Brazilian here, but I'd like to comment on the German lady's reply, because it reminded me of a reply in the same vein, from a friend, another Brazilian, who once went on a youth exchange program to the U.S., where people think that Brazil is just an enormous jungle with only trees, monkeys, tree houses and no civilization. My friend was asked if we had cannibals in Brazil. He replied: "Not anymore. We ate the last one last month." 🤣🤣
As I went to an International School in Germany from 1980 on, I spoke a fairly respectable English by 1984. I went to a summer camp in California. A 14 year old kid (or around that age), a self proclaimed car fan, asked me if we had cars in Germany. When I told him we invented the IC engined car, and Germany at that time supplied around 30% of the world with cars he didn't want to believe me. Confidently wrong he declared 'everybody' knew that Ford had invented the car. Nuff said.
I was at Uluru a few years back as part of a ride around Australia. The land around the rock is owned by the traditional owners and as such the resort and main tourist facilities are built about 30km from the rock off traditional land. At dinner one night I was at a table next to a group of American tourists. A lady was complaining quite loudly and boisterously how stupid is was that they built the rock so far away from the resort. I spent most of the meal trying to contain my laughter.
I was in voicechat in a game once with an american dude. He asked if we had Internet in Norway.... While we were talking online in a game. He realised his stupidity before I could answer. He was with his clanmates. So for the rest of the raid we were basically just laughing our asses off and mocking him. He just took it. Nice dude. He got educated on many things around the world that day. Lol.
I pretty much just finished an online "conversation " with a bloke from the States about long distance truck driving. He said no other country has trucks that cover the distances he does because America was so big. When I told him he was wrong & explained to him that I drive an average of 5000km a week here in Australia and that our country pretty much is the same size as his, his reply was that was impossible because Australia doesn't have as many states as America.
I just did a trip to Canberra and back where I live in Victoria (5 hour trip one way, 10 hours both if you can be stuffed!) and it was stuff all compared what the truckies do daily along Sesame Street...err...the Hume Highway!
@@kevkoala my job has me anywhere from Brisbane to Melbourne, over to Perth. I'm doing 3 trips from Sydney to Melbourne this week. By the time I get home on Saturday I will have done nearly 5500klm
I have a good one for you from Norway. I recall reading the newspaper stating that an amercian tourist had complained after taking a trip from the south to northern Norway with Hurtigruta (a ferry along the Norwegian coastline) about the midnight sun. He was very disapointedIt by the much spoken about midnight sun which did not meet his expectations when he found out that it was the same sun. 😂😂
Yes that one too! My sister worked at Epcot Center/Disney World at the Norwegian pavilion and got asked where the vikings lived and how they where, and if we had polar bears in the streets. My god! 🤤🤤
I'am from Sweden. I was in Florida with my girlfriend visiting a Swedish couple, we where out on a trip with their American friends in their car. The American girl was telling us what an special car her American boyfriend had, he turned up in a vw passat... Which was one of the most common cars back in Sweden by then... The American girl wanted to test drive the vw so bad, but the American boyfriend said No. "You can't drive this car, it's a manual" "It's super hard to drive a manual car, but I can do it" After burning clutch and jumping forward we came out on the highway.. He never went higher than 3rd gear... Of 5... Our Swedish female friend told him that she could drive a manual car without a problem. - He didn't even heard it... Our Swedish male friend said he could drive a manual. - He hardly believe him.. Here in Sweden probably 90% of the cars was manual back then, probably 99% of the drivers tok the driver test in a manual car.... I've never wanted to test drive the car so bad and show how to shift gears proper! I've been racing manual cars since I was 12... 😂
I found the same thing in the US. I'm Australian and everyone I know can drive a car with manual transmission. We all learned on manuals as soon as we were old enough (this was in the 90's) and I was blown away when I lived in the US as to how many people - men and women - cannot drive a 'stick.'
Slightly different , I read about an elderly couple who were visiting the U.S. , were in New York where they were confronted by a mugger . The lady said disdainfully : "Don't be ridiculous , we're BRITISH" and they walked off . Must have left the mugger rather confused where his cunning plan went wrong .
Tell him to mug a Finn next time. "Your money or your life?!" "Okay." "Okay, which?" "I don't care you decide. You want my phone also? Please don't stab me in the face."
