Sometimes you just can’t cotton-pickin’ remember what something’s called. Sometimes it’s a lot of times. And sometimes you just don’t know the proper name of an object. What do you do in these moments? You use a placeholder of course!
Think about: what is Europe, if not a community of philosophers? What would be Europe without its philosophy? Better than Tinder, faster than OkCupid, just get to know some of the best European philosophers!
“Fuck!” says the Brit, “Putain!” answers the French, “Cazzo!” replies the Italian, “Kurwa!” says the Pole… Europeans have their own words to express anger, irritation, contempt, or disappointment, but they don’t use the same swear metaphors.
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?
Imagine Switzerland's William Tell, riding the polish Dragon of Krakow through the French Broceliande Forest… Dream of the iIalian Befana joining the witch’s ride in Austria… Visualize the Flying Dutchman sailing along Scotland's Loch Ness, with the German temptress Lorelei...
Cheers, Santé, Prost, Saúde, Skål, Kippis, Na zdravje or Egészségedre – those little words hide the most interesting tales. And they might just be the first words a foreigner learns when arriving in another European country…
English is the language of Shakespeare; German, the language of Goethe; Italian the language of Dante or Dutch the language of Vondel. All these expressions refer to famous writers, who are not only important for their national audience, but also to Europe's fame in the world.
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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