Contact us
You can email us your comments, suggestions, etc. to nothingforungood@gmail.com. Please direct all complaints to youcanmeonetime@gmail.com.
Also feel free to leave a comment on any of the articles, we’ll put it up as long as its not spam, and it’s written in English or German. If you put dirty words in there, we will edit them out. Also, we don’t really want your email address or URL, so feel free to just make something up there, we are lazy and use blog software that comes with those fields.
Thanks and Enjoy!
August 5th, 2008 at 1:15 am
This is HILARIOUS! I just found you after googling “Why do Germans need to eat”warm”?” because we’re having the umpteenth Germans guests this year and I always hate trying to cook / bzw. not cook for them, ha! Thank you for showing me at least somebody else understands, :)… My husband’s German, we lived in Munich for 7 years, and are still surrounded by many Germans here in Portland, OR. (Which is mostly a good thing, but I’m sick of being the only Ami in the crowd sometimes- “Du Jennifer, wie viel Bier trinken die Amis bei so einer Party?” “Warum macht Ihr immer Eiswuerfel in die Getraenke ‘rein?”) I could WRITE this website.
Schoene Gruesse auch an die Astrid, gotta love that. We’ve been married 9 years now and still find it funny how our moms try to communicate and understand, but the dads just drink beer and grunt or “fix something that’s broken” together.
Anyway, you just made my day… and my Bookmarks. Thanks!
Jennifer
November 6th, 2008 at 7:33 am
“Nothing for unggood” as the translation of “Nchts für ungut is hilarious. I still don’t know why my people say that though.
But “You can me one time” is classic. I almost died, cuz it’s so funny.
Try to translate English phrases into German, like “Holy Cow” or “For Pete’ sake”. It is stinking funny, when you actually use it in the right context cuz it just sounds too funny.
Thanks for the page!
I am German dealing with americans and we laugh alot about the differences in our culture!
Isn’t the mix of the German and American culture a perfect one?!
November 8th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Thank you for this funny page!!
I´m from Germany and you`re right with all translations and “Wandern” is really, really boring!!
(Sorry for my “ungood” English)
Your 13-year-old Kathi <3<3
November 12th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Lieber John,
First of all, a big thanks for this fantastic site. A very enjoyable read it is indeed.
I have not spent a lot of time searching the comments, but has anyone appreciated the really cool beach photo you have at the top of the page? In case not, here’s me doing it: very very well done!
Isn’t it lovely how the Strandkoerbe — I am actually tempted to write Strandkorbs — are (fairly) neatly lined up there on the very tidy beach? To me as a self respecting German there is only a couple of snags to it: they (the Strandkoerbe) seem almost randomly coloured (gives me goosebumps)! And: from the angle the photo is taken I cannot make out which ones are properly occupied with appropriately placed stay-off-me-towels. Surely any fellow countryman of mine will confirm that seeing a splendid beach of such majestic beauty as the one shown and not knowing where you can still freely move gives us the screaming heebie jeebies.
Concluding — and in spite of the shortcomings detailed above — I am very fond of the photo and it catches my attention for a fair while every single time I come to your site.
Next thing you are going to say is that this is not a German beach at all and that no German has ever put their foot on it. Which is exactly when I’ll be looking like a bit of a fool.
But then… nothing for ungood!
Mit freundlichen Gruessen
Herr B.
November 16th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
“… from the angle the photo is taken I cannot make out which ones are properly occupied with appropriately placed stay-off-me-towels.”
I guess the unoccupied ones are locked with lattices…
November 25th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Good sir,
I’ve to say: this blog has AWESOME written all over it!
I mailed my Japanese girlfriend, who just started to learn some German, your blog address, so she can learn some interesting stuff about my Heimatland and meine fellow Mitmenschen!
btw: Sie sollten ein Buch schreiben! Am besten zweisprachig! Ich denke, dass würde sich gut verkaufen.
In diesem Sinne
Daniel
PS: Gotta love this Denglisch mixture of Sprachen.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:43 pm
HI i absolutely LOVE your site its so fantastic. found your site by putting in google “english things germans say” I keep thinking “wish i’d written that!” well i put my URL down anyway…just so you can ignore it.
