British and American Houses Are Very Different!! 

Lauren here! 🇬🇧 I literally searched for so long trying to find the name for dormer bungalow and finally remembered a couple of days ago😂😂😂 Also probably should have called basement a cellar but oh well 😂 hope you guys enjoyed our comparisons of houses in the U.K. 🇬🇧and the USA 🇺🇸

If you watch HGTV, you will find that bungalows are an architecture style of houses. Houses in bungalow style can actually be found in lots of places throughout the US. For example, in Chicago where I live, bungalows are very common.

Brownstone houses is a common term in cities like New York and Boston. Also we say apartment complex a lot in the south. The bungalow house in the picture we call craftsman a lot in Tennessee. We also use terms like rancher or basement rancher and split level or two story.

I feel like the American hasn’t traveled much IN America, or maybe has only lived in one small town. Bungalows are exceedingly common and there are loads of names for townhouses as others have pointed out. Lastly, condos are a common type of housing first time buyers buy in areas where housing is expensive, they aren’t just for retirees.

An American, Floridian, Puerto Rican girl here... I’ve also heard townhomes referred to as “row houses” in the United States. And of “houses” refered to as “single-family homes.”

semi-detached in Ontario too... a duplex is up and down... ground floor... 1st floor. Side by side is a semi-detatched

Sorry to tell you, Callie, but where I'm from (Mid Atlantic), realtors and buyers do call a 'free-standing' house a 'detached house'. In fact, a few of the terms in this video are interchangably found in property listings around here. - Also, Duplex/Semi-Detached are quite common around here, in the E/NE US. In fact, many places have a variety of house types (single, duplex, etc). - Thirdly, in the suburbs here, its not uncommon for younger families (in the upper middle class) to start having kids and living in condos.

I live in a condo association. Of duplexes here in the US. There are also townhouse condos. Condos aren't always apartment style.

I’m from New Zealand. We don’t have basements. We have attics but no one uses them we just keep all our stuff in the main part off our houses.

I've heard bungalow a lot in the US in areas that have that specific Craftsman or Arts & Crafts architectural style. Usually on the smaller side, not mansions. Also sometimes just a really small house will be called a bungalow. Another case of the US being large and different words and styles being used! 🙂

I'm from the UK and I would say semi-detached houses are really common and not many people I think don't have basements

I'm British and I think apartment sounds waaaay fancier than flat!! I feel like apartment sounds better in marketing too - when a brand new block of flats is being built in an up and coming suburb, for example, I think they are more likely to be called "apartments" by the agency because of this. That might just be my perception though 😅

Callie is from Michigan, so am i :D!

Some of the UK I get, but I think it's because I'm a bit older than the US girl. Also, where I grew up just across Lake Erie from Windsor Ont. Then some words go out of fashion. But the bungalow, it's a style of house as in the arts and craft style ect.

I've always thought the term "flat" for what we in North America would call an apartment is a funny term because the buildings are most certainly not flat. They're so tall! The idea of a dwelling that's called a flat makes me think of a bungalow, one level. (I grew up in western Canada and we would say "rancher" for a single-floor detached home.)

We have townhouses as well in Canada in fact in the complex where my building is there are some townhouses in it as well

They really need to get some Americans in here that have a bit of broader experience. It seems like they are getting these young girls that maybe just moved out of mommy’s house. I mean really saying that young people don’t live in condos that only old people live in them and retired people Live in retirement communities because that’s where her grandparents live. She has clearly never seen a duplex and somehow thinks there aren’t duplexes anymore. Doesn’t seem like she’s familiar with what a townhouse is either. I mean what they showed in a city is just as likely to be called Row House or in New York a brownstone. Or they could be apartments that just have a face that looks like a townhouse but it’s in fact multiple units. And then there are townhouses that are built in suburban areas that look quite different. And the term bungalow can be used in a very different ways in the US depending on the region. The brick bungalows of Chicago look very different from what they showed what they showed in that picture. Clearly a suburban girl that’s never lived anywhere but her parent’s single family home and maybe the apartment she shared with her BFF.

Townhouses in a more traditionally urban American environment may also be called row houses or brownstones.

No basements in south Louisiana. The ground water is too close to the surface for a basement.

Thanks for these , now i can search RU-vid vids in ease without getting the results that i definitely am confused by

The stigma in America is that, if you live in an apartment, you're considered poor or lower class.

I'm pretty sure the apartment style townhouses Callie was referring to are called brownstones.

I have heard detached and semi-detached homes in the US before

A detached house is just a house. Rowhouses, townhouses, duplexes, apartments and condominiums are not really called houses. A house has a yard.

