Germans are great people in general, but their main problem is that they are bad listeners.  Their awe-inspiring intrinsic motivation is counteracted only by their lack of ability to listen to what you have to say. Germans don’t just know everything, they know everything better.

This aspect may show itself in a situation where you kindly mention to a German presenter privately after the meeting that in America, we call Umsatz revenue, and not turnover, because turnover in business terms means Fluktuation to us. Despite your decades of experience using your own language, the German will matter of factly tell you that you are wrong.

The most obvious place this defect shows up though, is in the incorrect sounds Germans make to imitate animals. Here is a sample list:

German Imitation	Actual Sound
kee ker ee kee	cocka doodle doo
kwock	ribbit
vow vow	woof woof
vihihihi	neh

Its kind of a shame to think that 80 million people haven’t taken the time just to listen to the noises animals make, and instead tell them how they should sound.

which is why you should buy every German you know Nothing For UnGood the book, which will be hitting book stores in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in November, as the optimal stocking-stuffer this Christmas. Since you will forget by then, you can go ahead and pre-order at Amazon.de or your favorite online retailer now.

The book contains the best articles from the site cleaned up and professionally translated into German, some stuff about John’s personal experiences in Germany, and more answers to questions about our translatlantic misconceptions as a service project for world harmony.

Petra sent us a reminder that we haven’t created any new content in a long time, so the staff here at Nothing For UnGood has toiled away all morning long to create Unanswered Google Queries Part III and the Pocket Units Converter.

which is why they capitalize you instead of I.

Walk through a park in Germany on a Friday evening and you are certain to see a group of young teenagers well on their way to becoming completely intoxicated, and you will also notice that none of the adults walking by give them a second glance. That’s because Germans let their kids do things that Americans would never dream of allowing.

Germans recently decided it is a bad idea to allow cigarette vending machines available to anyone 3 feet tall or over, but that doesn’t mean you won’t see a group of kids that can barely reach the counter in their local Rewe working together as a team of 4 to struggle to carry the case of beer and pooling their money together to pay the 10 Euros for it. Although German parents aren’t particularly worried about their kids’ safety, the German government is worried about protecting its future tax base.  That is why German kids have to use car seats a few years past the age that their parents let them start drinking. “Luca, get back in your car seat, and I told you a thousand times to use the ashtray!”

Not only will kids get the opportunity to hear dirty words on the radio and see naughty body parts on regular television, but they are also reading detailed instruction on how to do things only married people should being doing in the Bravo magazine that they have been subscribing to since they turned 11.  Forget chaperons at the school dance, German teenagers are hanging out preglowing in the parking lot across from the disco so they can save enough money for the bus ride home afterwards.

German kids are allowed to go places by themselves, even riding the subways of largest cities completely unaccompanied. You don’t have bright yellow school buses with flashing lights stopping all traffic on both sides of street, school children are left to fend for themselves when they leave the campus. Some are allowed to even ride a bicycle without knee pads and a helmet.

One dramatic place where you can see German parents letting their kids do whatever they want is sports. German parents don’t stand on the sidelines screaming at their kids to kick the ball harder and run faster at the soccer game, they just let them play however they feel like. It’s despicable.