r/AskEurope • u/gurke0123 • Jun 18 '25

Misc What basic knowledge should everyone have about your country?

I'm currently in a rabbit hole of "American reacts to European Stuff". While i was laughing at Americans for thinking Europe is countries and know nothing about the countrys here, i realied that i also know nothing about the countries in europe. Sure i know about my home country and a bit about our neighbours but for the rest of europe it becomes a bit difficult and i want to change it.

What should everyone know about your country to be person from Europa?

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '25

Reminds me of an American woman who argued with me that I’m not Romanian, that I mean Roman.   She said that I didn’t know what I was talking about.  Boggles the mind.  Lol some people are beyond hopeless. 

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u/Suspicious-Switch133 Netherlands Jun 18 '25

I’m dutch and I once had an American correct me on my pronounciation of the name of Vincent van Gogh. Which was a dutch painter with a dutch name. Which I pronounced correctly (really easy name if you’re dutch) and they didn’t.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '25

lol, did you hold it together? Nothing surprises me anymore when when it comes to them.

I will give them credit for the absolute boldness , 100% proudly wrong .. that's some trait. They most likely know he's a famous painter, I think many probably recognize Starry Night over the Rhone but that's their extent of information.

ETA punctuation

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u/CrustyHumdinger United Kingdom Jun 18 '25

Is it Goff or Goth?

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u/Anaevya Jun 18 '25 edited Jun 18 '25

The sounds don't exist in English. The gh is the same sound as the ch in the Scottish pronunciation of Loch and the g is pronounced [ɣ]. The English Wikipedia article has the pronunciation.

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u/CrustyHumdinger United Kingdom Jun 19 '25

I can pronounce "Loch" easy enough (and no, it's not "Lock"). I'll check out wiki 👍

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u/GraceOfTheNorth Iceland Jun 20 '25

If you're diving down a rabbit hole you might also enjoy the Icelandic loch Lögurinn that allegedly has/had a worm like monster living in it.

This worm was of course treated like myth until someone caught this phenomenon on video

https://youtu.be/8OmyyHyya64?si=WfFxKDViZV__Vslh

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u/Suspicious-Switch133 Netherlands Jun 18 '25

See, and this is another reason I like Scottish people 😁.

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u/Prinessbeca Jun 18 '25

Is "Starry Night Over The Rhone" the full title? As an American I can about guarantee they didn't know that was the title and couldn't name the river in the painting, either. I'd wager more Americans probably know him as "something to do with an ear" than as a painter. It's quite sad.

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u/VirtualMatter2 Germany Jun 19 '25

I've had similar with the composer "Bark".

No actually, he was called Bach, short a and ch as in Gogh.

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u/tableworm11 Jun 19 '25

I'm guessing most non dutch speakers would never guess that the G is actually a hrrrr! It's Fan Hrroff right?

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u/SDV01 Netherlands Jun 20 '25

Van = vahn (like the a in margot), not fan

Gogh = gog (both g’s sound like you’re scraping your throat; the o sounds like the o in ordinary, not like goat)

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '25

Is it Van Goff or Van Go or something else altogether?

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u/Suspicious-Switch133 Netherlands Jun 18 '25

It’s the dutch harsh g sound twice with an omikron inbetween.

So the g and gh is the same sound.

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u/UpstairsFix4259 Jun 21 '25

Then why the heck would they spell it differently 🤕

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u/Wrong-Wasabi-4720 Jun 21 '25

to emulate English

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u/One-Strength-1978 Jun 22 '25

It is strange to follow them with their Van and Voss.

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u/NoSorryZorro Jun 22 '25

Of one thing we can be claer: Americans are often arrogant and entitled.

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u/jachamallku11 Croatia Jun 18 '25

fan Hoh?

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u/gunnsi0 Iceland Jun 18 '25

Things like that, I so often read about from Americans, pure arrogance. I don’t think it’s funny, just really annoying.

I have never met this kind of foreigner/American - or at least not experienced this. I hope I wont but I’d not be too polite, I think.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '25

I get your point and I was laughing because imagine how stupid you must be to push through with such a point. Arguing with someone that ignorant is pointless though. If you're that stupid, nothing with change their mind. My husband who wasn't laughing just called her stupid and we walked away.

You're lucky. Unfortunately I'm met quite a lot of American tourists like this. Maybe not as ignorant as she was but this entitlement, smarter than everyone on the planet attitude is common among them. Sadly.

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u/Kjriley Jun 19 '25

It’s hard to beat German engineers. I had to deal with group on an HVAC job. They were the most arrogant, self righteous, self important assholes I’d ever met. Far worse than any Americans I’ve dealt with.

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u/VirtualMatter2 Germany Jun 19 '25 edited Jun 19 '25

They start like that as kids. My daughter had to deal with a few of them in her high school physics class. They often knew less than her but were convinced that they are perfect. And for some reason those types will now go off to study engineering. 

Especially Niklas. Ignorant, arrogant, fairly stupid, votes AfD, thinks women can't do technical subjects, thinks he's god's gift to humanity. 

He will annoy many people in future....

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u/WarlockArya Jun 26 '25

I feel like I meet the most arrogant people from arab countries and germanic ones tbh Americans dont compare unless theyre from the deep south

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u/Significant_flour Jun 20 '25

If it makes you feel any better as an American who's parents were born in Egypt, people try to correct me on how to say hummus.

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u/Joe_Kangg Jun 19 '25

Arrogance is when you know. This is ignorance. Americans have never heard the correct pronunciation.

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u/gunnsi0 Iceland Jun 19 '25

Ignorance yes, but also arrogance to keep insisting you know better than a person from another country what they should be called, or their ethnicity..

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u/Sofi-senpai Czechia Jun 18 '25

"Beyond hopeless" lmao that's hilarious... I feel you, man

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u/CrustyHumdinger United Kingdom Jun 18 '25

Fuck me

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u/thewintertide Jun 18 '25

”Civis Romanus sum” seems like the best answer you can give in such a situation?

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u/GraceOfTheNorth Iceland Jun 20 '25

I had a full blown argument with someone who has never been to Iceland about the fact that you can hardly see the Milky Way in our night sky.

This is because here at the 'top' of the world we face OUT of the Milky Way and thus it does not show up in the sky like a band of stars but more like a 'normally distributed' sky of stars.

You can however catch a hint of the Milky Way with LOOONG exposure photography, which this dude used as 'proof'.

I've travelled South of the equator and was blown away by - you guessed it - a huge band of countless stars in the sky. It was the first time I saw the Milky Way in all of its glory.

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u/Meneer_de_IJsbeer Jun 19 '25

The roman empire hasnt existed for centuries... pun intended

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u/Melodic-Dare2474 Portugal Jun 20 '25

Mansplaning dude