My condo building doesn’t have a gym but my parents condo building does have a gym and even an indoor pool

Lauren is such a nice person , she is kind and friendly and polite to everyone .Callie seems very nice as well.

That's cool

Callie, semi-detached house only share stairs in each house if they are run as flats, the two houses have their own stair cases (though the houses are often mirrored and the stairs are next to the shared wall).

We have basements here in UK

I've heard "block" in the UK before, especially in built-up areas - like sometimes if my family wants to have a quick walk to stretch our legs we'd say we're having a "walk around the block" but yeah, I agree it's probably not as common as in the US because their road system is a lot more structured in blocks!!

It's always good to see Lauren from the UK.

Can’t believe they didn’t bring up the the ubiquitous American terms, ranch house / rancher (much like a bungalow, only one floor), or mobile home (similar to a caravan in the UK).

Okay now that Callie said she is from Michigan (and correct me if I misunderstood that) I understand her a lot more. Callie if you see this no hate girly! 🧤

2022 june...

Where are they meeting to do this video 😮

where as the houses where i am from just dont have basements

A bungalow in the jungle-o?

My cousin in Canada had a pool table in the basement (and a bedroom with an en suite), when I went to visit.

oh it’s so confusing😀😂 I think I wanna stop learning English 😅

cool😃

Bungalow is an Indian word..

I live in the uk and me and my family have always used the word block do describe streets and flats. It’s interesting to know what terms other people use

When I hear detached or semidetached when referring to a house I’ve always just been confused. You hear it sometimes in the US I just don’t know what it means. Well I figured detached was a single family but I don’t know what semi detached means. I’m guessing duplex?

It’s not a flat if it’s one house split in 2 levels it’s called a maisonette.

we should have canada as well lol they got fancy names too

Townhouse/fullhouse.😄

I loved this week learning english with Lauren 🇬🇧 and Callie 🇺🇸 , love you ladies

actually in US a detached house is known as a 'single family home'. You dont use it much when trying to refer to homes but if you are trying to distinguish (e.g. if trying to buy/rent a home) you'd say single family home, townhome, condominium (apartment if renting). MOST young people in cities who own homes buy condos as everything else is too expensive, but i can see why Callie is thinking of retirees and condos, thanks to Florida.

In the US, “attached houses” would be considered row houses or row housing and it’s not common except for in the older big cities, like NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia etc…

If a bungalow is called that for having one floor that would be called a ranch style house in the US

What she’s referring to townhouses we also call it row houses in the U.S. as in a row of houses. Condos are an owned upgraded apartment with perks like pool, spa, gym, playgrounds but the HOA fees for those perks are pricey.

The hard part about a video like this is how varied American housing is across our vast landscape and some cities are much older than others.

It surprises me that Callie is from Michigan but doesn't know what a bungalow is. We have a *ton* here. In Michigan, that is the general term for 1.5 story houses, and you can find them all over the state. I had to specifically tell my realtor that I didn't want a bungalow, cause there were so many in my price range, and I wanted a ranch (1 story house).

I'm from Canada in the Greater Toronto Area, and we use a mix of American and UK words. We use the word townhouses, as well as apartment instead of flats, and we also talk about going to the cottage during the summer or during the weekend. However, when it comes to homes, we say attached, detached, semi-detached.

we also have apartment blocks in the US. Don't listen to this girl. She obviously only lived in the suburbs. lol

Bungalow , i also think about the forest , jungle, woods and everything , during the retire seems like a good place to stay for a while , but as Lauren said it's usually older people

I had no idea how complicated our house names are here (in the UK). A semi-detached would just be a semi most of the time - in the midlands anyway. Great vid though, thank you :)

As a foreigner I've learnt a lot from this channel. I have always been confused with BRITISH/US english.

Depending of the area is better have a house or apartament / flat , like in big cities i think it's better have a apartament / flat to live in

We have a lot of bungalows in the US Typical housing style of the 50’s and 60’s

American here; 51 years old, and the American girl had me confused as hell. Maybe the younger generation nowadays call different styles of dwellings by different names than we used to.🤔

The American girl look so cute

Even though no one asked here the Australian terms stand alone flat or a unit units or just more flats idk lol semi cabin so basically you can really just say anything bc our english is a blend of the both plus our own slang (if you use all American words you will be called out)

We also have semi-detached homes. But we call them duplexes because it’s one house, split down the middle. The left and right side are exact mirror images of each other. I’ve never heard of people splitting them up like flats. Only mirror image, left side/right side homes. We even have quadplexes, there there are 4 identical, mirrored homes, built into a square shape. The doors would be on the front, back, left and right sides.