Kate
December 14th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Hey John,
A friend referred me to your site and I read it with a very big sense of deja vu and a great deal of laughter. I am also an American engineer, although still living in Germany after quite some time here. You touch on a great number of things that have occurred to me from time to time too. That having been said, we seem to have a different mindset on some things here. I promise to continue to visit the site regularly to read your posts and will make it a point comment on these differences of opinion occasionally. In the interim, keep up the commentary. I enjoy your posts a great deal and look forward to reading more of them.
Regards,
Tom
January 28th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Can you explain what is the deal with Germans and emotocons (smiley faces)? Every German board/blog on the web has the option of adding them and just look at your replies! Is it an automatic function of .gmx? Is Deutsch nicht so gut at expressing emotions that Germans have to wink, smile, nod, wave, say “thankyou”, smirk, and grumble with cartoons? Why isn’t there a smiley face that says, “doch”?
January 28th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Smileys are essential for us Germans, as most of us have a broken irony detector (or are born without one in the first place).
Thus, if you don’t use enough emoticons, people will often get angry, as they think you wanted to offend them, while in fact, you were just joking.
January 29th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
“…Why isn’t there a smiley face that says, “doch”?”
That’s what I miss badly too!
January 30th, 2009 at 12:57 am
How would the smiley face look like? A stern/fierce expression?
January 30th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
How about this one (just made it):
http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/9944/doch1gl6.gif
I think an expression of “I’m right, you’re wrong.” fits the common use of “doch” pretty well.
January 30th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Stefan - Perfekt!!! Es macht mir LOL.
John
January 30th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
@Stefan; That’s it! especially the “nose up”, I nearly see the folded arms below.
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:15 am
The problem is, that Germans, who don’t know how to express themselves, also cannot create smilies that express their emotions. That is why Germans have to rely on other people’s smilies.
That being said, “doch” is a very uniquely German Expression, which is why no non-German can make an appropriate smilie which the Germans can use.
February 19th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Wooow… it took some time… but I’m done having read ALL of your blog entries… I had a lot of fun reading them and have left a comment here and there
…
March 4th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Hi!
Just found this site -
An Artikel in the “CT” told me about it…
Very Funny - i´m late now, because of those many laughs you provided me
If you want to see the other side - get this:
“Gebrauchsanleitung für Amerika” von Paul Watzlawik
gruß
Martin
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:35 am
So like, is this it?
Just wondering why someone would simply up and walk away from a blog with more than 2,500 subscribers without so much as a hey, it was a slice.
May 3rd, 2009 at 3:32 am
Ian,
No, it’s not it. Just kinda of a hiatus, if you will. There will certainly be more to come, just been busy with buying a house and planning a wedding proposal.
June 14th, 2009 at 7:22 am
Well then, planning a wedding proposal? CONGRATULATIONS!! (Have you done it yet? Did she say yes?)
I want to thank you, John, for this wonderful website. As an American with German ancestry, I visit Germany quite frequently and find my home as a place of refuge to many a German citizens and foreign exchange students. You truly do pick up on the subtleties of the German culture, and I derive complete amusement from your analysis.
As for your Google responses, sheesh, you really do make an effort to go above and beyond in answering them. My productive American attitude that Germans lack tells me to tell you to stop wasting your time and do something with your life. Hmph, must have been something you picked up during your stays in Germany.
A wonderful website. Thank you for the wonderful ride.
Lloyd A. Walker
P.S. Amazon is absolutely horrible in the meager royalties given to authors when they sell a book. First, double your price, and let us know where we can buy the book where you make the profit!
June 14th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
No, actually, seriously, where can I buy the book in English? The German amazon site says you wrote it and that it was translated by someone, so I would assume you’d have an English copy lying around somewhere. Surely you could find a publisher for it, no?
If they say it won’t make any sales, tell them that the American amazon site fills in Nothing for (Ungood), even when the search only produces two results.
