Comments by "Widdekuu91" (@Widdekuu91) on "The DUMBEST questions I’ve been asked by Americans! #askagerman Series Pt. 5 | Feli from Germany" video.
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I am Dutch and was looking for Germans to talk to (just talking.)
I then found someone and greeted him in English (the website was also in English.)
I checked and said; So, you are German? and he replied; Yep, yep, haha, that's me, my grandpa was German.'
I said; Okay, but are you German?' He said; Yeah partially, haha. I consider myself German.'
I said; 'Okay, also, wenn ich Deutsch spreche, wirst du mich verstehen?"
He said; 'Oh, what the hell...hahah...that's German right? I know the ish. Ish is like 'Me' hahah.'
I replied; 'Have you ever spoken German?' and he said; 'Naw man, I only speak American lol. Grandpa taught me that ish-thing. But like, we weren't very close.'
I said; 'Have you ever tried to learn more German, visit Germany...youknow, to really... 'become a German' as you wish to be?
And he said; 'Naw haha, no, it's too expensive and also I have enough to learn in university lol, like I'm partially German though, but maybe like, also American.'
And despite being frustrated because I had been talking with him for 20 minutes for nothing, I tried to politely say; 'Yes..perhaps a bit more American.'
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@konstantinavalentina3850 Exactly.
I'd say you can call yourself Japanese if your parents are Japanese, you actively speak Japanese at home, you honour the traditions, it's just that you were born in America, but the rest of you is fully Japanese.
And even then you're just an American, but o.k. I would understand if they said "Japanese" then.
Around Thanksgiving/Christmastime, I got loads of commercials for DNA-testing on Facebook, called "My Cultural Heritage" with a picture of a Viking on it (sometimes they swapped it for a Native American or an Aboriginal) that said; 'Your DNA-results in just a few days!"
Underneath, a woman said; 'I have adjusted my diet to my original ancestors and I feel so much better now!'
Turns out her ancestors from a few hundred years ago, were Vikings and therefore "she wasn't eating enough fish" to keep her DNA happy. I mean, they're not even trying to make it sound legit. (I'm not even going to go into detail about what happens afterwards, because you can only join if you let them store your DNA for 'research purposes.' Hence the arguable-cheapness of it.)
And underneath, you had responses such as; 'Hi from Michigan here, sóóóó happy when I got the results back, turns out I am from Eastern Europe, originally, that's where my ancestors came from. I've always known, I'm such a traveller as well, and I like the cold and I guess I like reindeer lol-' (etc.)
I just think it's a knee-jerk movement because America isn't really looking so great right now and everyone would rather claim they were 'actually' from Sweden.
And whether that be a hundred years ago or threehundred, doesn't matter.
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I think she clarified the questions in real life.
But then anonymously complained about how little those American people know about the world.
I mean, I live in the Netherlands and when I said my job was located in Amsterdam, I was asked how much I was.
I said; 'Don't you mean how much I make? Or..huh?' and he said; 'No, you said you work in Amsterdam right? What's your price?'
I said; 'Oh, no, I work in a departmentstore.' And he asked; Oh, so...like with toys and stuff?'
Amsterdam is a big city with ONE famous street that has some prostitutes in it, here and there.
Which is similar to me asking; 'Oh, so you live in Texas? Like...so you shoot people all day and stuff?
Like, how many guns do you own..have you shot a lot of people? Do you vote for Trump?'
'Why are you getting angry, didn't you say you were from Texas?'
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@missam3404
You're in luck, I have ADHD and some spare time, I wrote down my experiences. Took me an hour, but here we are, hope you appreciate it.
1. A lady that send me an letter (which according tot he website-rules of Postcrossing, I was supposed to register by email, she knows that) asked me if I had internet in the Netherlands. I emailed her back with the registering of my card and answered that, without internet, I wouldn’t have been able to be a part of Postcrossing.
2. Another lady asked me if I knew Spotify, if we had that in the Netherlands. Nice question, ofcourse, no problem, but this was through the same website, so..yes we do.
3. A lady asked if I had ever heard of electronic bicycles (about 20 years after they came out) and if maybe they’d be available anywhere near me, because I could try one. Again, nice, but a bit stupid.
4. A lady believed that my country was called "Neanderthlands" (Netherlands), because we had the Neanderthals here back in the day and we came from those people. As if the Neanderthals were only from Europe, not from America.
5. A man was convinced that the Dutch ladies were somehow more manly, because we cycle and carry our own groceries, so we must have ‘manly arms’ and he figured that’d lead to the loss of oestrogen. The American men were warned by him and his blog, not to date us. (I agree with that part though, if you think like that, don’t date us.)
6. Another man was convinced that we were into some hardcore S& M. He’d seen some movies in which the Germans and Dutch were shown to like Lat3x, leather and po0p-stuff. Also farting. He said; ‘Where else do they get the expression ‘Dutch ovening’ from? I said it was from a Dutch pan/pot that steams the food. We’re not into farting.
7. Two valleygirls on the airport felt that the airport was ‘almost as clean as the US’ when she saw a man cleaning the floor with bleach. She was amazed by the flatscreens and the ‘modern’ equipment that Amsterdam Airport had. She had expected horsecarts, muddy paths into forests and goats randomly walking.
Now, additionally, I want to mention that those goats have been mentioned more often, by people in random conversations or insults online. People saying; ‘Oh farmgirl, go milk a goat!’ or ‘Hey milkmaid, go back into your windmill.’ In these instances ofcourse, it is a reference and a “joke”, not a serious thing. But I’m just saying, it’s said often.
8. Spiderman Coming Home has a lovely oldfashioned interpretation of the modern Netherlands, incase you want to watch it. Cowsh!t on the floor, farmers, folklore-clothes, the whole shebang. Nothing modern in sight. I honestly wish we had more oldfashioned shit though, because what they portrayed is hard to find. Due to American influence, there’s flatscreens and capitalism in every damn corner of every damn farmcity. Modern equipment is fine, we already had that, but capitalism is not my favorite thing.
9. Two people in Weesp (next to Amsterdam) looked very worried, I asked them if I could help. The woman said that she was afraid to go into a church, because it was ‘clearly not build right.’ She mentioned our 'dancing Amsterdam houses' and how those were 'about to topple' as well. Which they aren't, but okay.
I said the church was about 6000 years old and had withstood 2 floods and several wars. She said it could collapse any second then and when her overweight husband leaned on it, she screamed; ‘What did I just say?!’ which made me giggle, because he sure was fat, but not fat enough to topple our church. (De Grote Kerk in Weesp, incase you’re wondering.)
10. I later witnessed the same man and woman in the supermarket, hoarding all the bottles of water, because they were convinced that the water here was ‘dirty’ without the chlorine and that they would get sick.
11. A girl and boy online heard that I worked in Amsterdam and asked if I was a pr0stitute. I said; No, I work in a departmentstore in Amsterdam.’ They said; ‘Ah, I get it..with toys, right?’
I explained that Amsterdam-RedLightDistrict is only one (long) street and that the rest of Amsterdam is just..a city. They didn’t think that was the case and mocked me until I stopped talking to them.
12. A woman and man were afraid that there’d be something in their slice of plain cake, because ‘those Dutch people want to drug you and then sod0mize you and sell us into seggs slavery. I’ve seen Taken! I know how these things go!’ (We don’t drug you for free, just incase you’re wondering, that costs money. Neither do we sod0mize random people, otherwise I wouldn’t live here..)
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@missam3404
13. A girl asked me if I had pets in the Netherlands, I said I wanted rabbits. She asked if I would play with them. I said I would. She asked if I would take them into my bed. I felt it was a weird question, but I said yes. She asked if I would have two at the same time. I said yes, because otherwise one gets lonely. It took me ages to realise that this wás an attempt at a joke, because a rabbit can mean a d!ldo.
I asked why she felt it was necessary to say this to me, to which she answered; ‘Well, you’re from Amsterdam, so you are dirty and have seggs toys!’ Which is ofcourse, an insult, but I just want to highlight that if I had been Swedish, she wouldn't have tried to pull that sh!t.
14. A woman asked if we couldn’t change the national language to English, since we all spoke perfect English anyway. I asked her why we would get rid of our language and she said it was not a very pretty language, with the harsh throaty G and that English was very popular. She said it would be great for our tourist-industry, because now, she could not fully read the signs. Korting was discount, she could figure that out, but it’d all be so much easier i fit was just English. She said that the old people that did not speak English, were dying out and that the rest all spoke English, because of tv-influence (American) and internet-influence (American websites or youtube-videos.)
I said that this would not happen and Dutch would not disappear and she pointed out how my language was already almost American/English with the Americanisation that was going on. I went home and cried, because she is right, my language is disappearing and turning into a horrible mixture of English-words that miss their point (replacing subtle words with an American equivalent that is not subtle at all) and other Dutch words that are spoken in an American accent, because ‘that is how they say it online.’ The fact that she thought it was a nice opportunity to get rid of Dutch, to make money was heartbreaking.
15. Rick Santorum, I think he’s called, talked about Grandma killing, which he misunderstood a bit, because we don’t kill grandma’s. However, this is very often refered to online, whenever I have a discussion with a redneck. They throw; ‘Well, you guys kill grandma’s, so-‘ in my face, whenever they lose an argument.
16. A guy tried to convince people in a groupchat (including me) that he’d seen a woman fug a dog on the street, which I said he probably only saw because he was high. The group seemed impressed and wanted to hear more. The man said he’d seen a wh0re offer herself to him on the street in Amsterdam, and that he did her right there and then. He threw dollars on her back, while she said; ‘The cops are coming!’ but the cops that came around the corner, just stuck their thumbs in the air and handed him a blunt, saying this was what Amsterdam was for. Everyone seemed to believe this was at least partially true.
I pointed out that the wh0res were indoors (it is kindof cold here) and that you don’t pay them in dollars, that cops don’t hand you spliffs because you cannot smoke that on the street and that he was probably just extremely high when he dreamed all of this and they disconnected. I'm just saying, had I not been there, the rest would've instantly believed it, because in American movies, that is how we are portrayed. It is never a realistic depiction (you can Youtubesearch for it, there are videos of a walkthrough the red light district) and as my sister said; 'If Amsterdam was like in the American movies, I would not want to live in this country,' )
17. A woman complimented us on the capitalistic-modernisation (I am unhappy with this..) and she said things like; ‘Yes, because you got that from us…we invented this and that and this and that.’
I said; ‘No…that was our invention.’ But the woman seemed convinced that everything modern came from America and that we had not invented anything, that we just took it all from America, because America was the country of invention and ‘dreams.’ She also claimed we all wanted to be in America and that the whole world looked up to the best country.
18. A man in Amsterdam (tourist) randomly told me that ‘you’re welcome’ for the USA rescueing everyone during the war. I pointed out how Canada rescued us, the USA just sortof came after to sweep the floor, but we send our thankyou-for-the-liberation-tulips to Canada. He got upset and said that America was the ‘superpowercountry’ and I should show some respect. He warned me that America had nukes and that ‘we could wipe your insignificant country off the map if we want.’ I said he coudn’t find my insignificant country on the map if he wanted to and he walked off. (I live next to Amsterdam, there are many tourists.)
19. FoxNews has a video on why you shouldn’t send your teenagers to the Netherlands because you can ‘marry more than one person here’ (I think they’re confused…there are American States where you can do that..not in the Netherlands though) and that whenever a teenager is depressed, we’ll give them a suicidepill. They said that there was a risk that if your teen went on a schooltrip to Amsterdam, that we’d kill them here (like the Grandma’s) with those pills and that it was better not to send them here.
(Which is not only a gross insult, but also a slap in the face to the large amounts of cancer-inflicted-teens that are currently perishing in their hospitalbeds, because the rules on euthanasia have been stricter and stricter under the influence of the (christian) American government, that has way too much influence on the Dutch government. The citizens are basically suffering here, because your Christian court think that God wants that and our government is a little b!tch to the USA and gladly goes that way if it makes them money.)
20. There is ofcourse a large amount of people mixing up German and Dutch folklore, which is annoying but not a really big deal. But Southpark (kyles mom is a beach video) shows perfectly what happens. Lederhosen (Leather trousers) are German and they always put them on the Dutch boys and give them clogs and a windmill, after which they make them say something in German or in Pennsylvania Dutch.
Friends had a lady that was Dutch (Heidi…famous German name) and she spoke like a Russian and looked like someone from the 80’s. Another lady spoke ‘Dutch’ but she was clearly American and had never spoken Dutch before. There’s a compilation online of people trying to speak Dutch and the only time it went alright, was when they used Carice van Houten (Mellisandre) who is actually Dutch. The rest is absolutely wildly insanely bad and always in combination with the German stereotypes, the Lederhosen and sometimes even Swedish stuff. If you want a seperate list of this, I am very willing to write that down too.
Have a good day.
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@chrisb2535 In Spiderman, they put goats walking around on the square/street in The Netherlands, on some sortof farmersmarket or something, they played Dutch-inspired music, a girl had clogs on, etc.
They had a jail with rusty bars (4 bars) in the door. And a rusty old bike-lock on it. And an old telephone from the 40's as I can remember.
In every American movie, the Dutch (and Germans, and other Europeans) are portrayed as really weird, extraordinary strange people, with weird traditions like licking cheese and then marrying while sitting on top of reindeer-antlers, hiding frogs around the house and having a grandma in a rockingchair with a gangrenous-rotten foot that tells the future (the foot, not the grandma.)
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It's not really about shedding the accent with age, it's about how consistently you practice the languages, which accent you practice (in the case of english, it'd be american or british or both) and if you are fully engaged in a conversation or if you're distracted, tired or sick or otherwise not focussed.
If I'm fully engaged, I can speak as I write, here.
If I'm distracted, or listening to Dutch tv, I say; 'Owkay, sow, I can shpeak a liddle as I ride here.'
If I got woken up too early and asked to speak English, it'll be; 'Whu..wat..I..I kennot shpeek Unglish ride naw. Ayum táájurd. Leef mie allown. Ay wanto sleep.Shtop it. Fakkof.
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@jamesr1703
I'm serious. Two Valleygirls complained about the lack of goats, others wondered if there was a horsecart from SchipholAirport to the hotel, they were expecting 'mud-roads' and complimented (backhanded) the airport out loud for being 'almost as clean as the USA" (while a cleaner was scrubbing the floor that their heels touched with bleach, of all things.)
I've had people ask me where they could get safe water, because 'obviously the tapwater was not drinkable' because it 'did not have any chlorine' and was therefore 'infected with parasites, drugremains and filth' and they also didn't dare to walk into buildings like churches, because those could 'collapse any second.'
The church has been standing since about 6000 years, but sure, Hank will walk into it and that'll be the final blow that makes the church collapse.
People have panicked about the dangerous streets of Amsterdam, but instead of panicking about the dangers of walking into the bikelane (which they should nót do, and instead just walk onto) they are telling me that they are afraid of getting their food drugged by a café, like 'in the movies' and then they'll be sodomized by strangers and sold onto the sexmarket, 'like in taken.'
I assured them nobody would drug you for free, we are famously keen on making money here, so if your brownie stinks of hash, and it costs more than a normal one, and you look around and see weed-leafs everywhere and the sign above you says; 'Coffeeshop!' with weedleafs and people around you are smoking and Bob Marley music is playing in the background, then it is safe to assume you walked into a drugbar. They famously advertise the drugs, otherwise the tourists wouldn't find it.
We don't 'drug you for fun' so that we can clean up the floor after an overwhelmed American vomits on it.
There is no time for such nonsense, there is money to be made.
I can't give anyone guarantees, but I can assure you the chances of the following fears happening are slim;
1. Witnessing prostitutes fuck animals and humans on the street
(They famously have windows and they don't fuck animals)
2. Seeing gay people fuck on the street (they famously have wonderfully designed houses and stylish bedrooms for that.)
3. Having people kidnap you like Liam Neeson's daughter to sell your American-style bodies on the dark web.
4. Invite you over for a lovely cup of tea and then announce a spontanious orgy
5. Offer you free sex, with the sole purpose of spreading diseases
6. Giving your tourist-teenagers euthanasia-pills because they mentioned they are depressed
7. Casually killing your grandma with euthanasia-pills because that's what we get off on
8. Marry you and then reveal we are now 3 people in a marriage (Fox News was convinced we did this)
9. Beat you up, because we saw a cross on your neck and we consume Christian blood
Street-cons WILL however....pickpocket you, so watch out
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But at the same time, you're a melting pot of different cultures, and it would be nice to understand what all the Mexicans are saying.
Youknow..there was a man that worked at the borderpatroll and said something along the lines of; 'Hola, do you have a mucho dinero in your trucky-trailer?' and that was it.
We don't have to speak German either...the chance of me walking in a forest and suddenly being confronted with the fact that I've crossed the border into Germany and I don't understand anyone anymore, is really small.
We just learn it because it's easier to communicate with the neighbours that way, and it's nice to eavesdrop on them (for a change...) and youknow, be able to chat a bit with tourists that walk around in the town.
Americans are confronted with other languages every single day, especially in big cities, but the schools don't bother to teach anything outside the borders, not anything remotely worthy of mentioning.
I have written down all the states as a kid, when I was 9. I had to learn those, in a few weeks. I'm from the Netherlands, we're miles away from your country. I had to mark them on a map, learn a few presidents, what was going on with George Bush, what was happening in the big cities, what was happening in the countrysides etc.etc.
Joking about you all speaking one language is not necessarily a superiority-stunt, it's a subtle confrontation and encouragement about maybe the US adding a language to their average school-day and removing a few things that don't matter, to balance it out.
I mean, everyone speaking on this page went through a good few years of learning your language, so they could communicate with you. It's nice if the Americans did something like that for their neighbours too. Or at the least, that they read up on the news and realise that most European countries that they think have horses and carts and goats on the street, are more modernized than the average US city.
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