Questions you have about other nationalities!

[WatermelonWaveclub]

Just for fun. DD and I were just watching a video where Americans were asking questions about the UK. What are your questions (can be for any nationality from any nationality)? And please feel free to answer other people's questions!

I'll start with some questions for Americans:

Are your grocery bags really those ones without handles? They look really awkward to carry!

Why do you not have electric kettles?

In High school films the English teacher for example always gives them some homework to do by the next day and says 'see you tomorrow' - do you have the same classes every day? We just had English twice a week or something!

I can't believe I've somehow missed this thread up until now. The questions about the US have generally been answered well. But just to toss in my two cents,

• we do say goodbye or similar at the end of a conversation.
• I have a kettle, but not an electric one. If I want to boil water to make pour-over filter coffee, I heat it on my gas stove hob.
• @unname gave a good summary of health insurance options, but left out subsidized private coverage available through the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) for people who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid and don't have coverage from employment.

Childminders or nurseries take babies from 3 months and sometimes even 2 months old in France. It’s just normal. That’s another thing I much prefer here actually. Being a stay at home mum or working part time is still seen as too traditional and ‘back to the 50s’ in France.

I always thought Americans studied a broader curriculum as they don't cut down to 3 subjects for A level. But sounds like they don't study that much of a broad range of subjects in general. Only 2 years of a language? Or would they have started learning a language in Primary school?

Actually they do. My kids studied everything from Astronomy to Accounting in high school. The two year requirement for a foreign language is two years in secondary school. They start language study earlier, at least in New York. Some of the curriculum requirements are set at the state level.

This is for Spaniards. How do you manage on apparently little sleep. Ie eat at 8/9/10 at night, go to bed at midnight or later, then get up in the morning for work, day after day. And how do you get your kids up for school after they’ve been to bed late too? Also, I have seen pasta in the Spanish supermarket, so how do you manage to cook it without a kettle- do you boil a big pan from scratch every time- those electricity bills are going to tell. Thanks in advance.

Am I getting it wrong or I am living in one of the worst places in UK. EU national and cannot get my head around the fact that my child was the only one dressed smartly for his y6 leavers party at school. Everyone else was in T- shirts+ shorts or something very casual.
In addition, there is no grades, marks.....nothing when they finish primary school. Its just a below/at/above. Yes, I did received sats results but still. It is difficult to go from everything marked and reported to working towards.....BUT I DO like British schools.

Why do Americans often say "back yard" instead of "garden"?

Is a yard something with hard ground rather than soil?
Is a back garden not very common in the USA?

How do you manage on apparently little sleep. Ie eat at 8/9/10 at night, go to bed at midnight or later

They are more tired - it’s recognised as a problem in Spain and there have been campaigns about getting children to bed earlier as they’ve too tired to learn.

I'm Italian and no one boils pasta water in a kettle - it's something I've only heard of people doing here in the UK.

(One of my nonnas had a kettle, the other boils water for tea on the hob).

ScottishStar thank you! I've heard that the French wer narrow minded, which really surpises me - I thought it was left-leaning and all the revolutions / women like Joan d'Arc being admired, Coco Chanel! so especially women's rights isues surprise me. Does this actually translate into daily life with being rude etc?

I wasn't familiar with these. Kansas apparently has no mechanism for inspecting rides. That's insane and not typical in the US.

But, all kinds of bad things do happen in UK and Europe at Amusement Parks.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidents_at_European_amusement_parks

I would be interested to know how other nationalities would describe their humour. We Brits often have this sense of superiority around our sarcasm being a more intellectual form of humour, but there can often be a real passive aggressive/condescending flavour to it. At the same time, we judge some nationalities of having no sense of humour, being loud and brash or simply bizarre (think Eurotrash).
We conveniently forget some of the awful 70s stuff like Dick Emery and Benny Hill.

Here in America we have electric kettles and they turn themselves off when they reach boiling point.

Walmart sells two or three different kinds. The cheapest costs $12.99 last time I looked.

Also, tea is sold in our supermarkets. So we drink it here. Yorkshire tea or PG Tips tea bags are sold in Safeway. I buy the Extra Strong PG Tips.

People don't just hang up the phone in real life without saying something such as goodbye.

I was just making an appointment over the phone and the receptionist ended the call by saying, "You enjoy the rest of your day" and I replied, "You too. Bye" and she said, "Bye".

Not all Americans say, 'Could care less'. Those who do are ignorant.

The Netherlands: the subtitle thing is true, but that theory is unlikely to be true because kids TV is mainly in Dutch. Not sure I learnt much from Keeping Up Appearances and Ab Fab
More likely it's because English is a compulsory subject from age 10-11 until secondary school exams (age 16,17, or 18), and has been since the 80s. Some schools choose to teach it from age 4-5, others 8-9. Some secondary (and a few primary) schools offer a bilingual curriculum where non-language subjects are taught in English. Quite a few universities teach in English.

Also, no one speaks Dutch abroad and it's a tiny country, so if you want to holiday beyond the Netherlands, English is far more useful!

A question for Brits; why do you say 'floor' instead of 'ground' when you are outside and why do you say, 'Sat' and 'stood' instead of 'sit' and 'stand'? No one said these things when I lived there.

You Brit do possess a superior sense of humor. Seriously.

I don't think there is a particular "American" sense of humor. Too many of our comedians confuse being shocking or gross with being funny.

Definitely. And people are so brutally honest and tell you exactly what they think!

Czech - yes, all of those are known here, sack for small children mostly, other two even with older

Has this been asked already?

What do other nationalities think of the British on holiday?

We don’t say floor I don’t think! Only inside. Ground is for outside! I don’t understand the last bit. Sit is present tense so ‘I sit down’ and Sat is passed tense ‘I sat down’…same with stood (past tense) and stand (present) …you’ll have to give an example of what you mean!

Siesta!

Maybe the question is related to the construction "I was sat, etc." as opposed to the more correct "I was sitting." You often see it on MN as in "he was sat on his phone all afternoon." I don't remember people using this construction when I lived in the UK (but it was many moons ago.)

When Americans say garden they are often talking about a vegetable garden. "Are you growing a garden this year"? they often ask each other. I'm a serious gardener and have lots of lawn, trees, flowers and shrubs covering a large area. I will not have it called a 'yard'. I bristle visitors whom I'm giving a tour to call it a yard and tell them it's a garden not a yard and if they call it a yard again I tell them to call it an arboretum.

I only know one person who does a roast every single week.

@PearlClutch my understanding is the siesta is seriously under threat and most Spaniards don’t indulge anymore.

They are two separate things in the same place. The spot where we planted things to grow then eat = the garden. The whole space of land behind the house = back yard. The space in front of the house = front yard. The combined area front and back = the yard.

I actually thought it was lovely to hear it called a garden when I moved here. It's a nicer word!