American Reacts to Europeans Answering Geography Questions 

"Some of these people may not speak English as their first language" NONE of these people speak English as their first language

"Name 4 capitals Worldwide that have 4 letters.. in your Second language."

Wait a minute , they get 20 Euro to answer hard questions but Americans get a 100 for getting simple ones right ?

'"some" of those people might not speak English as their first language' - almost no one did. Which makes the questions involving specific questions about names and letters so much harder, because the countries and cities often have other names in their native language.

when they ask american's questions: where is china? when they ask europeans: so what is the population of sweden? incorrect u missed it by 3 people.

Let's not forget that for most of them, the question is asked in their second language, which adds a bit to the difficulty.

It is even harder when english is not your native language. In german Rome is written "Rom" for example.

"can european answer simple geography question". "simple", yeah right 😅

Holy shit. American's got questions like name 3 continents, and Europeans get these? Some of these are nasty in front of camera, under time pressure.

Most of them don't speak English as a first language. The first guy from Turkey failed the first few times because he didn't understand the question. Once he did he nailed it.

The language issue in this is mostly that countries have different names in other languages so if asks for the letters in the country names or city names you have to think of the English name and ignore the ones in your first language.

The reason Antarctica is the driest IS NOT because all the water is frozen, it's because it does really have the least precipitation of any kind of all the continents. There's very little snow or rain there. The snow storms tend to just be wind picking up snow that was already there. There's very little outside H2O added or removed from the area. This while other continents get plenty of water evaporated from the oceans fall on its land to then have their rivers transport said water back to the oceans.

On the English language subject. I was asked by an American, why we don't speak a European language in England.

Growing up in Europe we had a Geography class in school. The teacher would call one of us to the front of the class and ask: You're sailing from (origin) to (destination). Without looking at the map name every ocean, sea, straights, and landmasses you will pass along the way. When I moved to the US as a teenager I was amazed that, not just kids, the adults couldn't even find their home state on the map, never mind their home town.

"Some of these People might not speak english as their first language"... All of them...

Btw.: these were not really "simple" questions. In no way comparable to those in the US videos.

A great difference with the us version is that this guys ask what the correct answer is when they fail.

American version of "name two capitals on northern coast of Africa" would be "name two capital cities".

So, you're asking Americans in their native language, but not the Europeans...

"Its not even about who's really smarter, it's about education" iwrocker 2024

As a European when i was like 12 in school we had to learn basically the whole world including all US states and the capital cities in each state. All countries in Europe + America north+south and their capital cities. For many weeks we practiced this so that in the end we have at least some basic geography knowlege...

It's a compliment to Europeans to ask those hard questions, and those easy questions that Americans get wrong anyway, is the opposite!

The other landlocked Latin American country must be Paraguay.

The following are real questions that are asekd in the US: - What country is the Queen of England from? - Canada - In what country is the Great Wall of China? - Japan | Texas | Europe - Showing Clocks and asking what time it is - wrong answer - What is 15% of 100? - 75 | 35 | 50 - In what country is the panama canal? - Spain - when was the US founded? - 1800 b.c. | 1200 | 200 b.c. | 1658 - How many Moons does the earth have? - 4 | 3 | 12 | 8 | 30 - Who fought in the Mexican - Amercian war? - Philipines vs. I don't know | French revolution | I don't know

There are 5 olympic rings for the inhabited continents like he said (The Americas ; Europe ; Oceania (Australia) ; Asia ; Africa), but, the different colors of the rings (green ; black ; yellow ; red ; blue) are there, because, they're the most prominant colors among the flags all around the world !! There's not a single flag of any country that doesn't have, at least, one of those colors on them !!

“I’m from Italy but representing Nederlands…” makes totally Italian gesture.

Capitals on the north coast of Africa are Rabat, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripolis. Cairo is not on the coast.

Geography is taught as a distinct subject for a minimum of five years for each pupil in most state schools in Europe. When I sat my Welsh A-levels at age 17, my Geography exams were three x 3 hr exams, incl.: domestic geography, my choice of any three continents, plus cartography, geomorphology, and natural geography. My oldest son "graduated" from a US high school and didn't do most of these until studying geography and economics at university in Canada.

When you ask an american the simple question of naming another country in the world, they still start listing american states...

Dude, I answered almost all of the questions myself without checking. Ngl, kinda feel proud of myself. Poland representin'

There is no ring for Antarctica, not because there are no athletes there, but simply because when the Olympic symbol was introduced, Antarctica was not considered a continent.

Notice how all these people speak English so well when English is only the native language in The UK. Some might say even better than a lot of Americans.

wow this is on hardcore difficulty. kudos to those getting everything right

fun FACT: europeans are smarter and more educated than americans.