On the American currency thing, I worked in tourism for many years in Cairns. It's amazing the number of times Americans complained that they couldn't pay in American $'s rather than our "monopoly" money WOW!! This seemed to be more common with tour groups rather than solo travellers or honey- mooners. In a resort I worked at one of the front office guys was fed up with this & used to say "sure you can pay in American $"s but on an exchange rate of 1 to 1" They seemed happy with this not realising they were paying way too much lol
Had a kid say the same thing to me years ago back on PlayStation. Dark souls was $75 in Australia and he was like it’s not that much. Ow wait that’s right you use Monopoly money In Australia. Why don’t you use real money like America. I lost it honestly.
Same here in Austria... An American asked for the bill in a restaurant and was told that it costs XY Euro. The guy laughed and said "I do you a favour... I'll pay in 'real money'. How much is it in US dollars?" When he heard that he can't pay in dollar, he ranted and refused to pay at all.... He ended sitting in a police car.
the funny thing an american con artist who forged checks and money and got busted then hired by the government agency of some kind helped us make our money to make one of the safest currencies in the world because of how hard it is to copy. leo starred in the movie about the bloke 'catch me if you can'
Should have asked whether to came to buy a barrell of crude oil, in that case they would have a point. Before the euro here in the Netherlands we used to accept Deutsch Mark 1 on 1 from German visitors. It was usually about 10% more valuable than the Dutch guilder. Easy money, easy for the tourist. No hard feelings either way.
was told for an Aussie i speak real good english, then was asked how do you say hello in Australian....my reply was gdaymatehowzitgoin, then sat back and laughed as 3 tried to replicate it
Funny how they all know we were settled by convicts but are confused about our English. My son's father is american and all sorts of stupid has come out of his mouth. SMH
@@Nina-rj4nu I love messing with Americans in a good way. I had a few Americans pissing themselves laughing at my view of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinski thing....us Australians have a twisted sense of humour!😁
Regarding the "I'm Scottish" claims from Americans. I had one of these when visiting Panama City, Florida back in 1980. I went with my gran to visit some of her relatives and while there I (13 at the time) went to visit the school, my cousins attended. While there, I was introduced to the class by the teacher and one boy stood up and said "I'm Scoddish" (insert Florida accent here). I was not as 'diplomatic' in those days and straight up said "No you're not, you're American." The lad got a bit flustered (and red in the face) and said "I am!". I was winding up to tell him how stupid he was, when the teacher stepped in and said something like, "He probably means his family came from Scotland, is that right?" she asked the lad. "Yes." came the reply, "My great, great grandfather came from Scotland." Me still not being diplomatic, said "Ah, so your great, great grandfather was Scottish but that doesn't make you Scottish." And I was quite a nice kid, really, this claim to be Scottish, just didn't make sense to me back then. The teacher then moved things on quickly.
Strange ,how arrogantly proud the Americans are about `the land of the free` but they never get how insulting it is to claim the nationality of a country they can't find on a map.
I was living in Kentucky for a few years (Australian here) and while working, had a co-worker lady say after a few weeks of working there, "Where did you learn English? You speak it really well." I was dumbstruck, and looked around for help. She was serious, I wasn't nasty to her. "You know how Australia was a prison colony of the English right? Well, since the English were the colonisers of Australia, what language do you think has been spoken there." She said, "Australian." I think this may have stemmed from her thinking that she spoke American-English, and over time the post hyphon is dropped off. When I told this story to my other colleagues, they weren't surprised at who asked the question, but damn did they cry laughing.
I love the way that you can take the piss out of yourself and don't get offended when "foreigners" take the piss out of Yanks for their limited "world" view. Great vid, love it!
@@tonycrayford3893 Well i do often call myself a dumb ass and what not, CUZ it is in my genes ( well almost ) to be weak and stupid, things society here celebrate and to some extend reward. But ! i am not so far gone in the spin cycle of my brain that i dont know how it should be. Complacency,,,, its a hell of a thing.
I met an American woman some time ago who had moved to my country (Austria) and we got to talking about education. She was not only baffled but downright horrified when I told her that I don’t have to pay for expensive textbooks for every class because the teachers/lecturers usually compile the necessary information into a PowerPoint presentation and we commonly get access to the slides. She was horrified that we were being “spoon fed” what the teachers taught us, rather than having to buy and read 20 textbooks with like 1000+ pages. As if it would somehow make one smarter to spend hundreds of dollars on books that you read maybe once and don’t retain anything from anyway 😂
Yeah, we may have to buy them but we don’t read them. The only textbooks that are probably read are law books and medical books and many of them are electronic (still have to pay for them).
Most professors in the USA now, do just that; make and provided the power point slides to the students, and don't require textbooks, due to the cost and how quickly they get outdated. At least in the humanities.
