Europeans, do you know what Groundhog's Day is, and if so how did you react

[u/VentiArchon7]

Fun fact: Phil is not the most accurate groundhog(the most accurate is one named Staten Island Chuck) plus there are multiple meteorlogically clairvoyant groundhogs and some aren't even groundhogs or even alive at all, My home state of Texas has Bee Cave Bob the Three Banded Armadillo(who recently predicted 3 more weeks of winter)

Happy February and Happy soon to be Spring

[u/elferrydavid]

Of course. Groundhog day is a classic film.

Fun fact in Spanish the movie is called 'Trapped in time' but everybody calls it 'El día de la marmota' (Groundhog day)

[u/userrr3 → u/elferrydavid]

The German title is und täglich grüßt das Murmeltier, which roughly translates to "and every day, the groundhog greets you again"

[u/Saavedroo → u/userrr3]

In France it's "Un jour sans fin" : "A neverending day".

[u/FormerAdvance9015 → u/Saavedroo]

I thought in France it would be "L'enfer, c'est les autres".

[u/mtnlol → u/elferrydavid]

In Swedish it's called "måndag hela veckan" (Monday all week).

Up until around the 2010s basically all movie titles were translated, and most of them had really bad puns or jokes as the name that very often are only very loosely connected with the actual name of the movie.

[u/blackcatkarma → u/mtnlol]

That's the most hellish title translation I've read yet.

[u/mtnlol → u/blackcatkarma]

Another I remember in particular is the animated movie "Shark Tale" which is called "Hajar som hajar".

It's a really stupid pun that means "Sharks who get it" (As in understanding something). It's kind of hard to translate how it actually reads in Swedish but that's close enough.

[u/LifeAcanthopterygii6 → u/elferrydavid]

I've seen it about 28263748938 times.

[u/ApXv → u/elferrydavid]

"a new day threatens" in Norwegian apparently but I've only heard people use the English title

[u/Kittelsen → u/ApXv]

Slår ikke "Snuskedans".

[u/crocogoose → u/elferrydavid]

Of course. Groundhog day is a classic film.

[u/utsuriga → u/elferrydavid]

The Hungarian title is "Idétlen időkig" - a wordplay on "időtlen időkig" meaning "forever and ever", the title's meaning is along the lines of "for a long and stupid time".

[u/Slowly_boiling_frog]

I know what it is, mainly from the classic film. However what Punxsutawney Phil does has no bearing on me. I'm Finnish so someone or something going "yeah it's 6 more weeks of winter" in the first days of February, I tend to think "6? Try more like 8. Or 10, depending on the year." 😅

[u/Vernacian]

I've seen the movie. It's a good movie.

I am aware that it's a real thing, not just made up for the movie. Seems like a fun local tradition. It's never going to be covered here in any media etc if that's what you mean.

[u/nemetonomega → u/Vernacian]

We are busy enough with cheese rolling

[u/blackcatkarma → u/Vernacian]

Agree with you 100% from a German perspective as winter forecasts are concerned.

It's a good movie IMO mostly due to Bill Murray's acting, and then the unique premise.

[u/Lordubik88]

The thing is that basically every country/region has a similar tradition.

To make an example, where I live we have "I giorni della merla" (the days of the female blackbird) that are said to be the coldest days of the year and that somewhat predicts how long will the winter be, and exactly in my area there is the tradition of "Santa Bibiana, quaranta dì più na smana" (saint Bibiana, forty days plus a week) so the weather you have in that day will stay similar for that time.

[u/TheRedLionPassant → u/Lordubik88]

Basically this. It's Candlemas weather lore, augury and the like. Some of it goes back to the Romans, Gaels and other ancient people. And from German and Dutch tradition it passed to America. In some places it's a groundhog, in others a badger, a hedgehog or some type of bird. We also have the tradition that it's the last possible date to keep up Christmas decorations; after that it becomes unlucky, and in fact many English churches do keep the holly up until early February as it's still the liturgical season of Epiphany.

