True story: I traveled to Germany, Austria, and The Netherlands about 10 years ago with a friend on vacation. Before we arrived in Amsterdam, I warned him that some people thought that Dutch sounded silly, and he shouldn’t laugh if it sounded like gibberish. I believe I used the phrase “like the Swedish chef from the Muppets.”

We got on a bus from the train station. He heard the locals talking on the bus, and immediately burst out laughing, eliciting irritated looks from the other passengers. He continued giggling whenever anybody talked for the next 20 minutes until our stop, while I stood there embarrassed. On the walk to our Airbnb, we mercilessly mocked the Dutch language, as it is basically German with more vowels and a bunch of Vs and Js thrown in for no reason.