I worked in and out of America for 3 years. I was asked constantly “do you know Crocodile Dundee?” Eventually I started answering yeah I do he’s married to my sisters brother in law.
In 1980 we were on a campground in California and the campsite neighbour ask: Are you from East or West Germany ? I told him, if we were from the east we would be here with a tank and our russian brothers.😁
As a South African, I've heard my fair share of these types of comments. On an important side note....not just from Americans... ;) My favourite was when we had a young lady from Austin, TX backpacking the southern coast of SA on a gap year. She stayed in town for a few weeks, enjoying the surfing. (You can look up surfing in Jeffrey's Bay ;) One of the best breaks in the world). When she was getting ready to move on up the coast to Port Elizabeth to catch a flight (about 75km, 45 minutes drive), she phoned her parents to let them know she was leaving the next morning. They were very worried, and I quote: "How many 4x4's are in the convoy? Will there be game rangers? Guides? Do they at least have guns for the wild animals? How many weeks is the journey going to be? Aren't you afraid of the wild elephants and lions?" Her answer was something along the lines of: "Uhm...no. They have these things called highways, just like back in the US".
I remember we had an English teacher over from Arizona when I was in high school. She was staying in Budapest and teaching us for 6 months. I remember the first (or maybe second) lesson she was speaking about her state and proudly saying it's turning 100 years old in a few months. I almost burst out laughing cause the school she was in was 105 years old at the time. Otherwise she was pretty nice and taught us a couple of stuff.
I'm from England and in high school I briefly had an English teacher that was American. Imagine trying to use American English in a British school as teenagers we were merciless with our mockery of her spelling mistakes.
I live in a Spanish city that was created from Cástulo, a nearby Iberian city known to have been inhabited since the end of the 3rd millennium B.C., and which was the capital of the kingdom of the Oretans. (Fun fact: Have you ever heard of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who almost defeated the Roman Empire? Well, his wife, Himilce, was a princess born in Cástulo.) The American continent has been populated for tens of thousands of years, but as a modern nation its origin dates back only to the colonies of the 17th century. It is not that there were no people in the United States before that time, but that the white man took care of annihilating them or confining them in reservations; and those natives did not leave physical constructions as in other territories of the continent because of their nomadic way of life, but in Mayan, Aztec, and Inca territories there are vestiges that demonstrate a millenarian occupation.
Australian here. Let me say at the outset that I have visited the USA about a dozen times over the past 40+ years, for work and vacation. I have covered much of the country in my travels. I have many American friends and acquaintances. I love the USA and its people, despite all its acknowledged shortcomings, but even I shake my head in despair at the level of ignorance that comes out of some of their mouths sometimes. Three examples that I still chuckle over despite the passage of years. I was in the immigration queue at Athens airport with a group of middle aged Americans in front of me. One of them looked up at a sign that said "welcome to Athens". "oh isn't that so sweet" she said; "they've named their city after Athens Georgia"! FUN FACT: Athens is the oldest continually existing capital city in Europe. In my younger days a I had a camping holiday in the US. On one occasion in Wisconsin we camped in a farmer's field which he had turned into a campground. He came around in the early evening to meet the new arrivals and to collect the camping fee. We chatted with him for over an hour as we were the first Australians to have ever used his campground. There were no communication problems and the conversation was warm, friendly and enjoyable. The next evening he came around again on his tractor with his grandson. He said "this is my grandson Tom; he's 10 years old and I've been telling him about you folk. We want you to say his name in Australian". And finally, I was once asked by a university-educated American what date we celebrated Thanksgiving in Australia. He was genuinely shocked when I said we didn't it and he asked why not? I asked him what the origin of Thanksgiving Day was. To his credit he gave me the whole mythology spiel about the pilgrims, the landing at Plymouth, how the settlers were saved from starvation by the native Americans etc etc etc, so it was a day to give thanks for that . I said that to the best of my recollection there were no "Australians" among those pilgrims and the settlers did not continue their travels to what we now call Australia, so why should we celebrate the English settlement of America?
Should have just asked him 'Do you celebrate Australia Day?' Also I remember when Atlanta hosted the 1996 Olympics it was the first time Georgia had competed as a country in it's own right at the Summer Olympics and when the athletes came on during the opening ceremony they got a huge roar from the crowd and I swear down it was because they all thought it was the US state not the country!
I remember asking an online American friend, “Who plays in the World Series Baseball?” I expected a list of countries but I got a list of states. “So none of the teams are outside of the US?” “No.” “Then why is it called the world series?” He didn’t know. Neither do I!
