I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it’s pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that’d be rather time consuming.
Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can’t ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.
edit: the high number of replies mentioning “swimming” made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.
Speaking more than one language. Being from Switzerland, we’re required to study 2 languages (+ our native one) at school. So it’s not infrequent to encounter swiss people who speak 4+ languages
In Germany it’s also mandatory - but learning the language at school unfortunately doesn’t necessarily mean you can speak it. LucasArts adventures contributed more to my language skills than my first English teacher. I’m always shocked about the lack of English skills in a lot of Germans when I’m back visiting. Rather surprisingly one of my uncles born in the 30s spoke pretty good English, though.
We’re now living in Finland - me German, wife Russian, we each speak to the kids in our native language, between each other English. So they’re growing up with 4 languages.
It’s quite interesting to watch them grow up in that situation. When learning about a new historical figure my daughter always asks which languages they spoke - and few weeks ago she was surprised someone only spoke two languages. So I explained that some people only speak one language - she gave me a very weird look, and it took a while to convince her that I’m not just making a bad joke.
Also Germany.
I learned english in school but only enough to be able to read it.
Once I started reading user submitted short stories (lile fan fics but different) my grammar really improved.
Nowadays the content I consume is basically 90% english based.Just my capitalization and grammar structure sucks. Also my vocal skills as I have no one to talk to.
But: I really have to thank my last Grundschul and Realschul english teachers. Without those two I may have never got into english that well.
For me it was mainly watching films and tv shows in english. I’ve always preferred the original audio on anything, really. So it motivated me a good bit to become more fluent.
The only german dub I didn’t hate was Breaking Bads’, and even then I wasn’t overly fond of it.Can’t get over english cartoons dubs.
Ben10, Avatar ATLA and spongebob sound so much worse in english compared to german to my ears. Could not enjoy it.
Live action movies are usually equal or only slightly worse regarding original vs dubbed german.Now that I think about it, there is one that’s infinitely better in German, and that’s The Emperors’ new Groove
Legendary
So let me specify, I prefer the original if it’s live action
Oh yeah. Kuzcos Königsklasse is awesome.
Especially the villains.
Never watches the series, but it seems good
Without those two I may have never gotten into english that well.
FTFY. Not a dig, just correcting your already very good English.
It’s got in British English.
That’s a point current generation children are actively working on by following English-speaking streamers, communicating in predominantly English Discords, etc. The worst: my kid chose to prefer American English. Where did I go wrong?
I guess you didnt realize until it was too late.
Yeah, I think I’ve lost him (to the Colonies).
American english is the standard dialect for online content. And without exposure other dialects can be really hard to understand.
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Only speaking one language fluently makes me feel like garbage regularly, none of my schooling really stuck and I can never commit to language or feel enough confidence to use anything I do learn.
Found the Brit/American/Australian? (Delete as appropriate)
I believe firmly that anyone can do it. You just need to find community and a good reason to keep going.
In Sweden kids learn English from second grade and a third language from fifth grade.
What really annoys me is how many programmers seem to expect us to only be able to understand one language. I much rather have the program made in English than to read a bad Swedish translation.
As in non swedish programmers try to translate into Sweedish for you?
Yes exactly. Google is a big culprit of this, for instance translating descriptions of apps in Google play or giving me results on Google search in Swedish when I specifically wrote it in English. If I had wanted results in Swedish I would have written it in Swedish. Adding quotation marks doesn’t even help. I miss the time when you actually got what you searched for and not what Google believes that you search for… YouTube has an issue in the app when looking at playlist. Since the word “visningar” is so much longer than “views” the rest of the line is cut off. So you for instance can’t see if the video was posted 1 month ago or 1 year. This is more a failure of gui due to translation than the translation it self though.
On the subject of shitty translations: a budget webpage translated “disabled”, as in “this option is turned off”, as “funktionshindrad” which means a person with a disability. I bug reported it and the initial response was:
We do not currently support this functionality, but will pass your feedback on to our product team, who will make a note of it and try to incorporate it into our product as soon as possible.
