Well i know swiss people who think Tokyo is in China, Thailand and Taiwan are the same and that South Korea is the one with the dictator…..
Soo yeah i guess we are all idiots around the world.
But at the same time…. they prob think the whole Europe is just one country….
Even fewer Americans know that there is one amazing city in Switzerland that has three names, depending on which language you speak. “Luzern” in German, “Lausanne” in French and “Lugano”, if you speak Italian.
Can confirm that. I used to date an American with a degree in INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS and after six months I found out he thought I was Swedish all along…
Not just America, in UK I’ve been asked if I speak Swedish more times then I can count…
Honestly it boggles my mind. I know literally dozens of americans who think this.
I mean its not hard. One speaks a comically strange variation of a neighbouring language, have a history of proud warrior people and love the great outdoors and the other are swiss
I can appreciate that an average person in the Anglosphere will hear very seldom about either of these two countries. But still, why on earth does that mixup happen so often. The names sound nothing alike at all.
Spent a few years there while in high school, i swear to god it felt like being surrounded by special needs kids, and im anything but a bookworm
Some of the situations were so surreal i kept thinking it was candid camera or some shit
Can confirm: we are planning a trip to Switzerland next year and my daughter got excited and asked if we are going to learn Swedish.
I think thepoint is that someone is talking about Sweden and Switzerland as if they are states in the country of Europe…
Not to mention differentiating from the Dutch and Danish, neither of whom speak Deutsch very well.
This commentsection is what one might call a War between Americans and Swiss
This is common in Australia too. Being Swiss but growing up there people constantly asked about Sweden and if I speak Swedish.
I am an American living in Basel for two years now, and every-time I visit home someone asks me “how is Sweden??” I usually just say I don’t know, colder probably.
I remember both as amazing places I’ll never get to live in
Oh our Swiss? So I’m guessing up there you get pretty cold winters?” “Yes, it gets very cold up up their in the Swiss Alps *wink*” “Ooooh right”.
I’m from the US. I visited/lived in Switzerland a couple times, 2 and 6 months. During my second stay, I went to Sweden for a few days. When recounting these times to Americans, I get the most confusing looks sometimes as the gears start turning in their brains.
I had a friend intentionally make this “joke” to me for years, although I never found it funny, and they only stopped after I called them out on it in front of others. The disrespect! I have no chill for this anymore!
I cant separate the words in my head. In my native language are vastly different and I don’t have this issue. I only have this problem in English.
To be fair though, plenty of Swiss people also don’t know their world geography. I think the average level of general knowledge here compared to globally isn’t that competitive either…
I have a Spanish friend who kept getting the two confused as well.
It’s the same thing with Denmark and The Netherlands, further complicated by The Netherlands also being known as Holland. There also seems to be a perception that they speak Danish in The Netherlands.
And it is not just Americans. On multiple occasions I have had Finns tell me that the Dutch speak Flemish (the language of the Northern half of Belgium). While the two languages are practically the same, I think the Dutch tend to think of Flemish as a softer, more pure version of Dutch that hasn’t adopted so many borrowed words from English.
Wait, I’m Swedish, have I been in the wrong sub this whole time? ^(/s)
When I lived in the US, I knew a girl who couldn’t wrap her head around the fact I wasn’t from Sweden. She was quite intelligent in other ways, but her grasp of geography was dreadful.
My friend and I, who were spending holidays in the US, took a taxi to LA airport the day we flew back to Switzerland. Our taxi driver asked us where we’re from and we said “Switzerland”. Shortly after that he played a CD from ABBA on the car radio.
Don’t censor the names of verified people, they’re public… plus they chose to be stupid in public… let us shame them lol.
True story. Years ago, my mother sent a package to us in Switzerland. It never arrived. Some weeks later it was returned to her from Sweden. She repacked it out the correct address on it with Switzerland underlined in large black lines. She took it to the local post office and explained that it was to be sent to Switzerland and not Sweden. The package never arrived, and came back to her weeks later from Swaziland. She kept it and gave to us during our next visit.
No, the US Postal System was not too well-informed back then … or now, for that matter…
Lived in Canada all my life. I now live in Switzerland, but previous to my migration I hadn’t the slightest clue of Schweizer Deutsch as all the Swiss I had met spoke French. Now learning Swiss and German at the same time; I have chronic Kopfschmerz jetzt…
Lol my boyfriend of 3 years still accidentally calls me swedish to this day (we are british but i was born and grew up in switzerland) and my flatmates still say im from sweden or that i am swiss and speak swedish.😂
Swaziland change their name because too many people was confusing it with Switzerland and as dyslexic I have too many times.
Some years ago I ordered a software (DVD was the standard back then) from a well known company in Burlington, Massachusetts. After two months, the parcel came to my door. That’s when I realized it was first sent to *Swaziland*, returned to US and finally arrived to my place in *Switzerland*. Pheew ! 🙂
32 comments
u/michaelreeves now you’ve made EVERYBODY angry
Well i know swiss people who think Tokyo is in China, Thailand and Taiwan are the same and that South Korea is the one with the dictator…..
Soo yeah i guess we are all idiots around the world.
But at the same time…. they prob think the whole Europe is just one country….
Even fewer Americans know that there is one amazing city in Switzerland that has three names, depending on which language you speak. “Luzern” in German, “Lausanne” in French and “Lugano”, if you speak Italian.
Can confirm that. I used to date an American with a degree in INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS and after six months I found out he thought I was Swedish all along…
Not just America, in UK I’ve been asked if I speak Swedish more times then I can count…
Honestly it boggles my mind. I know literally dozens of americans who think this.
I mean its not hard. One speaks a comically strange variation of a neighbouring language, have a history of proud warrior people and love the great outdoors and the other are swiss
I can appreciate that an average person in the Anglosphere will hear very seldom about either of these two countries. But still, why on earth does that mixup happen so often. The names sound nothing alike at all.
Spent a few years there while in high school, i swear to god it felt like being surrounded by special needs kids, and im anything but a bookworm
Some of the situations were so surreal i kept thinking it was candid camera or some shit
Can confirm: we are planning a trip to Switzerland next year and my daughter got excited and asked if we are going to learn Swedish.
I think thepoint is that someone is talking about Sweden and Switzerland as if they are states in the country of Europe…
Not to mention differentiating from the Dutch and Danish, neither of whom speak Deutsch very well.
This commentsection is what one might call a War between Americans and Swiss
This is common in Australia too. Being Swiss but growing up there people constantly asked about Sweden and if I speak Swedish.
I am an American living in Basel for two years now, and every-time I visit home someone asks me “how is Sweden??” I usually just say I don’t know, colder probably.
I remember both as amazing places I’ll never get to live in
Oh our Swiss? So I’m guessing up there you get pretty cold winters?” “Yes, it gets very cold up up their in the Swiss Alps *wink*” “Ooooh right”.
I’m from the US. I visited/lived in Switzerland a couple times, 2 and 6 months. During my second stay, I went to Sweden for a few days. When recounting these times to Americans, I get the most confusing looks sometimes as the gears start turning in their brains.
I had a friend intentionally make this “joke” to me for years, although I never found it funny, and they only stopped after I called them out on it in front of others. The disrespect! I have no chill for this anymore!
I cant separate the words in my head. In my native language are vastly different and I don’t have this issue. I only have this problem in English.
To be fair though, plenty of Swiss people also don’t know their world geography. I think the average level of general knowledge here compared to globally isn’t that competitive either…
I have a Spanish friend who kept getting the two confused as well.
It’s the same thing with Denmark and The Netherlands, further complicated by The Netherlands also being known as Holland. There also seems to be a perception that they speak Danish in The Netherlands.
And it is not just Americans. On multiple occasions I have had Finns tell me that the Dutch speak Flemish (the language of the Northern half of Belgium). While the two languages are practically the same, I think the Dutch tend to think of Flemish as a softer, more pure version of Dutch that hasn’t adopted so many borrowed words from English.
Wait, I’m Swedish, have I been in the wrong sub this whole time? ^(/s)
When I lived in the US, I knew a girl who couldn’t wrap her head around the fact I wasn’t from Sweden. She was quite intelligent in other ways, but her grasp of geography was dreadful.
My friend and I, who were spending holidays in the US, took a taxi to LA airport the day we flew back to Switzerland. Our taxi driver asked us where we’re from and we said “Switzerland”. Shortly after that he played a CD from ABBA on the car radio.
Don’t censor the names of verified people, they’re public… plus they chose to be stupid in public… let us shame them lol.
True story. Years ago, my mother sent a package to us in Switzerland. It never arrived. Some weeks later it was returned to her from Sweden. She repacked it out the correct address on it with Switzerland underlined in large black lines. She took it to the local post office and explained that it was to be sent to Switzerland and not Sweden. The package never arrived, and came back to her weeks later from Swaziland. She kept it and gave to us during our next visit.
No, the US Postal System was not too well-informed back then … or now, for that matter…
Lived in Canada all my life. I now live in Switzerland, but previous to my migration I hadn’t the slightest clue of Schweizer Deutsch as all the Swiss I had met spoke French. Now learning Swiss and German at the same time; I have chronic Kopfschmerz jetzt…
Lol my boyfriend of 3 years still accidentally calls me swedish to this day (we are british but i was born and grew up in switzerland) and my flatmates still say im from sweden or that i am swiss and speak swedish.😂
Swaziland change their name because too many people was confusing it with Switzerland and as dyslexic I have too many times.
Some years ago I ordered a software (DVD was the standard back then) from a well known company in Burlington, Massachusetts. After two months, the parcel came to my door. That’s when I realized it was first sent to *Swaziland*, returned to US and finally arrived to my place in *Switzerland*. Pheew ! 🙂