Hah!
Though I can kind of understand number 1. My french students all thought that Dutch was spoken in Germany. After all, in their own languages,

German = Deutsch
Dutch = Nederlans.

So I can understand the confusion.
( Pretender, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 23:50, 2 replies)

Continuum
You do realise that there's a linguistic continuum between the 2, no? German spoken on the Dutch border is much closer to Dutch than German in (say) Bavaria, or on the Polish border.

Low Saxon is often regarded as a dialect of Dutch in the Netherlands and a dialect of German in German.
(MartinB9999, Sat 5 Mar 2011, 0:06, closed)

Yep,
My grandma, gawd bless 'er soul, was from near the Dutch border. Hated the Dutch, mind.
( Pretender, Sat 5 Mar 2011, 0:30, closed)

indeed i do, and in fact speak reasonably fluent german and know bits of a few of the germanic languages, like dutch, danish and swedish because of my work. However, the describe it as the national language of Germany? hmmm
(Brighton RAWK at the tone, the time will be:, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 9:02, closed)

you know its funny as when i was learning french and german at school, there were a few people who got caught up on this, but, i dont know it just seemed to annoy me.
(Brighton RAWK at the tone, the time will be:, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 9:04, closed)