemed almost unreal as if they were made to be that way, not because they wanted to, it was scary, almost as i felt they would snap and go ape shit if i did something to offend them. I also know a Bulgarian family and they were unquestionably Mob like. They did not like to joke around and had a questionable sense of humor which leaned closer to “hey i might kill someone you wanna help…lol” oppose to “your mamma is so ugly…lol” which in turn would leave you with a snapped neck and multiple knife wounds. Overall my Bulgarian friends were extremely trustworthy and honest and did not like to be toyed with. My Russian friends were a little more loose and understood American humor and were much more playful. They did however like to live dangerously, almost to the point of being suicidal, most of my guy friends exuded a tough playful attitude even in the presence of a much tougher person. My Bulgarian friends were the tougher guys lol

This is not to say i know it all from this small group of individuals, but i am openly fascinated about foreigners i meet that come to visit america.
In California (US), we have a melting pot of cultures and i know the lot of French, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, British, Israelite’s/ Iranian’s and a list of others. But most of the people i know are descendants of immigrants so they are somewhat rooted to this country and tend to be a little less nationalistic about their home region. The few that were visitors never stood out that well in comparison to the Central European groups mentioned above. The only stand out traits I’ve noticed from some cultures were Italians and Spaniards (what exact creed, I do not know). But the Italians (both men & Women) were overtly Flirtatious in nature, yet much less national pride. Passionate as most describe them by is noticeable, In a sense it seemed they were overly in love or hateful towards a person or thing than any other culture. My french friends are similar yet different in the sense they were anti-passionate, almost dismissive of their feelings as if to try not to be emotional attached, even though it was clear they were, but still rather flirtatious. Also the French tended to stick together more and were much more nationalistic.

I don’t mean to group multiple cultures in a group, but most Asians that i know or see have all tended to be anti-nationalistic in public as if not to draw attention to themselves. Although i found that Japanese, and a few Chinese tended to carry the most nationalistic traits. Japanese tended to become very proud whenever something Japanese appeared like cars, clothes, food. Where as my Chinese friends were a bit more passive about materialistic things, yet enthusiastic and competitive about doing things when it came to activities and working. I’ve also notices Chinese visitors to be more publicly open to spending money than Japanese. I do agree with comments that Thai girls and guys are promiscuous in a sense that they are passive and submissive, they can easily be taken advantage of in a sexual manner. In California the biggest Asian group that differs from the rest are Filipinos, i know many Filipinos and all of them tended to be a bit loud in a annoying way. They are easy to get along with and mean no harm, but they seem to be in your face all the time with a rude outgoing nature. Very optimistic and happy individuals that are easily offended about very basic things. It is near impossible to keep a Filipino quiet, no joke every Filipino i know either asleep or awake is making noise lol.

My last remark will be about the British. Its openly true there is a great divide between the many cultures. Irish, Scottish and English (and i suppose the Welsh) people do not like being grouped together all in their own ways. The English that i know like to passively joke to the point of being rude and also have the biggest dislike of Americans. They also tend to have the most prideful about engineering, and will help with doing just about anything all while “taking the piss”. I know very few Scottish but most of them are girls and they are very passive and optimistic in nature. I’ve noticed Scottish and Irish a like have a bold “leader of the pack” vibe and like to “get shit done”. There are quiet a few Irish groups in US so they don’t stand out as much, and as such, it wouldn’t be accurate to try to describe them, but they have there Nationalistic traits in the form of celebrity and holiday pride. The Irish pride is easy to like as much as they do, as it’s generally only about having fun…with a beer in one hand and a tit in the other. With that said Irish are generally more aggressive then both there Scottish and English brothers. Also I’ve noticed Irish are less judgmental than the English. But oddly they have a weird dislike or fascination about Italians. Most of which is probably because of the Mafia life rooted in Eastern US tensions. Last note, i do not believe i know of any Welsh, and if so i have not distinguished them from the English. I deal with a lot of English over the internet via blogs and forums as i am an avid Formula 1 snob, and the Brits tend to gloat heavily about Formula One’s English dominance, as such do the Italians when it comes to mother Ferrari.

Peace to all.

Comment by max — February 6, 2016 @ 8:14 pm
From a German view regarding

Romania:
the immage is unfortunately dominated by begging gypsies in the streets of Berlin and other German cieties, though lots of them are not of Romanian origin but comming from other Eastern European countries as well. Due to Bram Stoker´s Dracula and the immage of the Ceausescu regime Romania has still kind of a gloomy reputation.

Bulgaria:
a country which has been one of the main holiday destinations for Eastern Germans. And it still is a holiday destination for Germans. It´s also famous for it´s traditional traditional orthodox choirs.

Both, Romania and Bulgaria where allies of the Germans and both countries have some reputation for corruption (the Bulgarians less than the Romanians). Both countries have a positive immage for the landscape and the hospitality of the people.

Hungary:
the immage is quite positve as Germans and Hungarians share a long comon history. Hungarians opened the fences to East German refugees in the late 1980s. Hungary was part of the Habsburg empire and still today lots of Hungarians speak fluently German. The country is an important holiday destination for Germans. The Hungarians screened part of their programme in German during the 1956 uprising. The war against the Hungarians arount 900 a.d. led to the establishment of the first German empire. They are seen as quiet and disciplined as well as ardend, but in a positive way. Hungarian cuisine has some influence on German cuisine: e.g. Gulasch

