[merylsilverburg]

Originally Posted by Berserker

I suppose you guys in the us get some foreign languages in school? Probably french, spanish etc. So when you have only a little knowledge about the french language you should be able to tell the difference between that and german in a song like Nena's??

Yes, we do have to learn a language. In middle school, we had to take one language (French, German, or Spanish) and when we get to high school, we had to take one of the same selections (French, German, or Spanish). And you're not wrong - seeing how every school, I assume, in the US requires their students to take at least 1 foreign language class, people should generally tell the difference between German and French like Nena's song. However, there are also people who simply just don't care because all foreign languages are exactly that: foreign...what's the need to tell the difference? This type of attitude aggravates me, but what can you do?

Originally Posted by Berserker

Cause we are obligated to learn at least one foreign language at school in order to graduate. Traditionally those were English, German and French. Nowadays the kids can also follow Spanish, Italian, Arabic etc.(it depends on the school what extra languages you can follow).

Same here, as answered above. I think schools nowadays in the US are trying to get alternate languages other than Spanish, German, and French because a friend of mine who's currently going to college/university is taking Japanese (I curse him everyday ). Although I clearly see no point since Spanish is the language to learn nowadays anyway, hehe. I wouldn't be surprised if a policy required us to learn it.

Originally Posted by Berserker

Maybe it's because I'm from Amsterdamn that I grew up surrounded with all kind of nationalities, or that the dutch tv also shows german, french, italian, spanish, chinese, turkish etc. channels. I even manage to get an almost perfect score on roughly telling where tourists are from by their looks or behaviour

LOL, that's pretty neat man. I would love to be able to do what you do (the tourist thing). Although, it's for this reason why it may seem easy for you to tell the difference between nationalities...because of your large exposure of it. I'm alright with telling the different Asians apart (although the mixed people are screwing me up) but other people would throw me off unless they have really strong qualities that they're from a certain country. And the reason why I'm good with Asians is because the town I'm living in has a predominate majority of Asians...it goes like this: Asians, Americans, Spanish, then Blacks. Before I moved here, I had no exposure to Asians at all because I grew up in an all white town...then I moved and got hit with all the Asians which resulted how I can tell Asians apart.
And you're lucky that your TV programs show a variety of foreign shows...we don't have that in the US.

Originally Posted by Berserker

And about the accents, come on english is waaaaaay different than northern american. Agreed that it's sometimes difficult to tell, but australian is way different than scottish etc.etc.

I have to agree. It doesn't take a whole bunch of Americans to live in, for example, France in order for the French to tell the accent difference between the Americans and the English. Although I admit that sometimes I'm thrown off between the Australians and the English, so yes, feel free to call me stupid.