Two months later they wrote that it would be forwarded to their product team for “whenever there’s an update in our system”. That was 10 months ago and it still isn’t fixed.
Presumably what they meant, yes. Sometimes YouTube translates video titles for example. Of course, the video is still in the original language, so it’s completely useless, except for videos without speech.
Every program should have a setting to define in which language you want to interact with it.
YouTube supports multiple audio tracks these days and sometimes it decides that I should listen to a dubbed version of a video. Somehow all media players are very limited when it comes to settings for language preferences.
Which is ridiculous and funny, because our (at least 15 year old) DVD system can swap between audio tracks flawlessly!
Growing up in Australia I was required to learn a second language in years 7 and 8. All I can remember is how to say “and now cumshot” thanks to my friend and I finding his dad’s porn collection.
I can speak a few languages, but only the one I speak right now is useful.
we’re required to study 2 languages (+ our native one) at school
This is crazy to me. I studied French at school for years and got to a decent enough level, but then when I tried to take Spanish later on I couldn’t deal with it. Maybe if they’d been concurrent it would’ve been a different story but I just couldn’t keep the languages separate in my brain. Then years later when I moved to a different country the French pretty much left my head as a new language replaced it.
I guess I’ve only got one “foreign language center” in my head and only one language can occupy it at any time.
you need to keep using it. Watch a show or read a book in that language every once in a while. It’ll do wonders to keep the brain on it.
Knowing how to swim. Basic life skill in a water-rich country, but many expats can’t.
Surprisingly, many Irish don’t know how to swim, even though it’s an island.
Never been to Ireland so apologies if this is stupid and wrong and dumb - I was under the impression that a large amount of the seaside was mountainous / cliff faces? If someone learned to swim under those conditions I’d say they’d likely be adopted by Poseidon himself.
There are plenty of beaches and people often travel to thembfor the sake of enjoying the beach. The main issue is that for 11-12 months of the year, the water is fucking freezing. If people learn to swim, it’s often in heated swimming pools as kids.
I can relate to this.
We learned swimming in primary school in Germany, no opting out.
But having lived in several African countries and now in China, it’s surprising how many people not only can’t swim, but are deathly afraid of water.
If you can’t swim, bring desthly afraid of water is a good survival instinct.
After an incident of near-drowning as a toddler, my parents prioritized swimming lessons in my childhood. I can never remember not being able to swim. However, when I was in the military, there was a survival swimming section where you had to get in a pool with full clothing and a weapon, and swim a length. You were supposed to keep the weapon above water at all time. So you’re doing a side-stroke with one arm holding a 7lb weight above water, in long-sleeved shirt and pants (I recall being grateful no boots or socks). Most of us California boys made it; lots of people didn’t make it with the rifle the whole way, or tapped out without getting anywhere at all. The point is, near the end, when I was exhausted from fighting the water, and it was starting to get hard to keep my head above water, I felt an unexpected panic rising. I can easily believe that if it had gone on much longer, the panic would have taken over and years of swimming experienced would go out the window, and I’d have ended up thrashing futiliy in the water like the guys who dropped out at the start.
Drowning is a singularly frightening experience.
Maybe that’s different from state to state. I grew up in Hessen but don’t remember having mandatory swimming lessons. I learned it mostly on my own so I don’t even have a „Seepferdchen“ and know a few people from NRW who don’t either. I remember there was the option to do it in school but not sure why I didn’t take it then.
Either way, not being able to swim at all is pretty rare in Germany because going to the pool is a popular activity for kids here.
Same in the US. Most schools do not have their own pool and swimming is not a required skill. Tons of people don’t know how to swim here.
Many schools in Germany also do not have their own pools. You will be transported on a bus to the closest one.
For me it’s not for a lack of trying. It just hasn’t stuck I guess.
In Australia it’s not just knowing how to swim but where to swim and when. A lot of tourists drown in the ocean here because they don’t know how to read the waves / don’t have an understanding of the local area.
Never swam in an ocean, could you elaborate?