@@101steel4that is just based on a mention in a book, that the World Series is named for the New York World newspaper. But it’s disputed if it really is
Maybe it's because Muricans like to blow up things (as in making it bigger as it actually is). But on the other hand they like to "protect" their country and start wars all over the globe.
I think everyone I know who’s visited the US has heard the “you speak English real good”. This is people from England, Canada and Australia who also have better grammar. Americans, bless their hearts 😂.
🇨🇦 I spent a year in L.A. as I married someone from there. It is a big joke in Canada that many Americans think Canadians all live in igloos, and have no modern conveniences. However hearing that all the time wasn’t funny anymore. Worse still was showing people pictures of my home city where we rarely even see snow and have so much beauty and modern everything, and people refusing to believe that my pictures were real, because it wasn’t the United States.
I remember being at a cookout with some co-workers and their families when I lived in the US about twenty years ago, and the topic of conversation got onto Australian weather. There were a couple of people there who simply refused to believe that our seasons are opposite to what they are in the northern hemisphere. I had to physically demonstrate (using a rockmelon as the sun and an orange as the earth with the equator drawn on with a sharpie and 'USA' and 'AUS' written on opposite top and bottom parts of the orange), how it is indeed physically possible for us to have Christmas in the middle of summer. Their minds were blown.
Australian here and a huge NBA fan. In a live group chat watching my team someone complained about an "Aussie" player saying "you should said him back to the penal colony, back to his "convict bretheran"". I said "you do know that America was a penal colony, hence why you have Independance Day?". I was then able to follow up with telling him the player he was talking about was a first nations indigenous person who's people have lived here for thousands and thousands of years, and were not convicts from England I really love your vids. They're so fun and respectful and just nice. Liked & Subed & shared
G’day Ian, there is aboriginal art in the Northern Territory dating back 45,000 - 65,000 years ago, White people in Australia have only been here 270 years, just a pin prick in time 👍🇦🇺
On recommending Hampton court palace to an American as a place to visit, I told him it was a home of Henry 8th. He replied "Will he be at home when I visit" The mind boggles lol
There used to be a radio program years ago that had a segment called dumb things Americans say. It was hilarious.. one I remember was an American tourist asking the clerk at a resort to turn the waterfall down as it was too loud for her to sleep🤦
In some places that is not completely dumb. With electricity generated, too, the waterfall is only "active" for some hours for the tourists. Then it is only a small trickle left because the water goes through the turbines.
@@dinahlavati7249 stvarno toliko su puni sebe, da mi se kenja od njih 😂😂😂, jos mi je jako kada govore da su ne znam sto u znanosti, a vecina koji jesu, u biti ni nisu ameri. Nego su iz drugih drzava, a uzeli drzavljanstvo 😂😂. Dozivio sam puno takvih njihovih glupih pitanja i tvrdnji koje nemaju veze, sa vezom. Bitno je da nemozes proci ulicu kod njih, a da nema hrpa beskucnika, ali eto toliko su dobra drzava 😂😂. Jaka mi je fora kada je izasao "obama care" pa su poceli sami pljuvati po besplatnom zdravstvu (koja budala moze to misliti, a u isto vrijeme ne moze na bolovanje, a ni platiti lijekove za obicnu prehladu). Ne idem nigdje iz moje hrvatske (osim turisticki)
They are just taught how to say their Pledge of Allegiance which they are forced to recite every morning before class starts. Land of the free, huh, and they talk about indoctrination in North Korea!
There is an interesting video, almost an hour long here on RU-vid (I don´t remember the channel off the top of my head, sorry) that explains why education in the US is often subpar: among other reasons it´s because is dyshomogenous. Then you have of course the exceptional elites, but those are just that: elites. And a system for "quality" evaluation of universities that is not actually based on quality but instead on professor/students ratio (no mention of quality of teachings) and number of publications (which is a stupidly easy to cheat paramater).
So here's the question on my mind forever. If I choose to move to the USA and start a family, I'm Australian. But my kids will be American. No problem there. We could do this from any European nation, one generation in, kids are American. Then you look at black people, and they are always stuck, no matter how many generations in, with "African American". Why the distinction? Don't worry, I know the answer. I just like pointing it out.
Cultural division; erase one culture while lionising the other. Divide and conquer, and then you have two serf classes that hate each other and can't rebel.
Only in the US, does the populous and the politicians keep this weird sort of racism going. In the UK (where I'm from) we don't have Scottish Brits or Welsh Brits or African Brits, were all just British, doesn't matter what colour, your skin is but the US seems fixated on giving itself the racial dynamic to hate on each other.
