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!

As well as those just being the minimum requirements, there are a variety of options depending on the school. As well as traditional academic courses, many schools offer vocational and technical courses, or there may be a regional centre to offer them. So an academically inclined child would fill in their schedule with more academic courses, and a more practically inclined one could study something like auto repair. I am in a very large county-wide school district, and so we have a dedicated technology high school, among other programs.

Traditionally languages are begun around 7th grade, but an increasing number of schools are offering them earlier, or offering immersion programs. SO a student in 11th grade may have had 4 years of language study already, but only 2 of them counted. My district offers Spanish, French, and Chinese immersion.

Out of interest, where about do you live or are from?

This is definitely not common in Spain, but I do agree that socialising is a big part of our culture. Having said that, it mostly happens with your children in tow, because kids join in with 10pm dinners at the weekend or with visiting friends until the early hours. Leaving children at home and going clubbing every Friday night is NOT how Spanish women enjoy child free time! 😂

This isn't common! If anything after dinner the men are drinking gin and tonics and the women go for an ice cream! I stay with the men for the gin 😂

@PrachtStück i remember from my group of friends there was a guy who was happier in small groups, reading etc. His gang was tolerant of this up to a point but kept urging him to “ animate hombre”. He confessed to me at a party that he wasn’t enjoying himself , from his demeanour he could have been “ confessing “ to being gay ( still something of a taboo in Spain in the 90s).

@LaDamaDeElche @PrachtStück
I wouldn’t say it is very very common, but it is what my friends (and other friendship groups I know) do all the time, so it rings a bell for me. Maybe is because we girls in my gang are “locas como cabras” while our DHs and DPs are the quiet type.
I’m from Valencia; my friends still meet every week for dinner and drinks, we are all 40+, even early 50s. Duracell type girls.
I’m in Dènia atm and WhatsApp is burning with messages about a friend’s b’day party tomorrow. No husbands / no children allowed. Btw, our children range from 10 to 22.

Btw, I have a friend from Elche (pandilla de verano) and her friends in Elche are the completely opposite to us. Early 20s and they only went out “en parejas” for dinner and a drink, and after dinner the girls would sit together to talk about clothes and gossip about Hola magazine and the boys would sit together to talk about football and basket. I always found that extremely boring and “de viejos”, the kind of “sobremesa” chat my parents’ generation would have. They are still doing the same, although she comes with us every summer and reckons enjoy herself and recharges for the winter boredom.

I lived in the states for a little bit when i was younger and crackers with soup was one of the things I adopted and still love to this day!

I often go for dinner in a big group and like you say, the men are together down one end of the table and the women down the other. The men are talking about football and the women are gossiping. It’s so alien to me! DP is born and bred in Elche and he thinks it’s weird too, after living in London and travelling to other place and seeing how people are. I must admit, in Alicante it seems less like this. Elche seems a bit stuck in a time warp!! I don’t know about other areas, but I notice women here talk about cleaning a lot and are a little obsessed with it. The lions share of the housework seems to fall to women too regardless of whether they work or not. When I’m at my in-laws, the women cook, clear the table and wash up while the men chat. DP is the only man who helps and his aunties are constantly telling him that he doesn’t have to as there are enough women there to do it 😵

@LaDamaDeElche
My friend from Elche says it is because almost nobody is originally from Elche. What she means is that Elche got an influx of people from other areas of Alicante and Murcia in the 1950s and 1960s, everybody in the city has a parent of grandparent originally from a tiny village in the area, most of them the Vega Baja “comarca” and “huerta”. She says it is now a big city but they still have the mindset of village-living in the olden times. Women with women, men with men, closed groups and traditional ways. Her opinion, I don’t know if that’s for real, as I only know a handful of people from Elche.

I have another one, if you're from somewhere that isn't English speaking but you maybe learn English in school, do you actually like it when English speaking tourists try to speak the language? Or is it really annoying listening to the mangled and awkward attempts and wish tourists would just speak English because it's quicker?

There is definitely a mindset of village living for sure, so she could be right. It's changing little by little with each new generation, thankfully! I'm a teacher here and it seems the boys are cooking for themselves and doing stuff around the house. This would have been virtually unheard of when DP was a kid, as the sisters would have been the ones being taught to cook and expected to do more household chores. Parents are bringing their children up more equally now. We're staying in the family campo for the summer, and I wish my mother in law would realise times have changed, as I can be in the other house doing things and she'll call me to help her fold up sheets or whatever when her son (DPs 36 year old brother) is two metres away from her sitting on his bum watching TV 🤦🏽‍♀️

I did! I live in thy UK now, and although English is taught in schools where I'm from, not a lot of people in my area spoke it, at least not more than a few simple words/sentences.
When people attempted the language, most locals, even it they spoke English, would be pleased. People would also tend to help with any pronunciation issues/finding the right word for something. I prefer people at least trying the language instead of just speaking English.