As an Aussie what the person below has said is a big one here. We just call them rips. Basically if you just try to swim in them normally you won’t go anywhere and will just make yourself tired. Same goes if you’re caught in a rip and trying to get out. It can lead to people drowning from tiring out and going under. What you want to do is swim diagonally across the rip. Then you can go about your swim or swim safely back to shore. Another tip is if you don’t know what a rip looks like then it can be hard to see them from the shore or while your in the water. They aren’t waves.
Another one I think people usually have issues with or you hear of a tourist going missing is swimming in water inland. This is more of an up north Aus thing. Basically if you can’t see into the water your going to swim in them don’t. Crocs like to hang out in that sort of water. Very easy to not see them at all.
Great advice, appreciate that! I’ve only swam in small lakes, a couple of rivers, and the Black Sea, so yeah, I could easily see myself making some mistakes in Australian waters. Not that I’m planning to anytime soon, but if I do, I might as well stay alive thanks go this thread.
Cheers, mates!
Except for the crocs, this also applies to New Zealand waters.
If you feel yourself being pulled away from shore, relax, swim across not against.
Also suffers love rips, express line back behind the breakers.
He must be referring to riptides. In some spots the water hits the beach as waves. In others nearby, the water gets pulled back into the ocean, and those are the spots you need to avoid.
Then depending on the ebb and flow of the twice-daily tides, the riptides are stronger or weaker.There are ways to see where the riptides are, yet many people from my own coastal town are oblivious to these dangers. Inland/landlocked tourists are even more oblivious and vulnerable.
These are pretty common in northern California and Oregon as well. Just had 4 adults and 2 kids rescued from one yesterday at Cannon Beach, for example.
Why are you black
If the internet has taught me anything, it’s taught me to never swim in Australia. In freshwater, crocodiles will eat you. In the ocean, sharks and saltwater crocodiles will eat you.
Also riptides will pull you out, small venomous fish will crawl up your urinary tract, volcanic gases will take away buoyancy from the water so you will sink (plus the poisonous gas will kill you). Oh, and the sun will give you cancer. That is, if you don’t get bitten by a spider or snake in your hotel room before you even get to the waterline.
Btw did I mention that basically the entire population is descended from criminals who were sent there as punishment?
This guy is just cranky, not trying to kill you, just make you Go Away!
Mate, you forgot to mention the drop bears. Nasty little fuckers, fall out of a tree and maul your face.
This was news to me. My morning is now worse.
Swimming in Australia? Are you suicidal? Hell, even just being in Australia is a threat to life, if the internet is to believed. If it isn’t animals that want to murder you in a painful way, it’ll be plants or fire or plain water.
Our first nation’s people are one of the oldest cultures in the world which is really amazing if you consider just how harsh the country is to live in.
It could be me but I think all cultures are “the oldest”. It’s not like the Dutch just magically spawned into existence 50 years ago and the first Nations people today are culturally very different from the ones a thousand years ago.
Beyond that, if you survive living in Australia for thousands of years then you deserve it
I don’t really see that- there’s a difference between a contiguous culture and genetics. If you’re living in western Italy, you might be descended from and still inhabiting the area of the ancient etruscans, but it doesn’t mean you have the same culture. One could make an argument that you’re from the Roman or florentine culture, but you are from a culture that’s younger than etruscan culture.
Aboriginal Australians (I’m not sure about Torres Strait Islanders, so I hope that’s the right terminology) have been practicing elements of the same culture for longer than any other civilization we know about. You raise an interesting point about them now vs them 1000 years ago, but I grew up wildly differently from how my father did, and we’re still part of the same culture. It’s sort of like the question of stepping into the same river twice- the water is different, but it’s guided by the same constraints.
Knowing where to swim is easy in Australia.
You go to a beach patrolled by our awesome Surf Life Savers. Think like Baywatch, but they are real.
The life savers put flags out in the safest area, and they keep an active watch in the area. You swim between the flags.
No flags, no swim. Simples.
i never been to australia. For me as a good swimmer even as a kid the flags at the balticbsea cost meant nothing. my sports club would regularly go for a camp at the balticbsea and the stronger the waves the more fun we kids had. With such a background that the flags are just a hint for old and unsporty people, it is easy to underestimate the ocean.