I am a 65yo Aussie and left school when i was 15 and i got most of the questions right . The Europeans did really well considering English is probably there 3rd or 4th language. Ask American to spell there name and most will stuff that up . I have worked with people from all around the world and Americans would have to be the most clueless

I notice a difference between Canada and the US. Canada tends to study world history and geography and the US is more American-centric.

The first question is so dumb. Most people in the video are not native English speakers and the names of countries in their languages are different than they are in English. So asking them to name countries which end with the same letters in English is just stupid. In Bulgarian for example most European countries’ names end with -ия (-ia) For example, ГерманИЯ, ВеликобританИЯ, ЧехИЯ, ФранцИЯ, РусИЯ, ИспанИЯ, ШвейцарИЯ and so on. The only exceptions are Belarus (Беларус) and Lithuania (Литва).

3:50 It is especially hard because it has to be 4 letters in English instead of his mother tongue - they are not always written the same or as they are written in the country's own language(s). 15:10 How do you define "oldest country"? San Marino is the oldest republic, allegedly founded around 301 AD. Its current democratic-republican constitution was written down in 1600 AD. Egypt exists since around 3,200 BC, but was not the whole time independent and has changed its governmental system multiple times. The oldest Chinese dynasty goes back to 2,200 BC, but there were many changes, conquests and changes of the governmental system meanwhile.

The Olympic flag was designed by Pierre de Coubertin; it is a white flag bearing the symbol he designed in 1913 of five interlocking rings of different colors (blue, black, red, yellow and green). The International Olympic Committee once claimed that each color is associated with a specific continent. Coubertin denies this: they were chosen because every country's flag contains at least one of these six colors including white. The five rings also symbolize passion, confidence, victory, ethics and sportsmanship.

I’m portuguese, wen visiting Lisbon many americans see the Tagus river and the city of Almada on the other side. Common question “Is that África on the other side?”. Its ridicolus, dont they have the notion of were they are? I went to Dubrovnik (Croatia) a few years ago, before going I explored the map of the region and discovered that I could visit Mostar in Bosnia and Sveti Stevan in Montenegro. So I did. I doubt that an American had the same curiosity to explore the place he goes before actually going there.

USA questions: "Name five Kardashians!" (< naming four of them) EU questions: "Name fifty island lying north above the aquator!" (naming ninety of them and get's stopped) same, same, ... but different! XD

"this are cherry picked, the worst, funny questions" - 😳 wft, this are hard questions 😂😂😂

They have an additional difficulty level - foreign language. For one I think country / cities names in my own language so Turkish guy was right in my language because countries ending with "ia" are indeed more letters (3 in my language). Hi from a country that does not use a Latin alphabet 😊

Indonesia is actually a transcontinental country (the whole island of Papua is in Oceania and indonesia owns the west part of it)!

With respect to everyone finished college in USA is equivalent to finished high school in for example Croatia.While traveling I have realized it was important to know some geography or history facts and it was easier for me to blend in and talk to people.I‘m truly grateful.

And they have to answer in english and thinking about the english name of cities/countries etc. (english/italian) Rome = Roma / Milan = Milano / Paris = Parigi / London = Londra / Moscow = Mosca / Beijing = Pechino

A lot of the reason the USA is bad at geography is that the media doesn't have news etc. from other countries either. Then it is not so easy to know other countries.

Landlocked countries in South America are Bolivia and Paraguay.

Out of those shown, no-one would have English as their first language. And the questions actually were pretty hard.

Okay, let's be honest here: These questions are not "simple" and those are not your average Europeans, either. The description of the video states this was filmed at the "Erasmus Generation Meeting", basically a meeting for the 900 biggest nerds (and I say that lovingly) Erasmus could find in Europe. "Erasmus" in this case is a student exchange program. So... let's say the sample selection in this is heavily biased towards smarter kids.

Pausing after the question: 1) anywhere ending with 'land' - England, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland 2) in Europe - Bern, Oslo, Kyiv, Rome 3) depends on whether its recognised or not but strictly speaking it'd be Africa thanks to South Sudan - in Europe it'd be Kosovo 4) London, Edinburgh, Cardiff - bonus is Belfast 5) Antarctica - don't get much rainfall there 6) again, it depends on what you're recognising as a country but with Spain and the Americas, probably 19 7) Bolivia and Paraguay 8) Tunis and Algiers - bonus is Tripoli 9) Greek, Macedonian, Bulgarian 10) participating continents - hate it when the Americas are amalgamated though 11) depends on if you count if its existence has been interrupted or not but overall I'd say Africa thanks to Egypt 12) District of Columbia - where the for-some-reason-not-a-state motto is 'taxation without representation' 13) Netherlands - official is Amsterdam but seat of government is The Hague 13.5) Cape Town and Pretoria - think the former is official while the latter is government but not sure 14) Australia, New Zealand, Fiji - bonus would be Samoa POST-answers: think I did pretty well thanks to pub quizzes, Trivial Pursuit and a degree in History and International Relations but its vexing how many were conditional - like the Spanish-speaking and oldest capital ones. (I knew that San Marino was the oldest continuous state in the world but I assumed he meant oldest in general - especially irritated to have that count as wrong as a result.) I'd say it'd have been more reasonable to have stuck to Europe but ho hum.