The term bungalow is derived from the word Bangla (meaning "Bengali") and used elliptically to mean "a house in the Bengal style." The British rules derived the idea of Bungalow from old big houses of Bengal (Bangladesh and West Bengal)... In Bengali, we call it বাংলো ঘর (banglow ghôr).

Callie is wrong, I retired in 2017 and still live in the 4 bedroom house, I have lived in since 1992.

This was very frustrating to watch because the American girl isn't very knowledgeable on the topic. A semi detached house in the UK is a semi-detached house in the US (if you work in real estate) and can also be called a twin. Twins are not apartments. It's a fee simple housing type where you own the half that you live in and you own the land underneath it. A twin is not a duplex. A duplex is a detached house that's been converted into two units for rent. A terrace House in the UK is a row house in the US. Row houses are very common in the big cities on the east coast from Brooklyn down to Richmond and even as far west as Pittsburgh. A townhouse is the same thing in both countries. A bungalow is a bungalow in both countries, seriously, this girl is super uncultured.. there are bungalow neighborhoods in almost every big city in the us. The style of housing was very popular 100 years ago. Also, condo is just a type of ownership. An apartment can be a condo and a townhouse can also be a condo. A condo just means that the land and other parts of the building are owned in common but you own the inside of your unit.. fee simple in the US is when you own the building and then you own the land around the building.

Lauren: Nobody wants to go to the basement because it's like a scary place Me: Laughs while my bedroom is literally in a basement😅

In the us it’s a “detached house” is generally referred to as a single family home

There's one other major difference between the US and UK, which is mixed-use zoning. In town centres, a common style is to have one or two residential floors above a ground-floor commercial space, particularly if the commercial use is not part of a major chain. While this happens in some of the older US cities, particularly on the East Coast like Pittsburgh or New York, there are many states where mixed-use zoning is straight-up forbidden by law and has been since the mid-20th century for a variety of reasons - some good at the time they were implemented, some....ehhh, not so good.

omg don't even get me started on cottages being holiday homes and air bnbs.. as someone from Cornwall it's the bane of our lives, first homes not second homes!

In the US (at least on the East coast in older cities), we’d call those “townhouses” row houses.

New York is a whole ass state, not just a city. There are many towns that have single family homes as while as side by sides house. Not just apartments.

We have a lot of basements like that as well. Ones that are unfinished, or if somewhat finished, are nonetheless just nasty, because they haven't been kept up, and are moldy and maybe wet. We actually have massive numbers like that. But as housing gets more expensive, we're increasingly repairing and renovating them, so as to have extra space. Besides with the US being on average hotter than the UK, basements can be much easier to keep cool in the summer. Although, of course, you often still have to keep them dehumidified to keep the mold out.

Bungalows are popular also in the states. I don't think she knew that.

In Malaysia we called it a detached house and semi detached house. Terrence house are the ones which is connected with one another to form a whole stretch of houses. We seldom use the term townhouse but that doesn’t mean it is not used. As for Bungalow it is more or less same with the UK but the we can have a bungalow with 2 to 3 floors. We also use the term flat for older building and definitely without a pool and balcony. Condo is refer to as houses on a building which comes with facilities like a pool, gym, sauna room, tennis court and etc. It depends on the condo. Different condos have different facilities.

For two houses sharing a wall in the middle, I also call it a duplex, and sometimes I call it a side-by-side duplex just to be more specific. This is because here in Chicago, we have a unique name for buildings with two apartments on two levels: we call them 2 flats. We also have 3 flats (3 stories), 4 flat (2 stories with 2 apartments on each floor), and 6 flats (3 stories with 2 apartments on each floor) in Chicago. I would guess the word "flat" might be borrowed from British English. But when we refer to individual units in these buildings, we still use "apartment". So you might hear a Chicagoan saying "I live in Apartment 2 in this 3 flat".

Most of Chicago houses are called bungolow… bungolow is the house style for most single houses for USA..just different style such as prairie style where horizontallity is expressed..and style of the house photo shown is called kraftmanship houses…