A lot of people who don’t grow up here don’t know this though. I used to go on trips to the beach with my international student friends and they had no idea what those flags are and why you should swim between them.
Recently had a similar discussian with an Australian-German who went to elementary in Australia and a German life guard and the “how” is certainly interesting as well. Apparently, you get drilled to crawl in Australia (which is just called “swimming”) because that’s the only style that’s powerful enough to save your life in the face of strong ocean currents. Meanwhile, Germans start by learning the breast stroke in elementary because it’s the most efficient/least tiring form of swimming and the most dangerous water scenario here is people swimming too far out into lakes in forests in the middle of nowhere with no life guards, so the no. 1 priority is stamina to get you back on shore.
Riptides are scary shit. Even if you do know how to spot them, and what to do if they catch you. Thankfully my 42 year old ass brings a surfboard with me every time I go to the beach. I dunno if our beaches in SoCal are as dangerous as your beaches though.
Even the beaches in Australia want to kill you!
/Aj
Here in Switzerland the question you ask is usually, “do you ski or do you snowboard”? It’s just assumed that you can do at least one.
Makes me wonder, is there a higher rate of knee surgeons in Switzerland than in the rest of the world?
i’d assume not. If you Ski and Snowboard regularly, like all season or every weekend, you’d know well what to do and have the supporting muscles to reduce the risk of injury. Most people that go there for winter holidays just Ski or snowboard a week in a year, but then all day long. That is more injury prone as the lack of training meets an extensive physical stress.
Also people that do so in sports clubs will have specific training in the pre and post season times.
Yeah, but even if the chance per outing decreases a large increase in outings can still bring the average up. I was an avid skier growing up aND hit the slopes every year, the only surgery I’ve had was from a skiing accident in my early 20s when I was forced to wipe out or collide with another skier and snapped my ACL.
How to walk on ice is a big one. How to cross a street is another one here in Chicago (hint: look at the cars, not the lights).
For the ice one you mean taking a running start, sliding on it, and yelling weeeeeeeee… Right?
Just like crossing a street.
In Chicago it’s the same thing.
I didn’t, but that’s another learned skill in this category, yes.
Italy.
Cooking, every foreign person I know eats 20x more takeout and fast food than I do.
You remind me of chatting with a friend from Hong Kong and how surprised she was that I, as a young man, knew how to cook and did it for fun.
Guessing it’s high income country, where I live eating out the most expensive option, but from what I gather about US for example there’s a big eating out culture there and cooking at home can be a pure hobby for most of them
I’m in the UK and in my mid 20s and I’d say anyone over 30 has learnt to cook at home to save money and 75% of eating out is due to just being out over mealtime or doing something specific like taking someone for dinner.
I’d say I’m not a great cook. I enjoy following recipies and the presentation of food but generally I’d avoid cooking for anyone but my partner and closest friends because I don’t feel good enough to cook for others. When I’m cooking for myself I generally make something quick and easy that would either impress nobody with its 2-3 ingredients or all comes from one packet, but that’s less because I can’t cook at all and more because we culturally don’t care about food enough here and I’m gonna enjoy that pack of instant noodles with old spring onions just as much as a homemade curry because it’s faster, I won’t inevitably get the measurements just a bit wrong and I have a weak British palette.
I’m from the US and moved to Germany. I’m still regularly surprised at how little Germans cook. Tbf, lunch is the big warm meal, so I get not cooking much during the week, but it’s very different from what I’m used to. Everyone seems to be surprised that Americans ime eat out less than Germans, so I don’t know if it’s just that I moved from a home cooking hotspot to a takeout hotspot.
German takeout doesn’t make me feel nearly as shit as American takeout though, so that might be the real answer
I technically know how to, it just tests my patience a lot.
The challenge for me has been finding dishes that you can split out the thinking in to nicely separated activities, rather than committing to everything in one go. Marinades and slow cooking are great for that.
If the country is big enough (aka Canada) these differences can be between provinces. People from Ontario can’t ride bulls, but every kid in Alberta can. Newfoundlanders can fish but Manitobans are afraid of water. In British Columbia you are taught how to roll marijuana cigarette in high school but in Nova Scotia scotch is the bag lunch drink of choice.
