I spent a long time in the UK and currently live in Czechia.

In the UK if you stood in a group conversation and weren’t saying anything, people tried to involve you and asked you questions. In Czechia, unless you said something, you would be ignored*. I know this is kind of an odd thing to consider but I’ve determined it’s the one thing that decides if I’m able to find actual close friends in a society. Because I’ve spent several years here (am Czech) and although I’ve made acquaintances I’ve never met anyone who was more interested to get to know me than I was to get to know them. This has left me feeling lonely.

So in order to know where else I’d fit in, I’d be curious to know how this hypothetical situation would play out in your country. I know the dividing line must be somewhere between UK and CZ but don’t know where. When I visited Eastern Germany and spoke German it was only marginally better than Czechia.

*So when trying to make conversation, all the effort had to come from your side (which gets tiring). In the UK you could feel that the other person was trying to help carry the conversation too. And actually, I’ve found this happens when non native speakers switch to English too (eg. when Erasmus people came)

  • aasatru@kbin.earth
    7·
    4 months ago

    I think Brits are unusually great at casual conversation. Most of mainland Europe would struggle in comparison.

    I’m Scandinavian, so clearly we don’t come out looking too good. I think a lot of people will be well meaning and curious, but talking to strangers is just not something we do.

    The Spanish seem to be as extroverted as the Brits or more, except that it’s generally reserved for other Spaniards. Other people would probably be too weirded out by it.

    In Italy I feel like regional differences are huge. I lived in Florence where people were similar to Norwegians in this respect, but Italians from other regions living there were super extroverted.

    Living in Berlin I got the impression there are two types of Germans. One is very open minded and sociable, the other is very happy to talk to you about their hobby, whatever it is.

    Belgians are good fun, they’re used to language confusion, and they don’t take themselves too seriously.

    The French are good fun, they’re not used to language confusion, and they sometimes take themselves too seriously.

    I don’t want to comment on the Dutch.