My schools were a private convent and a state comprehensive/girls school - state one had Egyptian and Tudor history, must've been something else but forgot.

Convent had French Revolution, poor schools, including I think Irish (Anglo Irish?) setting up something in Ireland (I think?), Co-Op and the stamp system.

But absolutely nothing re colonies/slave trade. I'd have remembered it, if so. My brother had slightly better at primary school and was taught about WW2.

If you eat out yes, but at home no.

Actually... this isn't always the case. Parents have a holiday home in SW France (half way between Bordeaux and La Rochelle) and there's lots of leopard print sold and other items. Definitely not just for the tourists either. It's quite amusing that there's a small (but a bit boring) lingerie shop in our small town.

In fact when we've been out for Bastille Day there have been French people who come along who are very casual, lots of jeans, casual tops (even cold shoulder tops) and not stylish at all. They tend to shop at E Le Clerc if you know that shop (so you'll get my reasonings!).

Yes, I think that poster missed the bit where I said 'just for fun'. This isn't about calling anyone crazy. People have been asking about the 'crazy' things English people do too. Actually, I think learning about different cultures in a light hearted way is a good thing. And yes it is anglo-centric because this is an English site, but of course people of any cultures are very welcome to ask the questions that have puzzled them about other cultures!

Actually, tipping bin men at Christmas used to be a common thing.

I couldn’t agree more. Wealthier urban ladies are very stylish in France, but in the rest of the country your average French woman isn’t better than the average British one!

Not me, but a friend who is a native French speaker from Quebec told me that when she visited Paris, Parisiennes would sigh, roll their eyes and switch to English when she spoke, and didn't believe that she was a native French speaker!

With regards to the fashion, I have a friend who lives in mid rural France and they certainly aren't stylish at all! The clothes the whole family wear look like the kind of jeans/jumpers type combo we wore in the 80s.

You only have to look at ordinary French department stores to see that not everyone wears stylish clothes.

I always found that extremely boring and “de viejos”, the kind of “sobremesa” chat my parents’ generation would have.

The problem is, @LaBrujaPiruja , that a lot of people would say that out loud, or give you 'the' look when you express a lack of interest in the other type of partying and socialising you describe. People will deny it or simply not notice it, but when you're on this side of it, these kind of judgy behaviours come across very clearly. It's one of the reasons I left Spain - there is an incredibly judgmental attitude towards those who don't socialise in the traditional sense of the word.

I'm from Valencia too and we're a very outgoing, extroverted region in general, so I fit in even less than I might do somewhere else in the country.

I don't think my dad has done the dishes once in his entire life, but thankfully my mum made sure all of her children shared the chores equally

I've never seen one in any house I've been to and didn't have one in mine.

When I went to Paris I had the locals rolling their eyes at me and switch to English too. My French was pretty good back in the day but the whole Paris thing put me right off so I stopped with French entirely. 😂

In Finland people are delighted if you try to speak Finnish to them. The only thing is that they often enjoy speaking English so they tend to switch to English quite easily.

@PrachtStück
I have several friends that do not like the party animal approach and are and have been quite happy anyway.
The anecdotical evidence I am referring to does not have, in my opinion, anything to do with what you were saying. This friend of mine and her friends did find their set up (girls and boys apart, gossip and football, etc.) very normal, they did not think they did not fit in, not even in comparison with those of us more outgoing. It was, and is, a very odd cultural aspect of their upbringing.

I do not like “mascletaes” and many other things that see supposedly the norm in our hometown and still fit in.

Btw, in my “entorno” and friendship group in the late 80s and 90s (born in 1970) being openly gay was not unheard of and my gay friends did not have much trouble with it. One of my male friends came out at 18, no problem at all. My best friend’s sister only had problems with her two grannies, who could not understand anything at all, and her dad was a little bit, let’s say, disappointed, but only for a few weeks and that was all.

Are you from Valencia city? Society was very permissive back then. I have been in the UK since late 1992 but still visited very regularly and kept contact with all my friends. My eldest niece, born 1988, has told me of her gay friend having plenty of problems in the early 2000s. With his peers…