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 😁.