I am interested by the phenomenon of national service (conscription) and the cultures around it in European countries. Here in the UK, we abolished it in 1960 with the last conscripts being ‘demobbed’ (finishing their service) in 1963. I had some Army training in my teenage years in the ‘80s, but that was at a private boys’ school and so atypical.

Anyway, for those of you did national service, which of the Armed Forces did you join and why? How did the recruitment process work for you?

An auxiliary question for those who are about to do national service: Which of the Forces are you planning to join?

Among the countries that share a border with yours, which do you consider the most culturally similar to your own country, and which do you consider the most culturally different? Consider factors such as language, religion, traditions, cuisine, history, and social norms. I'm curious to hear your perspectives and the reasons behind your choices.

It feels like a european countries have high cost of living and are stuck in a cycle. All you hear about on the news.

Is any country not in this loop?

You know, primarily from China.

Also regarding other jobs who come in contact with packages, customs workers, etc.

I've heard of several European nations, or various groups within those nations, complain or suggest action against the increasing popularity of English in everyday life. Especially in terms of things like English phrases, words and turns of phrases becoming more common among younger people. I've heard it's a complaint among some older Germans from when my girlfriend lived in Germany, and I think I remember reading about the French Academy trying to push the government to take action against it afew years ago.

And yes, asking this in English is INCREDIBLY ironic.

Please provide your country and what type of community (city, rural, etc) you live in.

A few exceptions, Norway, UK, Iceland, you guys are welcome to find a close alternative to this questions. Southern nations on the Mediterranean, you can opt for east and west since I presume 99.9% of you will pick north otherwise.

I'm studying to be an electrician in the US, and I want to move to the EU once I graduate. So I was curious to know if the rules, procedures, etc are similar to the ones in the US, and also if all EU countries follow the same rules between eachother.

I'm Italian and I'm making a game where your whole life happens through phone notifications. Right now I'm writing the dad character: all the messages your dad sends you, from the day you get your first phone at 14 until you're old.

The problem is I'm Italian, and I have no idea what a typical dad text looks like in other countries.

Could you help me? Reply with the country you're from and the text your dad sends you most often. I'd really appreciate it, and I'll add the messages you send me to the game.

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Welcome to our daily scheduled post, the Daily Slow Chat.

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Heyy I have a used perfume that I wanna sell (its la vie est belle 100ml theres about 96% left in the bottle) And I was wondering what a good website is to sell that?

Something u didnt even notice before, but once u left you realised its actually pretty nice.

Triple analog connectors (red, white and yellow) that were common before HDMI on TVs and video players.

I'm a teen doing a project on birth rates and noticed that some poorer, less happy countries have higher birth rates than many European countries. Why is Europe struggling with low fertility rates despite its high living standards?

Please keep the comments civil and respectful. I'm genuinely curious and want to learn!

Only 1 but maybe 2 :)

I am at Kastrup Airport to collect my daughter and grandson. The sounds levels are minimal and how out of place will I be giving them a loud South African welcome. How noisy is your country?

Hello there!

Welcome to our daily scheduled post, the Daily Slow Chat.

If you want to just chat about your day, if you have questions for the moderators (please mark these [Mod] so we can find them), or if you just want talk about oatmeal then this is the thread for you!

Enjoying the small talk? We have a Discord server too! We'd love to have more of you over there. Do both of us a favour and use this link to join the fun.

The mod-team wishes you a nice day!

We just celebrated the Hungarian revolt against Soviet Occupation on the 23rd here in Hungary, and THAT led me to thinking about the 1848-1849 rebellion against Austria, and it reminded me that, pretty much every town on city in Hungary has a bucket of street names that are named after people specifically from that rebellion. The big ones being Lajos Kossuth, Ferenc Deák, Sándor Petőfi and a whole bunch of others: https://dailynewshungary.com/do-you-know-which-is-the-most-popular-hungarian-street-name-part-i/. What's interesting (to me, anyway) is that it's rare to find a settlement that DOESN'T have, say, a Lajos Kossuth street or SOMETHING named after Sándor Petőfi (the small town where I live has a square AND a street named after him; and Kossuth too, of course).

As said, the vast majority are from that rebellion. The rest are a mix of other rebellious leaders, artists, writers (especially poets for some reason) and the occassional scientist.

And your country? Where do the street names come from? Why?

I think we are seeing the best of the worst of times of the next decade for this continent.

I realise this seems more like a r/askreddit post but I I’m really interested in europeans in this regard, so if you would be kind enough to list your country if it’s not on your user flair.

In Portugal, it’s very common for different places to share the same name. For example, there’s a Nespereira in Guimarães and another one in Lousada, a Ferreiros in Braga and another in Póvoa de Lanhoso. Many are small parishes or villages in the same region, sometimes just a few dozen kilometres apart. But sometimes they’re hundreds of kilometres apart, like Santa Eulália: one in Vizela, in the north, and another in Elvas, in the south near the Spanish border.

Is this also the case where you live? How do people tell them apart in everyday conversation (adding the municipality, the region, etc.)? And is there any official rule to avoid duplicates, or is it just accepted as normal?

I'm curious because I've heard some places have really specific ways of greeting each other that used to be super common, but I wonder if younger generations are just defaulting to whatever's fastest. Is it still a thing where you live or has it mostly died out?

Hello there!

Welcome to our daily scheduled post, the Daily Slow Chat.

If you want to just chat about your day, if you have questions for the moderators (please mark these [Mod] so we can find them), or if you just want talk about oatmeal then this is the thread for you!

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The mod-team wishes you a nice day!