Picking up the lingo

This chapter is obviously extremely relative, in the sense that how difficult a language feels depends on a load of factors such as the age when you start learning it (or are first exposed to it), your mother tongue or, even, whether you're cut out at all for that sort of stuff.

However, here's a few points you may find equally useful and disheartening - especially if you're an English speaker.

Germany

Learning German is a fucking nightmare. There. I've said it and I stand by it. Like good old Mark Twain once wrote: "Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp", which is not quite as poignant as another one of his observations: "In early times some sufferer had to sit up with a toothache, and he put in the time inventing the German language."

Spot on.

Quite simply, German is not a language that you can start learning a bit, and then hope to get by and build up as you go along. Unlike, say, neo-latin languages or English, storing vocabulary and attempting to buid sentences around words you (think you) know is likely to backfire spectacularly. In other words, until you master a considerable level, you may find it very difficult to get your message across (apart from simple set phrases, of course), which in turn will make you feel like a retard.

There is a list of about 75 reasons why, aside from languages using different alphabets like Russian, German is possibly the most frustrating, twisted, hostile and complicated European language to learn.

And yet, somehow, there's a category of native English speakers who like to pontificate that "English and German have a lot in common", which is one of the most superficial and laziest statements you could possibly hear when languages are discussed.

A nice stroll?

Where's the cycle lane?

Germany

I have a lot of respect for the way the Germans go about things; their efficiency, practicality, organisation, as well as their all-round no nonsense approach to a lot of things.

That said, however, there is one aspect of everyday life in Germany that lets them down big time. Something, I must admit, that they are conducting in the most imbecilic fashion imaginable.

I’m talking about their bogus cycle lanes, or the way bicycles in general are such a pain in the arse all over German cities. Whoever thought up the system should be slapped in the face with a rotten fish.

Quite simply, strolling around any German town can be a very stressful experience.

Food twitches

England

Say what you like about English or British grub, but it is my firm belief that the Brits have probably the most outward-looking and open-minded approach to food in general.

While it is common to spot people in other countries poking fun or sneering at what is deemed "inferior foreign food", you won't find the same attitude in the UK, especially amongst newer generations (the old days of nans slagging off "that foreign muck" are hopefully over, hopefully...).

Of course, no-one's arguing that British cuisine is as varied, inviting and world-renowned as many others, but it is a fact that people outside the UK are often guilty of spectacular bias whenever their brain attempts to process the notion of cuisine north of the channel.

"Fish & chips", I hear you say...

Twitches and traits

Teufelsbruck, Großer Hamburg

Germany

One of the first things you’ll notice if working or spending time with German people on their home turf is their near-obsession with opening windows “to get some fresh air”.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. And the same terrifying thought crossed my mind too: “perhaps I may have BO and perhaps that’s what’s driving them all to that!”. At the end of the day, how many non-fresh-smelling people that you know are aware of the biggest cardinal sin of all (i.e. inflicting BO upon innocent victims)?

However, relief came when I heard other non-Germans also remarking about it (not the BO, but the serial window-opening).

In other words, no matter if it’s pissing it down, or the temperature is minus, or there’s gale force ten outside, within five minutes any of your fellow workmates will race to fling open the window “to get some fresh air”. Often they even do it as they walk into an empty room or environment that smells completely neutral or clean - which is why such behaviour reeks of compulsion to me...

Social conservatism

Italy

If there's one country in the Western world where historical events can be directly linked to current cultural attitudes, then that place has to be Italy.

This is particulalry most striking when you look at how other places have managed to pull well away from their darkest days (see, for instance, Germany and Spain below). When you look at culture and society in Italy, instead, I'm afraid you can clearly detect the whiff of where a certain far-right ideology stemmed from.

Let's start with homophobia.

Italy is miles behind even when compared to what the UK used to be like in the caveman days of Section 28 and Margaret Thatcher. Just to give you an idea, last week's newspapers reported that the first university LGBT society in the whole country, something that has been run of the mill for years anywhere in Europe, was finally being set up at a campus in Rome - in the year 2011.

Booze

(also see 'pubs' and 'food'--- both chapters coming up)

England

They say that, such is harsh weather a central part of their life, that the Eskimo have an unusually large number of words for 'snow'. This may explain why the English language is packed with synonyms for the word "drunk": wasted, smashed, mashed, lashed, boxed, plastered, rat-arsed, shitfaced, hammered, fucked, pissed, sloshed, blottoed, slaughtered, paralytic, wrecked, wankered, mullered, gatted, trolleyed and -of course- the more twee "intoxicated".

Check your French, Spanish or German thesaurus and you just won't find such a generous range to pick from.

In fact, one of the most typical reactions you're likely to hear from people fresh from a trip to England is their sheer shock at the amount of alcohol guzzled in the Land of Hope and Glory...

Languages: who drew the short straw?

Italy

A new resident to Italy would take but five minutes to clock that the whole country appears collectively hellbent on destroying their language.

Any workplace, TV programme, newspaper, or even supermarket would stuff the unlikeliest of sentences with English words (in many cases misused and, in most, horrifically pronounced).

In turn, this is ensuring the virtual disappearance of perfectly valid Italian words. And so you’ll find that they no longer have a “riunione”, but a “miting” instead. “Facciamo il miting e poi mi dite qual e’ il fid-beck” (“Let’s do a meeting and then you’ll tell me what you think”). Or…an Italian doesn’t exercise, he “va a fare feet-ness”, he does fitness, whatever the fuck that means. Oh and listen, “beck-ap” your files, won’t you?

More, when the Italian telly shows the equivalent of Match of the Day, they won’t show “le fasi salienti”, but “gli ai-laits”, the “highlights”, because they obviously reckon that butchering an English word or ten makes them look trendy and cool and up-to-date with whatever they think it’s “feh-shun” (by which they mean “fashionable”, of course). Cringeworthy or what?...