In *"Singapore"* we use 3:45 *"Flats"* (Fairly same as UK) : Most people would be staying in these type as it's the norm and most affordable (Public Housing AKA *HDB Flats*) *(We do hear words like "apartment" but it's much more commonly used when refering to condominiums , like condo unit, condo apartment)* 4:50 *"Condominium" Or Condo"* (Fairly similar to the USA's Definition) for us . It's the alternative for flats *(HDB Flats)* but it's much more expensive . Often rented to expat or people who are generally richer . As it's much less affordable , you do see an increase in the amount of rental units as compared to those in HDB , but at the same time HDB rental is cheaper) . Subjective to Price, Location , size of Apartment Complex *(In this case we do use this word to describe the area within the secured walls/fends...)* ...etc... , most Condos have their own security, pool and many facilities like a gym . * *Block* ? Of Course Yes *Block number* : Which block do you stay at ? For all Flats (Apartments) : HDB / Condo...* 2:39 *"Detached House"* (Same as UK) But we also call it 8:48 "Bungalow" *(which means something else over to them)* I guess if it has a pool then all the more we call it *"bungalow"* but most if not all detached has a mini pool or something so ya. 5:37 *"Semi Detached House"* (Same as UK) *"Bungalow/Detached House"* being the most expensive housing , this would be the 2nd most expensive, We usually see them (Semi detached houses) together side by side with other detached houses , maybe some area with terrace houses but ya , definitely more common than detached but not alot overall . 7:00 *"terrace house"* (same as UK) usually seen with the same kind in an area maybe with some semi detached houses, not too sure but from my observation. *I've seen 1or 2 but super rare(which looks like the townhouses mentioned) without any gate and parking area that's right infront on the busy road but those are super rare maybe even the only area. *"Fact"* so in sg , Detached house , Semi detached and terrace are considered landed property. landed property aren't that affordable so we dont see them often and it works for land scarce sg. detached houses are even rarer. the detached houses because it takes out more land , with those that have a much bigger area around the house are considered good class bungalow and only fking richest in Singapore get to stay there . 3:03 All landed houses has a gate infront followed by just a big space maybe for parking your car etc followed by the door. as mentioned earlier , we do have gates. *Dedicated Garage i dont think we have them , although that would be cool if i could afford it (definitely wont , cars are expensive here but publix transport is good 👍)

This was interesting. I never realized that our german housing is so similar to the UK. We have nearly the same words if you translate it.

Literally a bungalow is a bungalow in the US

My husband (West Coast American) and I (Filipino but lived 10 years in Australia) got into a heated arguement of what an apartment is. What he calls an apartment, I call a townhouse - a vertical slice of a building thats maybe 2 stories tall and its front door is on the ground floor, and it shares its walls with its neighbours. What I consider an apartment is like what the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. flats are like in the show - a single floor in a building divvied up into its own living spaces.

I always find it interesting that Canada uses a mix of US and UK terms.

I live in the US. A bungalow, at least in Michigan, is a home with one room upstairs.

Hi, I'm Bill, and I'm from the U.S. We do use the term semi-detached in Pennsylvania.

In rural Bangladesh, the concept is often called Bangla Ghar ("Bengali Style House") and remains popular. The main construction material is corrugated steel sheets or red clay tiles, while past generations used wood, bamboo, and khar straw. This straw was used to form roofs, keeping the house cooler during hot summer days.

Yeah in Canada we also have condos (condos is short for condominiums) my current apartment is a condo in Canada we also have apartments and condos/condominiums we really don’t have flats in Canada the housing terms in Canada are very similar to the US but I know what flats are my dad is from the UK

In German a house which is attached to another one is a Doppelhaus - like "dobble-house". If you live in one side of this "dobble-house" you literally live in a Doppelhaushälfte (in one half of the dobble-house).

My house I grew up in in Canada was like a nice place to play in and such I actually used to live in my parents basement before moving to my apartment where I currently live

I have a condo and I’m hardly around anyone for the most part I only see my neighbours in the hallways or in the elevators (or lifts for my friends in the UK) or in the lobby

We use the term detached house in the US also. I can’t watch this past that mark. Why would you find the most ignorant, unknowledgeable person to represent the US. Unwatchable after that.

American here, specifically Texan. There's no basements here lol really rough stone is too close to the surface, basements typically require dynamite or are too close to the water table in some parts. The idea of a basement is so bizarre to me lol

She's wrong Apartment block is used in the US. We call the single level home for old people a "Ranch" house in the US.

5:18 I guess it depends on the region in the US, but my in my region, plenty of young families purchase and live in condos too. Its not just something old people live in. I guess in less densely populated states housing might be more popular all around. But my state is fairly densely populated, so land is at a premium and condos are extremely popular for young families or young unmarried people commuting into the city.

In San Francisco we have Flats and bungalows and craftsman’s, we also call Victorian houses Victorian’s

This is a misconception. The vaste majority of Americans live in small towns or rural areas. Europe and UK are much more urbanised

Duplexes are not so common because they are usually illegal or not profitable to build with current zoning laws.

From Michigan too, many older residents go to Florida in the winter months to get away from the cold weather and they are referred to as “snowbirds!”

In Canada we have detached houses and semi-detached houses the house I grew up in was detached my sister currently lives in a semi-detached house

This Brit, fortunately, is much more tolerable than the other one. The other was sh_t.