(Wrong) English etiquette guides for Europeans.

[GaiusHelenMohiam]

I was chatting to a customer yesterday at work. She’s lived in the UK for a few years but has yet to make any meaningful female friendships, works with a load of blokes who she gets on fine with but is looking for real friendship.

Anyway, one of the first things she said to me was ‘you have beautiful eyes’ which was lovely if a bit out of nowhere (and I did wonder if she was chatting me up).

A little bit later we ended up chatting at the bar and she told me about the friends thing and that she was reading a book (in her language) about English etiquette and that apparently the done thing is to find something to compliment your new acquaintance on.

I think this is great, if slightly bonkers advice, and I wish it really was an English thing to do. I always make a point of sincerely complimenting people on a particular dress, shoes, etc but it’s not routine.

I did say to her I’d probably steer clear of commenting on hair, eyes or anything physical, because it can come across a bit intense, and that it’s not particularly a very British thing to do but I think it should be.

I just love the idea that there are books floating around Europe with completely off base ways of behaving more like the locals when you move to the UK.

I’m really curious what else her book tells her but alas I didn’t get a chance to ask before closing time. If she comes back I’ll find out.

I don't know of any books like this, but I have a story about -wrong- English etiquette.

My DM is French. Her English wasn't very good, so she went to night School in London.
Anyway, she met and dated my DF, who is English.

One week she had homework to write a letter to someone whose husband had passed away. It wasn't a real letter, just a practice writing letters using more formal, polite English.

She asked my DF for advice and he told her to write "Sorry your old man kicked the bucket".

Luckily she checked with her teacher before submitting her homework.

That's funny! I'd struggle to write a letter like that as a native speaker.

According to the results of my quick Google, you should never say "my great grandmother was British". If it's true, how the hell would that be rude?

Not quite what you are asking for but a family friend of ours who came over from Italy as an adult says the 2 most useful "first words" of English to recognise are "chicken" (on menus, when offered dinner by someone) and "paracetamol" (English doctors always say rest and paracetamol apparently, if they say anything else there is something terribly wrong with you.)

A lovely Slovenian lady I met for the first time in her own home offered me tea or coffee and reassured me that she'd bought condensed milk especially for my tea because I'm English. We live in a 3rd country where both of us are foreign - I hadn't done anything special because she's from Slovenia, so she had one up on me even though her conviction that English people specifically need condensed milk in tea was a little off.

My MIL was Croatian and only after years of having my older two overnight during school holidays did I find out that she specifically went to buy farm fresh milk for our children because they're English and English children only drink that. At home my children drank whichever milk I randomly bought. They did prefer what she bought and I buy it from the farm occasionally as a bit of a treat...

Mine aren't etiquette though, just milk...

My DH is half German and still doesn't believe me that its more polite to turn up to a social engagement at an English person's house 5 minutes late than ten minutes early...

Maybe they could try informing them not to confuse English with British.

I live abroad and everywhere I go people try to force feed me tea because I'm English. I hate tea and only drink coffee. They cannot accept this version of an English person.

FelicityPike I think its enough to ask English people not to do that (Welsh and Scottish people generally don't obviously). Expecting anyone else to understand the difference between The UK, Britain, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is too big an ask unless you're sure you understand their country properly.

@BringBackCoffeeCreams 100%.
We lived abroad, 6 different countries. I would always be offered tea. I loathe it. One school mum refused to believe me!

I just thought it was very sweet that she was reading a book to learn how to make friends in a specific country, and a little sad the book appears to be a touch off base.

I was a bit startled by the compliment

I'm finding these quite funny.

I lived in the US for a while and a neighbour offered me tea, knowing that we "love our tea". I accepted, asked for milk and no sugar please... and was presented with a luke warm milky green tea. Twas not good, but felt it would be rude not to drink it?!!

I work with offshore teams based in Poland, and every one of the several calls a day we have with them starts with at least ten minutes on the weather. They’ve clearly been told it’s our favourite subject and the best way to build rapport with us.

But it's not wrong advice as such, is it? You say yourself that you compliment people, and I have found that school mums etc. often say things like "oh I like your scarf/dress" or something about DD's plaits etc.

Agree that complimenting someone's eyes is a bit intense, when someone does that I find it's usually forrin people or people who are a bit in their own world.

APerfectSky I don't drink tea outside my own home (and work where I have tea bags) for this reason - if offered Tee in Germany it means a herbal infusion, or sometimes "black Tee" which is ridiculously weak and which isn't what I mean by tea!

I do drink green or ginger tea sometimes but they're as different from what I mean when I think of "a cup of tea" as tap water is to tonic water...

I have randomly converted a few unexpected people to the guilty pleasure of hot, strong PG tips with milk over the years though...

With the tea thing it's not just foreign people that can't understand an English person not drinking tea the English are just as bad. I dont drink tea or coffee and honestly half the time I think it would just be easier to force it down than have to explain for the hundredth time I just don't like it, it isn't a personal insult that I dont want you to make me one!

Oh dear - I thought that this was going to be a thread on how to tease the unwary (a bit like spoof magazine tips columns)

Like 'it's always polite to take the seat right next to someone when the rest of the carriage is empty, no-one wants to feel alone and snubbed'

I read some handouts that were being given to offshore office workers moving to the UK.

It said that we ate fish and chips for most meals and often drank tea. I can't remember much else useful

In the past I've worked with companies that provide off-shore contact centre services. With sites in places like India and South Africa, it was interesting to read their training documentation for call agents on how to establish good rapport with British people over the phone.

It included background on a number of potential talking points, but the one that surprised me was an overview of popular British TV soaps and shows (Match of the Day was one I remember).

A lecturer on a course I did in Germany also believed that English people eat mint sauce with all meals - I thought she was joking but it turned out she wasn't and was determined to make me admit it's true.

Mine are almost universally food apart from punctuality norms though.

I lived in India for a year and was accused of being "on English time" - first I thought it meant I was literally 5 hours too early on GMT, but it meant I was being anal about punctuality Which is ironic considering its the other way around in Germany where I now live.

The Xenophobes Guide to the English very funny and pretty spot on. Ask us nicely to do something and we'll do anything for you. Tell us to do it and hell will freeze over first.

@Hellocatshome

With the tea thing it's not just foreign people that can't understand an English person not drinking tea the English are just as bad. I dont drink tea or coffee and honestly half the time I think it would just be easier to force it down than have to explain for the hundredth time I just don't like it, it isn't a personal insult that I dont want you to make me one!

I'm a bit like that! It's kind of a way of negotiating a bit of social awkwardness by having something to busy yourself over. So I'm a bit flummoxed with people who don't drink hot drinks.

My language teacher went to England once. This qualified her to announce to the class with absolute certainty that she didn't like Yorkshire puddings as she didn't like the type of meat that they're made with. No amount of correction from me would convince her that they don't have meat in them. From what she was saying I think she was mixing up Yorkshire puddings with steak and kidney puddings, but by that point she'd annoyed me too much to explain it to her.

My uni canteen did really nice chip butties. A group of boys always had chips straight after our lecture that ended at 10am and would talk excitedly about it been ‘chip Tuesdays’.

Anyway, a really lovely Chinese student, who was taking part in a term abroad, wrote an essay for her home university about British customs. ‘Chip Tuesdays’ made it onto the list and she had specified that they were to be eaten in the morning.

A few years ago we were listening to Radio 2 confessions. The bloke was admitting to explaining the Shipping Forecast as the Cricket Scores to a visiting American colleague. .

My tips..
Stand on the left on escalators and don't make eye contact on public transport.

I remember reading a kind of tourist guide to England somewhere, I'll see if I can find it