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!

The class system is denied by many British people, and totally obvious to any foreigners.

It does mean 'isn't it'. Issa norrrmawl laaandaaaan werrrd innit. Don' know nuffink if you don' know that. 😁

When are you hearing it meaning more than that? It just means 'do you agree?' It can be used rhetorically I guess "I was walking down the street, innit". Nobody needs to agree that the gentleman was walking down the street for the story to continue. But in that case it's been used where some people might say "right" or "if you catch my drift".

I call my best friend hun and she calls me hun too. We're definitely not passive aggressive towards each other as far as I know. Having said that, earlier in my post I did say I take things very literally and I'll add that I can't always read tone in social conversations. So maybe for 20 years she's been PA towards me while I've enjoyed her company and for 20 years she's gone home pissed off with me for being unknowingly PA back to her 🤷‍♀️

For UK- Why do people need a licence to watch TV?

in Ireland at least has been dumbed down to feck which is completely acceptable
Feck is not the same as fuck. Feck means to throw something.

Aussie here, we have what ever we feel like. A lot still go the traditional hot meal, a lot do a mix, and a lot go more fresh sea food, or barbies

It’s still around. A friend of mine bought a house that still had the old knob and tube. Her main problem was finding insurance. The sale nearly fell through on that point. She did end up finding a company that would write a policy and buying the house though.

It's not so much that individuals may want to sue.

If insurance companies are involved it's up to them. Usually they are actually suing the other guys insurance company.

For UK- Why do people need a licence to watch TV?

@jewishmum the TV licence fee is just for watching BBC channels, as they don't have any commercial adverts, which is how other channels are funded. If someone from outside the UK tries to view BBC content aimed at a domestic audience, it is blocked for that reason - they haven't paid for a licence to see it.

The BBC does now make a huge amount of money from their worldwide operations, where they act as other channels do and licence their content for transmission, for an agreed fee. And someone outside the UK looking at international BBC web content will see adverts.

When the licence fee was introduced, there were only the BBC channels, but the situation has got more and more complicated as the number of channels and ways of accessing TV content has grown. There's often a debate about whether licencing should be scrapped and the BBC should become a commercial operation.

Having lived in a few other countries in my time and watched national channels in those places, I would personally pay DOUBLE the licence fee to avoid the adverts every 20 minutes or so, without even taking anything else into account.

The BBC also has as part of its remit a responsibility to provide a broad range of programming, and to maintain impartiality in its news reporting etc. Again, there are different opinions on how well it always does that, but when I was first in the US and saw Fox News, I literally could not believe that such one-sided interpretation of every single news story was legally allowed to be presented as "news". So far (with the exception of one recent channel that I don't think is doing well anyway), we've avoided that here, as commercial news channels have adopted the same sort of neutrality to compete with the BBC.

Probably a longer answer than you were expecting! But I truly believe that the BBC, for all its faults, (and it is quite rightly held publicly accountable to those), is a huge asset in providing information and entertainment, in a way that wouldn't be possible if it was a standard commercial company relying on advertising rather than longer-term planning based on licence fees.

Feck is not the same as fuck. Feck means to throw something.

Not always.
Even my mother lets slip the odd Feck It and she's not talking about throwing something.

Lived in both - always said ‘going across’ from Isle of Man … eg. We are off across tomorrow on holiday. From Jersey just said the name of the place visiting …. eg. We are off to Southampton tomorrow.

Never to the Mainland- as you mention - we are the mainland 😂 its like sweating if you say that !

Swearing not sweating 🙄 autocorrect!

The kids are fine, because apart from teens who start school really early and go to bed too late, primary kids do get enough sleep on school nights. If they go to bed at 9:30 and get up at 7:30, that’s a sufficient amount of sleep.

Adults are usually tired, but aren’t adults everywhere 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have a kettle, my mother-in-law has a kettle - they sell kettles in Spain lol. For the people who don’t, they boil the water on the stove. If they want a coffee from the jar, they boil the cup of water in the microwave.

The material used in construction of a house in the past has been determined by the weather, previously the processes/technology/materials were relatively crude but to a degree that has not changed because the simple materials are easy to repair and are still the best for the task, for example plaster board, its cheap, easy to fit, shape, replace and repair.

In many of the northern European countries brick is the predominate material because the climate has periods of damp/rain where untreated timber will just rot. Timber frame homes not clad with brick are available but I have not researched how they age or how the timber is treated to deal with the relative damp. A timber frame home clad with brick is so much easier to heat, I lived (London) in one for 5 years and given a choice I would never live in anything else. Builders don't like them because the skills to build the frame are hard to find, I had many builders wanting to do my extension using cavity block instead of the timber frame. The majority of homes build in the last 40 years are cavity block.

In Spain concrete is used because during the day its baked in the sun retaining the heat for the cold nights, northern Spain roofs are pitched because of the higher amounts of rain vs the south and flat roofs.

Timber is best in extreme temperatures, hot in summer and freezing in winter, at both ends of the scale wood rot is not a problem.

I never experienced horizontal rain until I was out in a summer thunder storm in Chicago. Brick is perfect because a lime based mortar will expel the water without a mechanical process. The old ways in many cases are still the best, expelling water without a mechanical process requires no electricity and now would be considered 'green'.

@Hachos2018
scheißer you can use as an insult for a person

the excrement would be Schiss, which would be a number 2 but very informal / not polite language

A PP has explained the expression

Isle of Man here. We might say we’re going to England, Ireland, Scotland etc. some say travelling to the UK. You’re right we’re the mainland.

I found the following interesting when I went to China:

In Ireland, when you want to signify "one" with your fingers, you hold up your index finger. When you want to show "two", you hold up your index and middle fingers, and so on.

In China, you hold up completely different fingers (can't remember which ones).

Korean people - from dramas I get the impression that curly hair is considered ugly/unkempt , is that true ? As a curly person I need to know …. 🙂🙂
Also the alcohol ! Does everyone really drink that much Soju ???

It funds the BBC. No advertising on the Beeb = need to be funded by people who use it.

What do you say in other countries when people sneeze - so in the UK it’s “bless you”, in Germany it’s “Gezundheit”. What about France? I don’t remember learning it at school!

A tes/vos souhaits

@4kids2cats
For a couple of years now, we are told that it is good manners not to say 'Gesunheit' to the sneezer, but the sneezer has to say 'Entschuldigung'.
I still say it in informal sttings.

Ah interesting!

@NancyDrooo never been to Japan but plan too visit and yes its true KFC Is the traditional Christmas Dinner, you have to order it months in advance as well.

I’ve only read a few pages of this thread, enjoying it so far and have seen so many questions about the differences between the UK and the USA.
I follow on FB “Yorkshire Peach” short snappy, mostly humorous & occasionally serious videos about the differences between 🇬🇧 & 🇺🇸.
Lisa is very insightful.🙂

To the poster who asked why Chinese and Japanese people seem to talk so loudly, I am not Chinese but I did live in Asia for many years. Cantonese and Mandarin are tonal languages, which means that the meaning is conveyed by the pitch and tone of the word, as well as the phonic sounds, and it is slightly harder to express that at a very low volume. I think that might even be where the idea of “Chinese whispers” comes from- messages in Chinese more likely to get distorted at very low volume?

I also imagine that it is perhaps harder to zone out sounds of an unfamiliar language in the background than it would be an English conversation.

Japanese is not tonal though and most Japanese people I met were very very softly spoken. Some do like loud drinking games though!