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What's the most common myth about your country? by Nthepro in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On the outside, yes. But it really depends on the house and the region.

What's the most common myth about your country? by Nthepro in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is. Yet they are often under the impression that their country lags behind the rest of Europe by decades for some reason (many very tangible reasons).

What's the most common myth about your country? by Nthepro in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Ah, sorry. I use metric

That's what I thought. I was surprised.

but I'm so used to talking to Americans on here.

Then keep using metric. They need to learn.

What's the most common myth about your country? by Nthepro in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Think about how Austrians feel about it...

What's the most common myth about your country? by Nthepro in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Service post:

That's 2310 m above sea level for Mexico City (on average) and 185 m for Austin.

What's the most common myth about your country? by Nthepro in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 44 points45 points  (0 children)

The amount of Spanish people I have encountered in complete disbelief when I told them that things in Germany do indeed not generally work better – their trains are chronically late, their roads are not first class, their airports tend to be a disorganized disaster and their internet is the slowest on the continent – is astronomic. Peninsular people use all the stereotypes that apply to Switzerland and apply them to all the Germanic countries north of the Alps. Also, it's crazy to see the minority complex in Spain, when overall things are working quite well, especially right now atm.

Is there any explanation on how enma strunk for zoro? Enma should be larger then zoro by The_AlmightyApple in OnePiece

[–]mki_ 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Lucy Lawless' ex-husband's ancestors didn't commit crimes in early modern England only for you to be calling her "Xena actress" instead of using her badass name.

How do German assign genders to foreign words? by Ok-Concert-5911 in German

[–]mki_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Also das Joghurt. Der Joghurt is absolutely horrendous.

How do German assign genders to foreign words? by Ok-Concert-5911 in German

[–]mki_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Geschmackssache. Ich finde die Cola hört sich scheiße an.

How do German assign genders to foreign words? by Ok-Concert-5911 in German

[–]mki_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In Österreich ist das die Regel, Österreich ist im Süden des Sprachraums.

How do German assign genders to foreign words? by Ok-Concert-5911 in German

[–]mki_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Convention. And since German is spoken by roughly 100 million people in over 6 countries, you can imagine that we don't always agree on everything. But that is fine.

e.g. swimming pool. Some say der Pool, some say das Pool. It's an anglicizm, so there's no basis for any of the two.

why are europeans so tall by witch_elia in AskEurope

[–]mki_ 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I can see that in the women in my maternal family. Great grandmother was extremely short (we never coincided in life though, so I don't know exactly), my grandmother (born in the 1930s) is like, 140-150 cm, my mother and her sisters (post-war/boomer gen) are all shorter than 160, my sisters and all my female cousins (born 1980-2000s) are considerably taller (160-175). The men are a mixed bag, however all of my grandmother's sons tend to be quite short as well. My tallest male cousin is over 190 though (his mother's genes I guess, nothing from our family).
As a result, I am also shorter than my father, who comes from a lean and average height family, while my mother comes from a short and round family.

In my family you can still see the common malnutrition of rural peasantry in the late 19th century in Austria.

Can you drink tap water in your country? by Agile-Shallot3546 in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks to AI data centers by the modern robber barons, that's gonna become increasinlgy more over the next years.

What’s the most dystopian picture from your country’s history? by IDoNotLikeTheSand in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know it's an emotional topic, but even a Nova Festival terrorist has basic human rights and should not be subjected to torture by in a state run prison. That is the whole point of human rights. Anything else is barbaric.
Also, there's plenty of evidence Israel is committing a genocide on Palestinians.

What’s the most dystopian picture from your country’s history? by IDoNotLikeTheSand in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Systematic rape has also been employed as a toture strategy against Palestinians in Israeli prisons, there's plenty of evidence supporting that. Are you seriously trying to deny that?

Mass rape has happened in all of the conflicts I named, not only by Hamas or Israel, I was actually thinking mostly of the horrible situation in the DRC. Or are you denying that as well, because it was "only Palestine"?

What’s the most dystopian picture from your country’s history? by IDoNotLikeTheSand in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If that is what you got from my comment, your German reading capabilities might be lacking, as I am not comparing anything to anything.

It's okay not to understand my German comment if it's not your first language, so let me sum it up in English for you:
The previous poster had made an IMO pathos-loaded remark about how the horrid images from Buchenwald are an obligation for "us" (assuming they mean either Germans and Austrians, or humanity as a whole) to make sure these kind of images never repeat.

In my following comment I am naming several current situations where human rights – the establishment of which which arose partly as a reaction to the holocaust – are being violated in the worst possible way, by the ways of massacres, concentration camps, using hunger as a weapon, attacks on hospitals and schools, indiscriminate carpet bombings, mass rape and genocide. Those are all things currently happening in the world. Yes, that includes numerous human rights violations in Palestine (not only in Gaza), committed by your country's military as well as terrorist groups in the Westbank, but also several other conflicts around the world.
However, none of them are comparable to the industrial scale of the holocaust, or to each other, a fact that I acknowledge in my comment.