Comment by MaltaStoryTime — February 7, 2016 @ 7:40 am
West Coast American here. And ya, there’s a huge difference in the way people are per the area they live. This country is divided as such. Northeastern people (New York City, New Jersey, Washington DC) all seem rather hyper, loud, aggressive, domineering, and more segregated, to a West Coast gal like me. They have all these little neighborhoods still defined by which country it’s ancestors came from- little Italy, little Poland, little Ireland, etc. and those people actually stay in their neighborhoods and squabble amongst other neighborhoods. This is similar in the Seattle area of the Northwest, which has neighborhoods of Koreans, African- Americans, Russians, Chinese, Japanese, etc. Further South, in California, are large sections of Chinese and of course Mexicans. Indians (not Native Americans, which Americans are still confused about), are tousled throughout the mix. Primarily the various groups live in the metropolitan areas, with few extending into the countryside. The country folks in America tend to be some sort of white mix, usually with a Native American or African American thrown into the mix. The variety of white mixes can really break down into social patterns, though. For example, the French owned the whole central part of the country, at one point, and mixed with Natives, Africans, Spanish and Carribbean Islanders. So, the Louisiana type person is WAY different than the people in the Northwest or Northeast, for example, as those people have definite British structure and British Isles and German and Dutch roots. The entire Southern part of the country incorporates a lot more people mixed with Native or Spanish blood, which gives them a more lax, party-type attitude.

So, from the standpoint of only having been outside of the US to go to Paris and Blois for a couple weeks, and only having visited and gotten to be friends with foreigners while in college, oh and besides having been a live in girlfriend with both a political refugee from Bosnia and a very nice Portuguese man from France who I met in Hawaii, here’s what I got: I ? the French, but most Americans love to hate them, but then begrudgingly admit they do actually make the best wine, cheese, and chocolate, to name a few things. Americans pretty much like everyone in the world, but are afraid of the North Korea, the Middle East, China, and Russia. We figure if we are able to keep buying a ton of crap, we can keep China happy. And hopefully if we elect another Obama type into office and not Trump we will be able to keep everyone happy, too. Oh, and if we send our billionaires to Dubai for a good time, we should be alright. No one really knows what’s up with Russia. And the one who hates us the most is N. Korea, but no one really gets why. Pretty much we are hated by anyone who hates big corporations and Wall Street, or anything stupid and crappy like McDonalds, but the ironic thing is that half of Americans hate Wall Street, and McDonalds, too. But the other half of Americans are too dumb, too brainwashed, or too greedy to care.

I could go on and on about all the ways I personally see each and every country on the planet, but this started out as a conversation on how Europeans see other Europeans. Well, I don’t really have a say in this, except that the way this country works is based off what we learned, or ran from in Europe. I’ve done some Geneology, and it turns out I’m related to three of our first presidents- the mother side of the first president, George Washington, and the Adams presidents. I hope that the ideas they had way back then will be honored and cherished today. They were great ideas, and this whole country is like a strange experiment, but it is what it is, and just like all people on the planet, we are surviving one day at a time, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to make it… “Stayin alive stayin alive ah ah ah ah …” ?

Btw, I gave a sample of saliva and got my DNA analyzed: I’m 45% French or German or Swiss or Dutch, 17% Norweigian, Swedish, or Danish, 14% Irish, 12% British, 5% Italian or Greek, 2% Spanish, 1% Finnish or Russian, 1% Eastern European, and 1% N. Africa, and less than 1% Native American or Asian… so there’s an example of just a tiny part of the melting pot of all cultures that make up this country.

Oh- and Macedonia- you might want to talk to Obama. He’s from Hawaii and knows how some Hawaiian natives want to take back the Hawaiian government. Maybe we could just adopt you and give Hawaii back.

Comment by Dana — February 13, 2016 @ 1:00 am
This was a funny thought (some might agree, others not so much).

Let’s pretend we’re at a party:

The British guy is sitting with his legs crossed, whining about his cheese or something. The Irish guy is dopey beer drunk, laughing at the jokes the Scottish and Australian guys are telling (who are also drunk). The South African dude is pissed and throwing negative remarks at the Australian, saying his beer is better. The Norwegians are out catching a fish to put on the fire, the Swedes are brushing their hair and talking about how cool ABBA used to be. The Finnish are wondering what everyone’s talking about because they don’t speak English, and they’re sitting far from the fire ’cause it’s too hot.

The Spanish and Italian women are getting riled up and feisty, dancing in front of the fire. Oh wait- now the Italian woman is getting loud about wanting to hear HER music! Uh oh, now the Spanish woman is being insanely dramatic about sticking with the Spanish beat. Uh oh, now the Mexican lady and Brazilian lady are getting into it- they’re all fighting about which music to party it up and dance to! Oh, but look, there’s Wanda, that big fat black lady from the states. She’s gonna shut up all them bitches and play some R&B.

There’s a Japanese dude calculating the cost of a design plan for recycling plastic cups, talking to a Canadian, who is agreeing with everything, and saying “Good ideas ya got there, ay?”

A Hawaiian, Samaoan, Native American, and a Filipino are all hanging out in a circle, passimg a joint by the fire, watching the feisty women shake their groove thing. One is bragging about how big the fish was. The French lady is wearing sunglasses, lavishly leaning on a chaise lounge, smoking a cigarette with a glass of wine, moaning about the mediocrity of the party to a French Swiss, who is looking bored, nodding in agreement. A German guy, irritated with the music, flips on his awesome Bose speaker system (equipped on his smart phone) and starts growling Rammstein lyrics.

Ok, someone else keep this story going. I’m super tired and about to pass out…

Comment by Dana — February 13, 2016 @ 1:46 am
Ireland has a population of 5+ million………..

DailyCandor: You’re closer than I was. You’re not counting Northern Ireland, are you? Regardless, updating the figure now.

Comment by Reuters — February 13, 2016 @ 6:29 pm

Comments: Previous 1 … 15 16 17 18 19 … 21 Next

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

What Europeans think of each other

1,018 Comments »

Leave a comment

Most Popular Posts

Blogroll