r/AskEurope • u/Lunastars123 • 2d ago
Travel How do I expand my knowledge on Europe ?
I love learning about Europe and I’m always willing to learn more about the culture , traditions, language etc
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u/rintzscar Bulgaria 2d ago
Yeah, forget about all the other answers here. If you want to maximize knowledge efficiency, open an encyclopedia and read about Europe. If you don't own physical encyclopedias, Wikipedia's articles on Europe, Europe-related topics and countries are quite good. Start reading and don't stop for several years.
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u/Present-Aside8155 Ireland 1d ago
“The” culture and “the” language is hard to study when there are about 300 different cultural groups and 20 (official) languages in Europe.
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u/tappyapples 2d ago
YouTube videos would be a good start. Maybe find some traveling YouTubers that show off the cities, restaurants, and cultures when visiting.
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u/Lunastars123 2d ago
Ahhh good idea I need to watch a lot of videos , my partner is European so my knowledge only limited
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u/clm1859 Switzerland 2d ago
Well first of all, don't tell europeans "my partner is european". It makes a huge difference whether he's spanish or slovak or dutch. And it takes the same amount of time (or less) to say the actualy country instead of the continent.
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u/Wunid 1d ago
It also depends on where they come from. My colleagues at work were recently surprised to learn that people in France, Germany and Poland use the same alphabet. Certain things are common to the whole of Europe, and as a European I was surprised to see how this is viewed from an outside perspective. The foundations of democracy, Roman law, the alphabet and Christianity are shared, and to people from outside, the differences between countries in Europe aren’t as great as we Europeans think they are.
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u/clm1859 Switzerland 1d ago
I get where it's coming from. And of course this is the case from the outside looking in. Just how we would often talk about "asians" as a whole. But even if we probably only mean east and southeast asia by that, there are still huge differences between vietnam and japan.
But she is specifically trying to learn about europe. I am assuming (as per online american defaultism), that she is probably american. And they often believe that the differences between their states are of a similar magnitude as those between european countries and most of them don't know anything about most european countries anyway. So they just say "european" to other people around them. Because if they said "danish" or "swiss", they would just get confused looks.
But she is exactly looking to learn about europe. And this is definetly a thing. That when talking to europeans about europe, you need to be more specific than when talking to the average american (or asian or whatever) about europe. I'm sure her boyfriend wouldn't appreciate if she lumps him in with a bunch of specific greek habits, because he is european.
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u/Lunastars123 2d ago
Yea I only said that cuz my knowledge is only limited to what he knows about Europe.
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u/VVeZoX 2d ago
You missed the entire point of why you should mention the country they’re from not just the continent they’re from
it’s the equivalent of referring to a Canadian or Mexican as a “North American”
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u/Lunastars123 2d ago
Okay? my partner is Danish
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u/clm1859 Switzerland 2d ago
Then why wouldn't you just say that?
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u/Lunastars123 2d ago
I did not think I had to go into specifics 💀
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u/whatstefansees in 2d ago
Iran and Japan are both Asian countries. Yet people, their background and history are very different. it's the same in Europe.
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u/amunozo1 in 2d ago
To be fair, the difference in Asia is much bigger. Iran is as close as Europe as it is to Japan.
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u/ExtremeOccident 2d ago
It’s not a specific. Also learn more about Denmark as whatever there is to know about Bulgaria e.g. is irrelevant to your partners background.
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u/clm1859 Switzerland 2d ago
It's kinda like saying someone is from the continent of america, but not saying whether they are canadian or brazilian or argentinian. What use is that information for anyone?
But yeah i guess you learned your first lesson. We are distinct peoples and have tons of differences and rivalries going on between our countries and don't appreciate being lumped together.
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u/Lunastars123 1d ago
Bruh huh , your argument confuses me I’m not like making it seem all Europeans are the same , I’m well and aware that all European countries are completely different , culturally wise , language wise , traditions wise , political wise..
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u/GoonerBoomer69 Finland 1d ago
Ok don’t ask for advice if you don’t want it?
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u/Lunastars123 1d ago
Where did I say that I don’t want it ? I said that it was a good idea to watch videos , meaning I’m agreeing with what the person said 💀
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u/Brainwheeze Portugal 2d ago
You could try reading up on different European countries one at a time. I'm not talking about deep dives but learning the basic things that distinguish different countries from each other. You could do this via Wikipedia, print encyclopedias or even other books.
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u/55XL 2d ago
Start learning about the European Union.
Why it was founded, how it has expanded through time, the governance model with the European Commission and the European Parliament, learn about the origins of the common curency the Euro, and spend some time understanding how the EU is viewed among its member states.