European - "Name a country with 2 capitals", "South Africa". American - " Name 2 countries", "..............?..................?..........."

Its very impressive that random people from all sorts of countries and are talking to each other and thinking about the question in a third language, us Brits and the Americans have it so easy, the world is learning our language!

9:42 These people are in the Netherlands. Unless they’re from an English speaking country (none so far), NONE OF THEM speak English as a first language 🤦‍♂️. Typical American world view 😂

As a Brit, I can confirm that these are NOT tough questions. They are largely common knowledge. Perhaps not by the time you’re 18-21 as these kids are, or in your second/third language (particularly questions that involve English spellings). But most people I know in the UK will have known most/all of these or know enough to make reliable educated guesses.

There is an alternative interpretation to the Olympic rings. Since they are always shown on a white surface, you can choose any country's flag in the world and at least one of the colors will match the Olympic rings.

I didn't even knew Cardiff is in Wales, its so often part of Doctor Who and even the spin-off "Torchwood" is based in Cardiff so i always thought its part of England.

San Marino is the oldest republic in the world but not the oldest country!

NO. San Marino is the 10th oldest country at 301 CE/AD. The oldest country on earth is Egypt at 6000 BCE that's 6301 years before San Marino. The country has never been unoccupied in this time and has never changed it's identity.

Fun fact: In some countries in Europe, like Spain (where I'm from), foreign movies and series are watched totaly translated sometimes even the issue that goes on on the scene is changed to something that would fit in our culture and in other european countries they watch everything totally original with subtitles so they connect with those countries so much better and learn a lot about what's going on outside their countries. This also makes it easier to learn and understand other languages as you are more exposed to them and to how in each country peoples express themselves.

When Europeans don't know they just say they don't know. Whereas Americans would have given a stupid answer 🤣

An answer to the last one: Australia, New Zealand, France.

You have Washington state and Washington Da city, obviously.

To be fair, these people are from the erasmus student network, all of them are, have been or work with exchange students and either have or work on a degree. This is hardly representing the average european.

Your general question "Why would Europeans know what D.C. stands for? " is typical of America. Other countries in the world have more of a world view than Americans and do learn about other countries apart from their own. Hence it is not surprising to non Americans that people in Europe can answer some of these questions.

The stans are a good choice, there's 7. But the easiest option is naming those that end in "land", there's 12 of those.

USA, weak at geography, but they always manage to find somewhere to invade.

Those questions were REALLY hard!

This was a fun video! I liked that you also tried to answer the questions. I agree - they were pretty hard! You did well!

As a European I can say that we hear about Washington all the time. Back in the 80's/90's people used to say "Washington DC" but I haven't heard that in years, it's always just "Washington" now.

There's a reason that you know many of these questions or at least can forward an educated guess. It is that you, unlike most Americans, are willing to educate yourself about other countries and cultures. The Vast bulk of Americans are the personification of ethnocentricity. While you are able to at least ponder these questions from an educated guess perspective I would wager than if you did a 'man-in-the-street' replication of these questions you would not get One single person that could answer, for example that Belfast is the capital of N. Ireland or know that Ireland was not a part of Britian and is an individual republic. I've always been impressed by your willingness, counter-intuitively, to explore the greater World.

14:00 Other fun fact about the Olympic logo: EVERY country on earth, has at least 1 of the rings colors on their flag.

You might like to compare with this: "Can You Name a Country?" (6 years ago), and "Can You Name a Country?" (4 years ago) or this: "What State is This?" by Jimmy Kimmel Have fun!

The question about the countries ending with the same 4 letters I can only answer in Dutch 😂😂.

The Latin alphabet one is easy. Greek is absolutely free, they have their own alphabet. Then you have Russian, obviously, which uses Cyrillic, and then you only need to know that for example Bulgaria, Ukrainem Belarus and Serbia (which also uses a Latin alphabet, they have both accepted) use it as well.

and this" Reporter youtuber" is from Austria speaking German, English , Spanish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek and Dutch - just to mention

0:33 - You're wrong, Ian, but I'll forgive you since you hadn't watched the video yet. 16:05 - Compared to many US americans who don't even know that their country has a capital...

In the Netherlands, and I think other countries in Europe, we know what DC, as in Washington DC, means because we were taught that in primary school. So I was surprised that this Bulgarian girl didn't know that, despite the fact that she is studying at university.