Listen you can’t just make up places like “Canada” i mean come on.
In the dry SW US the answer is drink water when it’s 100F or worse 115F+. Having a half liter of water from the hotel for the half day mountain hike, or pounding a half gallon of ice water and throwing up five minutes later. Your body doesn’t tell you when you should drink, it tells you when you are already behind on drinking.
This is no joke. Even experienced hikers won’t bring enough water for their trek and will end up either being emergency heli-evac’d out or just plain die.
This is a real killer. People have no idea and tend to overestimate the risk from wildlife and underestimate the risk from weather conditions and exposure. Far more people are killed by hypothermia caused by extreme heat or cold than anything else in North American wilderness areas.
I’ve been part of my local SAR community here in Oregon for decades now and while we don’t have to worry so much about the heat, what gets people here is the cold.
If you are somehow lost or stuck in the high Cascades at night without adequate clothing or a heat source, you are in big trouble, especially if it rains or snows, both of which can and will happen even in the middle of summer.
River crossings are also a big danger since the current is always much stronger than it looks and the water is near freezing and if you fall in and don’t have dry clothes and it starts to rain and blow, you are fucked.
Rural Japan.
My kids (2 and 4) can use chopsticks already. Plenty of restaurants around here where you won’t see a spoon, fork or knife. (However, it’s certainly possible to ask the staff for western cutlery, and in the main cities they’re more likely to be prepared for that question)
Are you supposed to hold the upper stick with pressure from your index finger, or brace it against the crevice of your ring and middle finger?
Yes
Which one?
Even with silverware I might use them as chopsticks by using their other ends.
I guess here in Korea it’s eating with chopsticks. In Sweden it was Swimming (especially for my Indian work mates). In Germany it was opening a beer bottle with anything you just happened to have in your hand at that time. In Poland I’m not sure, but probably making those elaborate sandwiches for parties.
Is the chopstick thing a dexterity issue? I’m so more inclined for chopsticks that, if eating alone, I’ll use the other ends of my silverware like chopsticks (and I’m not a part of any chopstick culture).
Yeah, opening a beer (or other bottpe with a capped lid) is a very cool skill to have (one which I haven’t really mastered since I drink beer very, very infrequently).
I feel that. Always makes me feel like a failed German lol
In Germany it was opening a beer bottle with anything you just happened to have in your hand at that time.
This goes for Denmark too.
Used to be the case in Switzerland, now most beer bottles have a twist-to-open cap that still looks like a normal beer bottle cap.
Dealing with winter. I live in the rural upper Midwest, where winter can hit -20 with whiteout blizzards, week-long power outages, and car-burying snowdrifts. I’ve seen too many people move here from warmer places and think “I guess I’ll buy a warmer coat and a snow shovel”, rather than “I should have a backup generator, a backup heat source, a few barrels of spare fuel, a month’s worth of stockpiled food, and at least two different pieces of heavy snow-moving machinery tested to be in good working order”.
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Norway.
Cross country skiing. It’s basically expected for every kid in school to be adaquate at cross country skiing. P. E. classes during winter could often consist of a ski trip, and a couple times per year the schools would arrange ski days with different acrivities on skis.
Learnt this the hard way when moving from Denmark (some snow, but not enough for snow sports) as a kid.
Also no mountains in Denmark of downhill skiing
Cutlery.
Growing up everyone around me could use a knife and fork, whereas chopsticks were something most people couldn’t use or only used badly. It never occurred to me that the opposite might be true until I shared a meal with some co-workers from mainland China and saw how clumsily they used our utensils.
It wasn’t until that point that I appreciated the amount of dexterity and finesse that goes into using cutlery well, and that I took it for granted because it’s something learned in childhood.I’m Danish. Opening beer with a lighter or other things that aren’t technically a bottle opener.
Everything’s a bottle opener.
When I built my house I made a bet with myself that I’d never open an end-of-the-day-beer with the same thing twice. I managed. I included the chainsaw, the backhoe and the crane (although I cheated that one and asked the operator for help).
