Tell me the bad things about living in the UK

[alwayscrashinginthesamecar1]

In the interests of equality, as we have had other threads for other countries, I thought I'd start this thread.

I'll start it off with

Bloody awful weather
Obsessed with class
Racist and in some places sectarian too
Filthy cities.

The UK is not a 'nation' btw.

I wonder if people realise how chippy and parochial they sound when they make this kind of complaint to foreigners? The concept of a country within a country is unknown to most of the world. Rightly, because it doesn't really make sense. In a union of territories, ultimate power really resides at one level or another, and that level really defines what people mean by a country. The European Union is not a country, because EU institutions do not have more power over the component states than their own governments. US states are not countries, even though their governments have more power over their territory than say Scotland. Scotland may be a country, legally under UK law, but it (and England and Wales) are not countries for almost any purpose that people outside the UK are likely to care about. When the USSR existed, no-one outside it regarded its components as separate countries. (I'm assuming that constitutionally they were regarded as such by the USSR.)

'Chippy and parochial' what ..pointing out that the UK is not only England?
Do you have any idea how ignorant you sound? You must be English.
It's a bit like tellng everyone from old Jugoslavia that they were all Serbian....and we all know how that ended

Again. I have never said anything about England! You did!

The neglect of some areas by central Government over decades is one thing that really drags the country down.

The people.

You showed confusion over the difference between a nation and a state and then linked to some page about the english nation in the same sentence that you mentioned the UK as 'this nation'.
The UK is not a nation.
It's international politics for beginners.

@GreyGardens88 I don't understand why everyone piled on the Australian and USA ones but suddently this thread is sowing negativity and taking offence!

@Iwalkinmyclothing list: -defensiveness. Knee jerk overreactions to any criticism of anything about Britain at all.

Couldn't agree more, sadly if you read all three threads, it really says a lot.

@Destroyedpeople

Ok. Firstly, that 'some page' is Cambridge dictionary online. The "english" part in it isn't about English nation. It is a language used. English. Meaning of the word nation in English
Secondly, again. People of UK are commonly referred to as a nation. As in "All nation remembers our fallen soldiers". As well as referred to specifically as English nation, Scottish nation, Welsh nation and so on.

You should talk to someone about your anger issues.

Oliversmumsarmy - I don't recognise that method of MFL teaching from any of the state or independent schools where I've taught in England. Or your description of the books. All text books have lots of pictures, though textbooks are much less used these days, in favour of more interactive methods. What it was like when you were at school (unless you are a very young parent) bears little relation to how is now. I'm really astonished if that's the way your dc's school is teaching MFL!

I used to speak French pretty well.
I hadn’t been to France for sometime when we went a couple of years ago.
Within a day of being there it was coming back to me.

I'm the same. I've always been able to follow French better than I can speak it, but I spent a little time in both Montreal and Paris a few years back and was very quickly able to make myself understood, on a superficial level at least.

The issue is that you have to spend time in a particular country in order to stay fluent (I lose the linking words) and if you don't practice it constantly, it evaporates. A friend of mine is Spanish, and she and her family speak in Spanish at home - her husband has learned - otherwise she'd be at risk of losing her own language.

It's not a case of how well or badly languages are taught at school. But when you live in a country where the international language is spoken, this means that any you've learned in addition will be lost if you don't use it fairly consistently.

Just to make 100% this can be put to bed and btw I expect an apology.

This is the link you have issues with(pic included)

Anyway I don't even care that much it's only that you were going on about our sad lack of knowledge of geography and so on.

'Expect an apology'

The issue is that you have to spend time in a particular country in order to stay fluent.

Or do tons of listening at home. I'm learning a new language from scratch and am constantly listening to audiobooks, radio and podcasts.

People in lots of other countries hear and see English all the time - in songs, adverts, films, tv, all over the internet. That has a massive effect on their vocab knowledge and awareness of the structure of the language, even if they aren't even actively learning English. How often are we accidentally exposed to even a sentence in French, German or Spanish?

I am still waiting for the apology. You hounded me and called me ignorant for your own misunderstanding. Own it

Weather.

I actually don't mind the weather, but I do like eating meals in the garden, and you can do that only a handful of times a year where I live.
In the south of France and mediterranean you can do that all summer.

I think pp was right about the weather. It really depends where in UK you are. It varies massively

It may be worse overseas,but has anyone ranted about the jobsworthy chaps who patrol car parks - years ago i used to park and ride and the CP attendant would inform everyone the CP was for rail users,i would get an earfull every day because i would pop to the newsagent before getting the train .
Then there is the local tip with all the staff standing about saying
" we can not help you move that sofa,love - more than my jobsworth "

No you 'own it'. Your confusion between a nation and a state.

🙄 Seriously. You have some issues.

I have lived in lots of countries but love England best. I don't think it is better or worse than other countries but I love the cultural familiarity. There's lots we get right and obviously lots we get wrong but I think that applies to most countries.

Have to say I also loved New Zealand!

lazylinguist

Maybe we should go back to the 60s and 70s in learning from a book.

The text books my children were given definitely didn’t have pictures in them and you are correct they weren’t really opened as they used “the interactive method”
Which is great if you know the words to interact with.

Neither Dd or Ds were ever given a vocabulary test ever.
I would ask about how they were learning things and they said they knew how to construct a sentence but not anything that they could use in a real situation.

Where as 40+ years after leaving school those pictures are still in my mind and it all comes flooding back to me when I am trying to think of the word where as Dc don’t have that framework to work with.

I have issues? It was you who told us how stupid we were about geography. Then when your ignorance of basic political concepts is pointed out.you start demanding an apology. Issues..Yeh.

Ds and Dd went to different schools. Both had books that hardly had any visual clues They looked to be the most boring books of prose
I don’t think they had a single picture in.The lessons seemed more concerned with learning how to make sentences than with. the basic vocabulary

Actually, I agree with you about the books, compared to what they have now.
We had French text books at school and I can can remember some of the pictures and topics all these years later, although there was too much emphasis on vocab and not enough on sentence building imo. I have lived in other countries and needed to learn fast, and learning how to build a sentence (have, give, go, where, when, how, why, which, want, also etc) has always seemed the most important step, as the vocab seems to stack up in your head pretty easily when you need it.
I do think there are so many other ways you can learn now, so there's not much excuse not to, but I agree that lack of textbooks and the interactive online learning they do now is not as good as having a book.
I do Spanish with my dc for school and while the exercises online are quite good, they are not as easy to remember without the visual clues, or without being able to flip back in a book to check verb endings or whatever. That's why I bought some Spanish text books, I think they are better.