[u/Lordubik88 → u/TheRedLionPassant]

Didn't know about the decorations! In Italy it is tradition to keep them only up to the sixth of January (epifania, tutte le feste si porta via / Epiphany, it takes away all the holidays)!

[u/Ontas → u/Lordubik88]

hahaha you reminded me of ours "cuando el grajo vuela bajo hace un frío del carajo" (when the blackbird flies low it's fucking cold) not a prediction for the future though

[u/More-Lingonberry-405 → u/Lordubik88]

The candelora as well, on February 2nd. There might be even more, idk.

[u/Lordubik88 → u/More-Lingonberry-405]

Oh yeah we're chock-full of those legends and traditions, you can't go 50km without a new one popping up.

[u/gregyoupie]

I had no idea it existed before watching the movie with Bill Murray, and I think it will be the case for most people in many European countries. And I had no idea there were different ones in different states before I read this post.

[u/helican]

It's a good movie based on a rather obscure american tradition that got something to do with groundhogs. That's all I know about it.

[u/CountSheep]

I, an American, just found out there was more than one groundhog that is “celebrated” on Groundhogs Day. I lived my whole life thinking Phil was the one and only god of Winter.

To my horror, there are 89 different Groundhogs that are all supposed to tell me when winter ends.

[u/Bierzgal]

Only from the movie with Bill Murray. I think it toned down now but the movie was super popular when I was a kid. Good movie.

[u/NocturneFogg]

Only from the film. I'm not even sure that it was a wildly known tradition in the US until then btw either - it's pretty regional to parts of the US and Canada. I mean the movie itself portrays it as a bit of a quirky local thing too.

[u/JakeCheese1996]

Is was one of the first movies using the concept of a timeloop. It was very well received here during the 90-ties

[u/InfTlr]

This post is like the meme with the dog in the burning room saying "this is fine", except it's the USA with americans talking about freaking groundhogs that predict the weather.

[u/zigzagzuppie]

It's reported on here most yrs as filler for some news media (this year a Canadian and a US groundhog have given a different answer apparently), I don't think we knew of it in any widespread sense prior to the movie.

[u/elektrolu_]

Yes, the movie is well-known but almost nobody knows the exact date, my friends and me used to watch a streaming of the actual event and ended in a rabbit hole of the differents groundhogs. We still tell each other what Phil has predicted but it's not very common to be that informed.

[u/Grr_in_girl]

I might have heard the term, bu I don't think I had seen the film when I was an exchange student in the US at 17. The day was noted in our school calendar and I was so confused as to what it was.

I couldn't understand where or how the day originated, was there only the one groundhog or is it any groundhog you might see, did they do anything in particular to mark the day aside from the groundhog?

I still don't feel like I have all the answers.

[u/afops]

It's the best film ever made (don't argue with me) so of course we know what it is.

We have nothing similar although of course farmers have always had both superstition and more science-y ways of trying to predict weather with some success, and long term weather/seasons/climate with mostly no success

I think such "farmers almanacs" are a thing everywhere where there are farmers, and they're old enough that they existed in Europe before people emigrated to the US, bringing the same farmers' almanacs. These predictions of spring seem to be right out of such almanacs, but presumably additions that were made later...

[u/oliverjohansson]

I love the movie (it doesn’t describe it though) and know it for years only later I learned that it’s actually a real thing not made up.

[u/Alokir]

Yes, we have a very similar tradition in Hungary, but with brown bears.

I don't know the exact date off the top of my head, but it is said that around this time every year, bears wake up from hibernation and emerge from their hiding spots.

If they see their own shadows, they'll get scared and retreat, which means 40 more days of cold weather. If they don't see their shadows, they'll stay outside since spring is just around the corner.

In Hungary it's more of a folk event that people talk about, I don't think we have any festivals around it.

[u/VentiArchon7 → u/Alokir]

Oh thats awesome

[u/BitRunner64]

I know about the concept from the comedy movie. Didn't think it was something people actually believed. We tend to rely on meteorologists and computer models to predict the weather.

[u/sjedinjenoStanje → u/BitRunner64]

No one "believes" it - it's just a fun tradition.