I once opened a glass bottle of soda with my teeth, having nothing else around. It worked but it wasn’t worth it.
Hold up - as a Canadian, this isn’t a skill everyone learns in/around high school??
So how do you open one without a bottle opener?
A few methods that come to mind
- put the side of the cap on the edge of a table and hit the top with your palm
- get a fork (or anything else), grab the bottle’s neck a bit under the cap, put the end of the fork just under it, the middle part on your fingers, push the other part down to open
- find a door, put the bottle cap inside the metal rimmed hole in the door frame that the latch sinks into (sorry, don’t know the word in English) and use it as a normal opener. Be quick as your beer might spill.
- get a screwdriver and a hammer, put the screwdriver to the middle of the cap and gently hit it with the hammer. The cap will slightly sink into the bottle and the sides will release their grip
(sorry, don’t know the word in English)
You got me thinking for a moment there but that thing’s called a mortise.
Aren’t they talking about the strike? I thought the mortise was where the lock goes.
I’ve never heard “strike” so I assume you know more about doors than I do.
I don’t know which one of us is right but rather than looking it up I’m hoping someone that actually knows swings by.
As an Aussie I usually find a spoon works better than a fork.
Perhaps the easiest (and most flashy) is a wooden table top. Wedge the cap onto the edge, and the smack it with your palm. This method is widely discouraged, especially on your host’s dining room table, as it usually takes a small chunk of wood off the edge and damages the table.
Like the Dutch, Germans have an impressive lexicon of commonly-known ways to open beer bottles without a bottle-opener.
Just do the same move on the 20 bottle plastic case you bough the beer in. The cases are sturdy and the breweries dont care for the scratches
Good idea! I’ve never seen those used here in the US (our beer tends to come in cardboard cases or kegs - we call those plastic created “milk crates”), but if we did, the trick would probably be better known.
Everything here is cans or twist-tops, anyway.
From a logistics point of view we need to keep the population density and shorter ways in mind. In Germany we have a deposit system for the crates and bottles and because of the short ways and high deposit most of them find their way back. But with a thousand miles between brewery and customer that system becomes tricky to implement. Also cans only weigh a fraction of a glass bottle.
So for a local brewery that is only distributing locally glass bottles in crates are a good system, but not so much for longer ranges. Also a reuse system needs a critical minimum size to be viable.
It was interesting to see how much locality there was in the beer consumption. I wouldn’t call them monopolies, but with a few exceptions, it seemed to me that people tended to drink beer from local breweries. I was living in Munich, and I don’t know if the close proximity of the breweries had a greater impact than in the countryside. I noticed it most when I first visited Dresden, and all of the beer was suddenly different brands.
Basically anything that can be used as a lever while using your finger as the fulcrum. A lighter is real easy, but you can do it with anything vaguely stick-shaped and somewhat sturdy. A nice, thick twig will do the trick.
Leverage and fiddling around
Sounds like the first 5 years of my sex life.
This guy has around 60 YouTube episodes showing how to do it. Have fun!
TIL
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/user/BeNuzzer/featured
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
You grab the neck of the bottle tightly with your dominant hand so your finger a thumb is holding the cap tightly. Then you take the lighter in the other hand and wedge it in between the dominant hand and cap. Squeeze tightly and use the lighter as a lever.
A bottle of beer or a can of beer?
Bottles. It’s similar in The Netherlands, it’s a bit of a sport to open beer bottles with anything and everything, except dedicated bottle openers. Quite popular are Bic lighters, other beer bottles and the edges of tables.
Beer cans usually have pull tabs, they’re just soda cans with a different brand on it.
A bottle.
Nah. BiC lighters are where it’s at. Clipper lighters always run out of flint before fluid. I have a Zippo, and still carry a BiC for specific situations like opening beer bottles, or hitting a bowl.
What if you do it wrong and you make the lighter explode, taking a finger with it
Why would it explode?
Cigarette lighters don’t explode that violently if they’re punctured. The greatest hazard would probably be getting plastic in your eye. If you do it wrong the lighter usually just gets scratched.
