The DUMBEST questions Americans ask Germans (American Reaction)

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[icetwo]

The answer to most of the "DO you have ... in Germany" is: "We invented it"

[chrissiesbuchcocktail]

An American once asked me if we have cars in Germany and it's hard to top that one. I was so confused that I only said yes and didn't even mention Mercedes, VW, BMW.

[dertom]

Fun fact: Two of the most popular foods in Germany are pizza and pasta, but that's italian food.
Btw, the inventor of the modern refrigerator was Carl Linde, a german engineer.

[itsnemosoul]

Fun fact: I worked at a traditional German bakery in America and many Americans didn't like our pretzels. Traditional German pretzels are cooked in lye before baking, therefore darker, and less soft. We don't serve them with Mustard or cheese sauce so Amercians were often disappointed. We actually had quite a few customers trying to give them back because they thought they were not made fresh. We had to market them as "hard pretzels" to avoid customer complaints. At one point my boss from Munich gave up and invested in a stash of Ketchup and Mustard. It was HILARIOUS to watch him give out these little packets whenever customers asked for them and the look of pure disgust on his face. I love these memories.

[stephaniepeters]

My favorite was "Do you have electricity", to which my friend answered, "no, we build Porsches, BMWs, Volkswagen and Mercedes by candle light."

[kjk]

When I was in the US, Virginia, in 2018, a guy around 30 asked me if I had ever met "that guy named Hitler".... I thought he was joking, but he looked at me very seriously and waited for an answer. I was speechless at first, then I laughed and explained to him that Hitler died in 1945 and I was born in 1989.
I don't want to say that all Americans are uneducated or egocentric, but several times in my life I got the impression that for very many Americans only the USA exists and everything else around it is totally unimportant.

[OrkarIsberEstar]

so my 2 most fun encounters with americans.
1) "Where are you from?" "Austria" "oh cool, do you see lots of kangaroos?" "uhm...no not australia. Austria. Mozart, Alps..." "oh so you are german" "...not quite..."
though i give that a semi pass as historicly austria and germany used to be one country for about 10 years and culturally are similiar enough. its a bit like saying "im from texas" "oh so you are canadian"

2) Speaking latin with a friend for practise. Woman walks in, stops, listens "Your spanish sounds weird" "thats because its not spanish, its latin" "honey calling it something else doesnt make it less racist" "huh?" "white people speaking spanish is racist "what...how?" "you are appropriating mexican culture" "...uhm...you...you know that spanish was originally spoken by white people in...say...spain?" "haha you fool, spain is not a country, its a language"

[simi]

The why do you call Germany Deutschland question is straight-up as if I'd walk up to an American and say "Why do you call the United States United States? Why don't you just called it Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika?" which is what we call it in German.

It's almost as if German and English are each their own distinct languages :'D

[riversong]

While living in Japan, in a town which doesn't see many foreigners, an American couple asked me for help because I was the only other western person in the supermarket: American Lady: "Oh, thank you so much! It's our first day, we just moved here, we are English teachers. And this store is terrible, everything is written in this strange signs nobody can read anyway and NOBODY of the staff speaks English!" Me: "Yeah. Well, this is Japan. Therefore the writing is Japanese. And foreigners don't come here very often." First, I thought she was joking around. But no. They were serious. Guy: "But they could at least write in English so people can read what they are buying! Isn't it confusing for the people to have to translate everything? How do you know which laundry detergent to get?" Me: "If you plan on staying here, maybe you should study some Japanese. You know, for daily life. It helps a lot, believe me. And they don't have to translate anything, it's their native language." Lady: "Of course they have to translate in their head first. And learning Japanese? But why would we do that? ." Guy: "We teach English. They should just talk English to us. We're Americans, if we live here, they should try to speak in a way so we're able to understand!"

[gaiaorigin]

As a German, I guess a huge part of this is that we have a very different understanding of smalltalk. If you ask something super obvious (Do you have refrigerators? Do you have cars? Are our accents confusing? etc etc) it implies that either you have absolutely no idea of things you should know at least a bit about or you imply I have absolutely no idea of things I really should know about.... Or you honestly think we use horse-drawn carriages and live in huts without electricity.
Edit: Concerning the food, 99% of the time a "authentic German restaurant" in the US has absolutely nothing to do with traditional German food.

[sebahabu]

The Pretzel and Beer thing - always remember germany was divided between allies after WW2. If USA would be given the northern part of germany you were not germany-hyped on pretzel and beer... you would be hyped for crab rolls, fish, tea and liquorice .... traditional food from the north

[Lianara]

Felicia: Lists 3 rather small countries and the smallest continent
Ryan: Oh yeah that's basicaly the rest of the world

[MrIinford]

An American (in high school) seriously suggested to me to buy some stamps in America and take them back to Germany so I could send them a letter. I tried to explain that we have German Post Offices which require using German stamps, and if we didn't have Post Offices, it would not make sense to bring US stamps because there would not be a way to send it. I didn't get through to the person and ended up promising to buy stamps and take them back home.- Erika, if you are reading this.... I didn't.

[maxreiter]

In my 6 months in America I was asked many dumb questions. But the one that stuck with me was. „Does it rain in Germany?“ I couldn’t believe my ears and questioned the American society after that🤣

[isabellabihy]

Oh man, I've heard some of those questions myself while living in California from 1977 to 1980. A real classic: "Do you know refrigerators/freezers?" Then the most embarrassing one: "I was in Germany recently. I didn't see any statues of <he started WW2>"
WHAT? Or, another irritating one: "Why was the German re-unification such a big deal?"
The biggest shock I got as a software tech thirty years ago when American colleagues came to a big meeting at the client's site (a big bank in Germany) and the lady leading the American team told how surprised she was with the high-rises in the city, automobiles clogging the streets. She had expected ox- or horse-drawn carts. Later, she confided that her grandpa had told her that. BTW, he was a soldier in WW1.
OK, lady, you did come to Germany by plane. How do you think you'd have come here otherwise? By steamboat!
Oh my, oh my!

[okkietrooy]

I guess that the question if she speaks German fluently is caused by her speaking english so fluent.
Most Americans are not aware that it is possible to be fluent in two languages.
I am Dutch and I was asked once if we had our own language.

[MrFlo]

Here's a funny thought:
If some timezones are "in the future", the logic conclusion is that america is "in the past". And when you look at some laws or recent court rulings ...yeah..cant argue with that.

[SuperCraigjack]

Sadly time zones do seem to cause confusion and since I am in Australia trying to explain that Christmas is in summer is also difficult for some to grasp

[amiguus]

The refrigerator question just reminded me of many similar questions I was asked and awkward situations I faced in Japan.. Sometimes I felt they must think the rest of the world lives in caves and has never seen a microwave. The dorm lady was explaining 20+ year old girls how to use a shower, a toilet, a microwave, and a fridge. She also highly praised me when she saw me ironing my dress, like I was a 12 year old boy and she was a proud mother (I was 25 at that time..). Oh and my Japanese dorm-mates asked me if we eat noodles and rice in Europe, and when we went bowling one girls asked me if we also have bowling centres in my country...and many more. I feel Japanese are very similar to Americans in this respect.

[Danny]

Not a dumb question, but some funny situations I could add: I once worked in a hotel as receptionist here in Dublin. This American couple asked me, how many BLOCKS from here was Christchurch cathedral. I asked them what they meant, here in Ireland we do not do blocks, the street layout is all zig-zag, it is basically made for drunk people (and I underlined that with a zig-zag motion of hand). It made them laugh so hard. On another location I got to meet some Americans and we got to talk about me as a foreigner living in Ireland. They asked me what brought me here. I sarcastically replied "The weather." You should've seen the big eyes of disbelief or wonderment on them. That couple still needs to work on their sarcasm skills.