OFSO But we were given Allo Allo and Hogan's Heroes (Die Schmetterlinge?) in German. I suppose they did not need to dub Herr Flick, Colonel Klink or Sergeant Schulz. For an insight into German humour, goggle South Park's 'Funnybot' (NSFW).
The communal table does happen in around Frankfurt (away from the tourists). My German colleague uses it as a ploy to find the best-looking girls, but he's not from Hessen.
Neither are the best-looking girls
I admit that I find it rude that German colleagues will ask how old Mrs SO is. Damn sight younger than I am is the best I can do. Is your wife closer to your age?
They can be curious about your money too. It's immense fun to pretend that you are impecunious when you have a nice watch.
When I mentioned being careful with humour, I wasn't thinking of shows wot one might watch, but jokes inserted into speeches made in front of furrin' audiences.
I well remember m'lecturer expounding on some terribly complicated thing and ending up with the phrase "..clever folks, these Chinese" which was a saying of the time (i.e., some years ago) and upon looking up seeing five pairs of slanting eyes looking at him in puzzlement from where the Cable & Wireless (Hong Kong) engineers were sitting, and whom he'd forgotten comprised members of our class.
P.S. I used to watch "Hogan's Heroes" dubbed into German on German televison. For the first few weeks I thought it was a documentary on how good conditions had been in German POW camps.
Now with our new drink driving rules I don't drink either. (And I never drank more than one anyway, so boring.)
Why boring, Chris? Nothing as boring as a drunk, or those booze obsessed people who go on and on about what sort of wine/whisky/beer you should drink, and in what combinations.
I reckon you should be allowed to drink as much or as little as you want, and if your favourite tipple is, say, Remy Martin and lime juice then I reckon that's nobody's business but yours. Anything else is just bad manners!
Back in the late 70s I was in a remote bar on Rhodes Greece. I was getting along fine with the 6 or so locals who mostly spoke some English. One big bearded chap (during our conversation about our families) said to me "My daughter is like me." Having had a few beers I jokingly said "What, you mean she has a beard?" The whole place went deadly quiet. Then one chap nearby said "English humour" and burst out laughing. Everyone joined in and the moment was saved. I never forgot that lesson.
How many people drink straight Claytons? Used to always get a strange look from the bartender when ordering for a mate - fact he was Glaswegian could explain a lot (ducking for cover).
If my memory is still OK, the gesture is roughly equivalent to "Vade retro, Satanas", or in English "FCKU OFF".... .
Gestures are a story on its own.... and not just the rude ones....
Nodding is a classic one.... I use it to agree, but in Greece (again) it means "NO". Took me some time to figure out.
And in Italy, shaking your hand horizontally in front of your stomach, simply means "I'm hungry", or "Shall we go and have lunch (or dinner)?". It has no "rude" connotation.
"As is often the case, she assumed that moving to another English speaking country would be easy and if she had any problems she could simply ask the locals. But every country has its differences, differences in child-rearing practices, education systems, friendship patterns, hierarchy at work, and when people don't understand this they think it's the people around them, rather than the system.
"This escalates the spiral downward as the once helpful and sympathetic locals start to ignore and ostracise the 'foreigner' - who seems to hate everything about where they are living."