June 14th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
^After all, you wouldn’t want to make an actual reason to learn German now, would you? Apparently we would have to if we wanted to get our hands on your book!
November 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Where can I get an English copy of this book. I visited a friend in Germany last month and she was reading the book (in German).
I am back to the United States and can’t find the book. Please let me know because she said it is hilarious.
Mary
November 10th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I enjoyed reading the comments made by readers, so I decided to share this experience.
When I asked my German host, what is the topoic of the presentation I am supposed to deliver, he replied with confidence: “It doesn’t matter, just make yourself very short and pregnant”.
Being a male I told him that this is just not possible.
He insisted to try my best.
November 29th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
This made my day.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:06 am
LOL, very cool folks!
Whenever in business school (probably the hardest way of expressing yourself in German) we had to write letters in the shortest possible way, LOLOLOLOL, and lkater got poor grades from our tteacher, he often wrote as a comment:
“Man kann sich auch kompliziert drücken aus!” (Correctly:Man kann sich auch kompliziert ausdrücken.)
This is how he made fun of us by writing:
“One can also complicately (Ex)press himself out.” (Press like Pressure or squeezing)…
May 5th, 2010 at 7:40 am
First, Mark Twain’s comment “That awful German language” is probably due to the fact that he grew up in Hannibal, Missouri. In the second half of the 19th Century, at least two-thirds of his neighbors spoke better German than Englisch, if the spoke English at all! Most of them learned English only when they went to school. I come from St. Charrles, MO, where there was a daily newspaper in German until 1916.
Secondly, I disagree with the Author. If you are going to be in any country for an extended period, you should learn the language. When I entered the Technische Hochschule Darmdtadt (now Technische Universität) in 1969, I was required to prove that I was fluent in Deutsch “in Wort und Schrift”.
June 29th, 2010 at 8:16 am
The author’s description of the elefant races (Elefantenrennen) on the Autobahn is accurate, except that since the speed limit for trucks has been increased to 100 km/h they occur at 100 / 99,5 km/h.
But that is nothing compared to the hundreds of Caravans (small underpowered cars pulling house trailers) that hit the road every year when Holland has school vacation.
July 25th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
I got the book from my dad as a present yesterday and what shall I say….Just love it, took me 3hrs and I was finished….Totally awesome…I’m German, but lived in the US for a couple of years and now I’m back in Germany with my American boyfriend…He doesn’t speak German at all and so I wanted to get this book in english today and figured out that it doesn’t excist :(…And since you’re saying he shouldn’t learn German, now he has to coz he needs to know what he puts himself into*g*…
So please, either this book will be published in English as well or you force Americans to learn German!
July 27th, 2010 at 1:19 am
Perhaps that was actually secretly his intention …
September 11th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Hallo John,
ich habe mit viel Genuss und einigen Schmunzlern Dein Buch über uns Deutsche gelesen und muss sagen, dass Du ziemlich oft ziemlich richtig liegst ;o)
Allerdings fand ich bei einigen Seiten die Kommentare der Übersetzer (an den Seiten unten angefügt) noch viel lustiger, denn diese trafen IMMER ins Schwarze
Dennoch kann man auch bei uns Deutschen nicht alle über einen Kamm scheren, denn:
Ich plane keine Partys, die finden bei mir immer spontan statt - und eingeladen wird nur, wer willkommen ist, keine Anstands-Einladungen!
Unsere Sprache ist tatsächlich schrecklich schwer zu lernen… zum Glück habe ich die Begabung mich korrekt ausdrücken zu können und die Kunst der Rechtschreibung relativ glücklich mit den Genen in die Wiege gelegt bekommen… daher kein Problem für mich.
Allerdings erklärt deine aufopfernde Umschreibung die Umstände, warum viele unserer Teenager nicht wirklich deutsch sprechen… selbst die, die in Deutschland geboren sind. Ich hab öfter Verständigungsprobleme - als Erzieherin in einem Schulhort auch kein Wunder!