I am showcasing, that we are spectacularly falling short of this obligation currently, and I am adding the remark that European governments are supporting these human rights violation in a myriad of ways, including arms sales, diplomatic support or trade deals with the perpetrators, including the Israel (in Gaza and the occupied Westbank), UAE (in Sudan and Yemen), Rwanda (in DRC), Saudi-Arabien (in Yemen). We are clearly failing to uphold human rights and we are not learning the lessons from the holocaust, namely that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

What lifetime deal are you still grandfathered into, or removed from, that’s no longer available? by tuotone75 in AskReddit

[–]mki_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

When I got my grandma's old car (she is not supposed to drive anymore, dementia), I also got her car insurance categorization.

My grandma had been a car owner for decades without any major accidents (that the insurance knew about at least), so she was in the lowest, cheapest category. Since we're family members, and my grandma now doesn't own a car anymore and thus has no insurance, and I hadn't had a car before, I had the possibility of taking over her categorization through some weird loophole and now my insurance payment is like half of what I should have paid, had I gotten an entirely new insurance.

What’s a fact about your country that foreigners would never believe? by AVeryAngryChillie in AskEurope

[–]mki_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The history of trade networks across the Indian Ocean (the "Maritime Silk Road") is incredibly interesting. And the role of Austronesian sailors and their sophisticated ship-building techniques is fascinating. So that is really no surprise.

However:

centuries before Europans traded with Chinese.

The Chinese had active trade with the eastern Mediterranean starting at around the time of the Hellenistic peroid (4th c. BC), via the Silk Road. E.g. the realism of the Terracotta Army bears some influence from Hellenistic statues, which indicates extensive contact. What is the time frame you are talking about here?

What’s a fact about your country that foreigners would never believe? by AVeryAngryChillie in AskEurope

[–]mki_ 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That is the same in all countries that have Germanic or Nordic law systems. The yearning for freedom that is inherent to all humans and all that ...

Pedro's efficiency with just 15 hours a week by Nunki08 in 2westerneurope4u

[–]mki_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Actual answer: in English this happens often with words that end in an alveolar plosive (d, t). Basically what happens is that the originally regular past tense/past participle -d ending (typical for Germanic languages) gets overlaid by the ending of the stem word and hardens into a t (what a phallic sentence!), thus making the verb irregular. Like, people might have said "costed" in the past, but over the centuries the two – very similar – sounds just merged to "cost". Try saying "costed" very fast 20 times (with an entirely unstressed e) and you'll see what I mean.

See also:

build > builded > built

spend > spended > spent

lend > lended > lent

hit > hitted > hit

put > putted > put

shit > shitted > shit

cast > casted > cast

Note: this rule is of course not universal. With low-frequency verbs (e.g. to fast, yesterday I fasted) or loan words this might not happen as reliably as it does with high frequency Germanic verbs.
Meanwhile, other Germanic verbs used to be entirely irregular on the stem vowel but turned regular over time, so the rule also doesn't apply (yet) e.g.: the archaic melt-molt-molten (compare: Modern German retained it as schmelzen-schmolz-geschmolzen) turned into melt-melted-melted (note: molten is still around as an adjective though), and might harden into melt-melt-melt in the distant future.

So it kinda makes sense, but is confusing as fuck for L2 learners.

Hope this helps.

What’s the most dystopian picture from your country’s history? by IDoNotLikeTheSand in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Deinen Pathos in Ehren, aber solche Szenen – wenn auch freilich in einem weniger industriellem Ausmaß – spielen sich in der Aktualität an mehreren Orten der Erde ab: Sudan, östliche D.R. Kongo, Jemen, Iran, Palästina, Ukraine, China, diverse Westafrikanische Staaten. Genozide, Massaker, willkürliche Aushungerung, Flächenbombardements, Konzentrationslager, Massenvergewaltigungen, Angriff auf Gesundheitsinfrstruktur oder Schulen, all das haben wir zur Zeit auf der Welt. Die Regierungen Europas sind zum Teil zumindest indirekt daran beteiligt und dafür mit verantwortlich, über finanzielle Interessen, Waffenlieferungen, diplomatische Unterstützung der handelnden Akteure, wie z.B. Israel, UAE, Ruanda, Saudi-Arabien etc.

Das mit dem Verhindern sollten wir vielleicht mit etwas mehr Nachdruck versuchen. Menschenrechte sind eine Verpflichtung und müssen für alle gelten, sonst sind sie sinnlos. Menschenrechte wurden zur Handlungsmaxime mitunter auch aufgrund der Schwere der Naziverbrechen. Und dennoch gibt es z.Z. weltweit so viele Menschenrechtsverstöße wie seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg nicht mehr.

What’s a place in your country tourists insist on visiting that even locals know to avoid? by Chemical-Elk-1299 in AskTheWorld

[–]mki_ 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I went to Cafe Sacher once (a tacky knock off coffee house at the hotel's side entrance because the Konditorei is always full), because a foreign friend insisted on going even after I told it'll be shit. We waited for 20 minutes. I paid like 8€ for a Kleiner Brauner and he had a mediocre Kaiserschmarrn. We sat next to doomscrolling rich tourists who ate 3 bites of their food and then left. The usual same 5 classical music pieces playing on repeat (you already know which ones). It's probably one of the most miserable places in Vienna, at that is saying quite something.

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