As an Australian English speaker knowing District of Columbia is just something you learn through normal life.

These are seriously difficult questions, but I think Americans would not even comprehend what he was asking. So the fact that these people got some of them right I say GREAT JOB!!!

I am English/Australian and I knew DC stood for District of Columbia, why wouldn't I?

Well done for knowing the UK. :) Did you know that there is a Washington CD? It was the first Washington and is in County Durham :)

In Australia I would say that most Australians would know that DC is District of Columbia.

I am from Bulgaria and this girl is not representing me! I knew the answers of majority of the questions, not because I am from somewhere, but bebecause I love to know things. Einstein is smart not because he is German, but because he loves to know things. Americans are not stupid because they are from North America, the are stupid by default

I am really sorry Ian, but I just saw a video of a U.S. college, where they were asking "simple" questions. Like he was holding up an analogue clock, large hand on 9 and small hand almost on the 2. He asked them what the time is. None of them could read it. Most did not even get the numbers that the hands were pointing to. This is a "college". They also think Texas is "overseas" and Canada is a U.S. state. The reality is though that I am an Aussie and we have some pretty dense people as well. The education system is not exactly what it used to be. We have an intellectual void that tries to pass as a government.

Finland, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Thailand, New Zealand, England and Scotland.

Well done on getting the Belfast/NI one! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 It's sadly often forgotten.

San Marino is not the oldest country in the world, it is the oldest republic, he got it wrong, and the girl was correct (Egypt). He owes her money.

To all the Europeans complaining about needing to answer in English, which may not be their mother tongue, the American reaction is... _"wanh wanh"_ in Rachel Zegler impression. "We 'muricans saved yo asses from jerries back in forrrrty faaeev, you r'membeh that son! We knu 'nuff jiyaagruffy tuh land awn that frawg beeech which we renamed in glorious American as Omuhaa!"

These questions are in no way comparable to the US questions. The American questions are, for example, "Can you point to your nose?" or "What is your favourite colour?"

Not being good in geography doesn’t mean that you are stupid, remember that.

also he was not afraid too tell them they were wrong

13:29 The continent is called America, and yes, someone from Brazil or Peru is as american as any US or Canadian

We in the 80-es (in the Commie World) were taught there are 5 continents inhabited by humans, and then Antarctica (as an odd-one-out, technically a continent, but not from cultural viewpoint). The Americas we counted as 1, and Australia-Oceania went as 1, too. I think this was the "old" model of the world, functioning in the times when Olympic logo was invented. That counts for the 5 rings.

The interviewer actually get some things wrong wrong himself. Antarctica is not the driest continent because all the water is frozen, but because it almost never snows/rains. There are only 20 countries that have Spanish as an official language. Number 21 is Puerto Rico, which is not a country, but a territory of the USA. Cairo is not on the (north) coast, the answer is: Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. Based on definition, the oldest country in the world is either Iran (earliest known government: 3200 BCE) or Japan (earliest self-sovereignty: 660 BCE). Both beating San Marino self proclaimed oldest country in the world title (301 CE) by a wide margin, either way the answer would be Asia.

I wouldn't _only_ state that it's about education. I mean, in some way, yes. But it's also a generational thing. As in: When I grew up, I got a globe as a birthday present before I went to school. I'm pretty sure that I didn't request that (but who knows) and that it was an uncle who thought it important. So I asked my parents about many things about the globe, before I could even read the country names written on it. (I might also have partially learned to read when asking about the writing on it.) What I want to say is: It obviously depends on how parents or other relatives answer, when a kid has a question about geography. As we all know, kids' questions won't end, but whether a kid stays interested in geography or not, might be different if the first answer is either stupid/boring/wrong or on the other hand intriguing. Similarly, I had a kids' encyclopedia quite early on (when I _could_ read, obviously), and I remember how when I was interested in a topic so much, that the kids' version wasn't enough, I went to my parents' encyclopedia to look up the same subjects. And if both books' descriptions were too different, I'd ask my parents about it. They were honest with me if they truly had no answer to my question and asked me to ask my teacher instead. I think there's many things parents can do right and wrong in the education of the child outside of whether the educational system of the country you live in is good or bad.

These are ESN (Erasmus Student Network) university students at a convention. They would have to be a little more "knowledgeable" than random Americans. They are also students on a higher level, than your regular college campus students in the US. Erasmus Student Network is an European exchange university student network, that offers European university students an opportunity to study or work in another European country. The five Olympic rings symbolizes the five INHABITED continents, and the Americas is counted as one. District of Columbia is taught in European schools in 5th grade.

1st question is easy...anything with 'land' at the end would be one: England/Scotland/Ireland/Finland. lol

meanwhile, americans get the question "how many moons do we have" and get that wrong. Make it make sense

America: - Name a country ! - I don't know, Africa ? Europe: