Enough of the seriousness! Time to explore the puns, proverbs and playfulness that characterise how our linguists spend their time. Whether they’re trying to be formal, funny or fiendish, come have a chuckle or twist your tongue to Europe’s most curious manners of speaking.
How to best piss off all your fellow Europeans? Learn here how to avoid inefficient general insults and instead go straight to the heart of the matter, thus saving time, which can be invest in improving the economy or maybe cleaning up the place a bit.
What exactly happened to make it illegal to own a single guinea pig? Who thought it credible to forbid getting drunk in a pub? Or to stop people locking up burglars, running ‘violently’, driving dirty cars, or sleeping on a bench?
Hold your horses! How much do you know about Europeans’ animal idioms? Does the Slovenian roosters’ breakfast ring you a bell? Will you pay the Portuguese duck for that? Do not worry: we won’t let you swallow French grass snakes!
Have you ever wondered what your neighbouring country’s nicknames are, and how they got them? Do you know which European country is considered the Land of a Thousand Lakes? Where do the nicknames ‘Albion’, ‘Hellas’, ‘Magyars’ or ‘Lusitania’ come from?
When Spaniards “pretend to be Swedish“, they just pretend to be ignorant… When Romanians “steal the German’s pipe“, they are just getting drunk… And Slovenians “go to Rome” when they give birth!
You may not know but “Romanians are aces in love”, “in the morning even yogurt makes you fat” in Serbia, “Cheese has a smell” in Croatia, “Karin shave well” in Sweden, or “mice have no grandsons” in Italy…
What happens if you bite your tongue in Serbia? If a bird shit on you in Lithuania? If you spill wine on the table in Portugal? If you knock on wood in Germany? Or if you touch the red pompom of a sailor’s beret in France?
But who are we laughing at? Belgian jokes are very popular in France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands such as jokes about the Swedes are very common in Norway, Denmark and Finland. In the Baltic countries, people tend to laugh at the Estonians, whereas in Balkan countries, they do jokes about the Bosnians.
“She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore”, “Tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo en un trigal”, “Les chaussettes de l’archi-duchesse, sont-elles sèches, archi-sèches ?” Tongue Twisters will teach you a lot on European culture and history.
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