Ich hasse Kartoffeln, Kehrwochen und radfahren, Eis esse ich nur bei 30 Grad im Schatten und ich trinke mein Pils am liebsten “pur” :o)
Ach ja, und zum Thema “eine warme Mahlzeit am Tag” und den vielen umständlichen Tankstellen etc., wo man tatsächlich seinen Wagen verlassen muss um zu bezahlen sowie zu unseren vielen weiteren fehlenden Drive-In Möglichkeiten möchte ich nur sagen:
die Waage dankt´s - wir Deutschen sind einfach gern schlank und knackig ;o)
Und zu guter Letzt:
MEINE Kinder dürfen NICHT alles!!!
Weiterhin viel Erfolg mit Deinem Blog und Buch - und falls Du es noch nicht gelesen hast: “Stars, Stripes und Streifenhörnchen” von Michael Streck beschreibt einen kulturgeschockten Deutschen im Ami-Land - ebenfalls sehr witzig ;o)
ALLES GUTE UND LIEBEN GRUSS!
Simone
March 21st, 2011 at 9:26 am
I really enjoyed reading yor book, suppoerting your comment germans love to read about them self.
My knowledge about brazilian culture is very bad and I red about the rumor they would not flush their toilet paper…well I’ve been to Ukraine for 2 month and they don’t. It’s a fact. Peaople are very nice and it is a really interesting country but do NOT use their toilets!
They have small baskets to put the paper in and it smells awfull. I could not find out, why they do this, but my suggestion is, that they want to show how healthy they live and eat with showing everybody the color of their excrements… I don’t belive that they love the offensive smell.
March 23rd, 2011 at 1:15 am
What country exactly are you talking about? Brazil or Ukraine? Quite a difference I’d say.
May 14th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Hi there,
you are talking out of my soul!!!!!!! I am living in Köln and also paying my carmas here. I need to go back to U.S. urgently!!! I can’t stand the German radio stations and this radio Köln anymore! Also, this endless carnival. I wish I could talk with you about my daily nightmare…
Kind regards,
Marcelo
August 11th, 2011 at 10:14 am
Hi John
I just relocated to Germany again (2nd time in ten years) so your book caught my eye when I was browsing the book store. After reading a few entries & laughing out loud, I decided I could use a good pick me up so I bought it. So much of it rang true for me & I often had to first wipe the laughter tears from my eyes before I could read passages to my german husband (who also had a good laugh, BTW). However, quite unlike Simone from a Sept 11, 2010, I could have done without the obnoxious, usually ignorant comments from the translator. For instance, just because we have a hit song called Ghostriders in the Sky doesn’t mean it has a damn thing to do with driving the wrong way on the Autobahn, that is a specialty & a name reserved for the always in the right, never wrong German.
If I wanted snide observations about Americans, I would have bought one of the above suggested books or simpy just asked any German what they think about Americans. Then again, you usually don’t have to ask. That info is freely given out without the asking. Germans seem to be practiced at giving unwanted observations. For example, the time I was standing at a Haltstelle wearing my Ami flag sweater that I bought at a Weihnachtsmarkt. A nice (I thought) lady was admiring it until, of course, she had to point out the mistake in the knitting. In the time that I have lived here, the stories have multipled & I won’t bore you with mine.
Just wanted you to know I dig the book & when I get unperturbed about the inspid remarks from the peanut gallery at the bottom of too many pages, I’ll probably go back to reading it & have more belly laughs.
MFG,
Rebecca
September 7th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
Hey John, hey y’all,
Being the German part of a South Carolina/Niedersachsen marriage I am currently reading your second book right after finishing the first one and can very much identify with most of what you say. While reading, sometimes I think “dude, you haven’t seen the half of it”
Let me deal with my currently insanely high number of projects; as soon as I’ll see a little time, I will write you a mail on my experience in the country where they let you fire a semi automatic while they confiscate your Überraschungseier at customs as a potential serious hazard (which actually happened to me.) And on the other place east of the pond where, as you pointed out, booze is an integral part of everyday life and conveniently available everywhere and anytime, while purchasing a ten pack of pain relievers requires consultation by a pharmacist to make sure you don’t end up constipated by applying them to the wrong end of your aching body.
Have a good one,
Peter