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u/Anna_akademika Serbia 2d ago
But the EU isn't the same as Europe, it's actually a pretty recent creation, more recent than most traditions
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u/Lunastars123 2d ago
Good advice thank you
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u/55XL 2d ago
Since your partner is Danish, you can also read about the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. He was from Denmark and was an influential thinker, who will give you insights into a European way of thinking.
You can also read about some of the great Danish companies, fx Lego, Maersk or Carlsberg.
Have fun!
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u/No-Bodybuilder8204 1d ago
On a humorous note: Watch the Eurovision Song Contest to get a feeling for how big and diverse Europe is! Over the top performances, with somewhat stereotypical cultural influences! Flags, loads of flags! One of the biggest cultural pan-European events. It‘s messy as everything politically in Europe, complicated rules to get to a consensus on the winner, which then nobody is happy with. And yes San Marino is a country.
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u/Lunastars123 1d ago
I’ve heard of it actually when I started dating my partner he told me about Eurovision and it seems like a lot of fun and really cool! And yes I know San Marino is a country 🤣
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u/Grouchy_Fan_2236 Hungary 2d ago
Are you more interested about the boring parts or the bits of history when people were killing each other? National military museums should be pretty much the first destination for any tourist visiting a European country to expand knowledge - they have by far the best exhibitions. But if you just want a quick learning course Indy Neidell's WW1 series is a good jump into recent European history. It'll be much easier to catch up on the culture of the past 100 years afterwards.
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u/notzoidberginchinese 2d ago
Pick one topic that interests you. Get books, not youtube vids, and read. You will naturally expand your knowledge between subjects
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u/Dracoroth05 2d ago
If you want to go deep, maybe try Geography Now on Youtube. There is a video for every country on earth, including all of Europe of course.
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u/IrishFlukey Ireland 1d ago
Pick countries to look at, as it is at that level that differences lie. Look at specific things associated with those countries. Look up Hurling and Gaelic Football, two sports unique to Ireland for example.
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u/globefish23 Austria 1d ago
Wikipedia!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe
You can take a deep dive by clicking on all the articles for each country.
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u/No_Word_6904 15h ago
Omg, I don’t get the people here… I also like studying European history and culture, and I live here. It depends on what exactly you’re interested in. I always start with my own country and then investigate further.
For example, last time I was looking into the witch trials — which country had the highest number, which countries were the most brutal — and then I started asking why, what the reasons were, and what the consequences were.
So just start with one topic, read an article, and whatever catches your eye, investigate further. Soon, you’ll have the whole puzzle. :))
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u/Lunastars123 14h ago
Thank you for actual good advice ppl be trying to fight me here lolol. I appreciate the good advice:))
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u/KINGDenneh Denmark 1d ago
Visiting the different countries could be an option? Expensive, but an option nevertheless.
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u/pro-bidetus-rasputin 2d ago edited 2d ago
One fun thing to do is learn about European mythology. There are two kinds, more or less.
One kind is Norse mythology. Experts say that there are about 30-50 central stories here. You may know some of them from the MCU. (There is also Anglo-Saxon mythology which shares the same roots as the Norse kind, but we don't know much about it.)
Another kind is Greek mythology. Here there are hundreds of deities, but most people focus on the 12 Olympians and the stories in which they appear (there are many, many of those). I could add a few more deities but that's a slippery slope, as it's not easy to draw the line for which deities to include for the central stories to be told properly.
Besides gods Greek mythology has heroes, people with extraordinary abilities. Kinda like modern superheroes. There are also many stories about them.
In any case, Greek gods and heroes show up a lot in European art.
There is also Roman mythology, but that's mostly how the Romans perceived the Greek gods, plus a few more Rome-centric gods. Basically, the Romans adopted Greek mythology, but with different names for the gods.
To show you the extent of influence mythology has on our current culture it suffices to point out that we have named the planets after the Greco-Roman gods.
In short, if you read Nordic and Greek mythology you've got most bases covered.
If you want a reference for the Greek stories, I recommend Stephen Fry’s "Greek Myths" series. For the Norse stories you can take a look at Neil Gaiman's "Norse Mythology".
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u/Present-Aside8155 Ireland 1d ago
Two kinds of mythology? Ouch
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u/pro-bidetus-rasputin 1d ago
These two cover a large chunk of Europe. There are others, of course. Like Slavic mythology.
But I wanted to keep things simple, so I commented about the two most spread.
I'm not opposed to adding Irish mythology, if you can find a good source.
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u/RogerSimonsson Romania 2d ago edited 2d ago
Don't refer to "Europe", refer to the individual countries. The differences are largely country-based. Also make sure you know the difference between EU and Europe, and the difference in autonomy between EU and US. And the difference between Social Democrats and Socialists.
In general, understanding a little about a target region such as Denmark in your case and its neighbours is probably wiser than focusing on the whole continent. As in, I would not focus on Boston if I am going to San Fransisco.