Since Germany and France are so close together, there are a lot of stereotypes about each other. Therefore, we decided to talk about them this time and elaborate on what is at least partly true and what is just wrong.
We started by collecting all the stereotypes we could think of about the other country. Lisa and I described the stereotypical French person as a man with a striped shirt, a beret hat and a baguette. Leonie described the stereotypical German guy with leather pants and a plaid shirt, drinking a beer and eating a pretzel. What was fun for us is that both these stereotypes are only true for a certain region of the country. While the stereotypical German is mainly describing the Bavarian culture, the stereotypical French guy is more a description of a Parisian.
But there were also some stereotypes we had of France that were approved by Leonie. For example, the eating habits that seem weird to the German tongue, like frog legs and snails. Leonie explained to us that Frog legs are eaten quite rarely, while snails for her are more like a regular fancy celebration dinner. This was quite interesting to me.
An interesting similarity we discovered is the difference between the capital cities from the rest of the country. Leonie told us that in her opinion, the Parisian lifestyle has more of a negative reputation. She described them as rushed people that complain a lot about everything. For Lisa and me, Berlin has more of a positive connotation. A lot of people around me went to Berlin for a few months for an internship. Berlin for us is more of an alternative and welcoming culture and is a relatively green and spacious city compared to the rest of Germany.
I really enjoyed this week’s session, and I feel like I have learned a lot about French culture and its similarities to Germany.
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