@@Thurgosh_OG "Hyphenated Americans" were stigmatised from the 1890s by Teddy Roosevelt and later Woodrow Wilson as something less then "Americans." To them Black Americans hardly counted at all, since they weren't usually allowed to vote.
I was visiting London a few years ago, and was at Tower Bridge. There’s an exhibition there with a display pointing out the buildings you could see. An American woman and her teenage son were loudly commenting, shouting to each other across everyone else. “I didn’t know they had a fire in London.” was one comment, then the mother said, pointing at St Paul’s Cathedral, “They must have based that on the Capitol Building.”
The one that sticks out the most in my mind, is 20 odd years ago I used to play an online RPG game called Ultima Online. I used to play with people from all over the world (depending on what time of day I was online) - I'm in the UK. This one time I was standing in a trading hub area with 2 Americans I used to play with frequently. We were casually chatting about in game stuff, when one of them asked me what church I attended. I replied saying "Oh I'm atheist" to which he replayed "Oh that must be a southern church, I've not heard of that one".
I've met some niave Americans visiting Australia (where I live). Some asking why there were no kangaroos roaming the Sydney cbd... I replied "oh we herd them out of the city every morning over the harbour Bridge so we can go about our day & herd them back in the evening". Also had a bloke from Texas brag about big the locusts are over there. I promptly showed him a black & white photo of a man with a shotgun in one hand showing off his quarry.... an obviously photoshopped locust that was almost the size of the man in the picture. I told him my grandfather shot it in the 1950s & they would take lambs & small children as prey. The look on his face was priceless & he then proceeded to ask where this picture was taken. I couldn't hold my composure any longer & only then did he realise I was pulling his chain
Hey yeah I've seen that pic back in the early 70's when were experiencing an horrendous locust plague. We were young kids in school & debated & long & hard about whether that old black & white newspaper photo was fair dinkum or not lol
Australian telling foreigners, especially Americans, about 'facts' actually gives me some joy as it seems to be a cultural/tradition at this point, but also worries me about misinformation.
Great videos.. Hope you make another one of these.. 😎👍🤙🤘 I was in USA back in 1987.. got 2 episodes from there. Both was when we said, that we were from Denmark. 1. We were asked how we got permission from Kremlin to travel.. they thought it was a part of USSR. 2. We were told.. Denmark...... oh, the capital of Sweden.
We were in Yugoslavia in 1987, when it still was Yugoslavia, and went out for a pizza. The server asked us where we were from and we answered Sweden he replies Oh yes, Copenhagen. And since we're from Skåne we just said Close enough. 😁
@@MichaelHedegaardJensen We'd love to. But then you'd get to hear more Bornholmer danish once we get the kids who didn't grow up with danish tv to speak danish.
Ah yes, the age of our towns. If 792 was unbelievable for that person, I wonder how she would have reacted to towns and city that are way older than 2,000 years lol. The town I'm originally from was already here more than 2,000 years ago, and that's nowhere near the oldest around.
Speaking of Texans, I was on a guided tour in New york City back in 2007. The guide was asking everyone where they were from, just to get to know us a bit. I said, "Canada", and this Texan said, "Oh, the ones whose wars we have to fight..." The guide cringed. He probably thought I was going to get angry, but I just said, "Tell that to all the Canadian boys coming home from Afghanistan in body bags, not to mention Normandy and Italy back in WW2." Good'ol Texans...
Those wars we have to fight? Wars started by the USA -Korea,Vietnam,Iraq, Afghanistan - and allies helped .All failures and for what reasons were these wars started - politics,oil,false flag(WMD- Bush).No good reasons for starting wars.
Having stayed in the US as an exchange student from Switzerland for a year in '99 i heared it all! "Do you drive on the right side of the road too?" "Does it snow every day over there?" "Do you guys celebrate 4th of July?" "Where are you from? Switzerland? Ist that on the east coast?"
I'm from the Netherlands and when I was in the US visiting friends, we went to a party and a guy there heard that I was from the Netherlands, he asked me if lived under water because he heard that half of the Netherlands was below sea level. The look on the faces of these other people that were there was priceless.
Thanks Mate, that`s the attitude, to be able to laugh while it "hurts" a little bit. Trust me, I am from Finland!! By the way, try to explain to an "American", that we had Saunas here in Finland like 2000 BC. I tried! Let`s leave it to that😄😁
you are right, we all have our fair share of dumdums. it is just that the Americans do dumdum exceptional well. 🤣😂🤣 I used to work in an IT help desk and one day I had a lady from America on the line, which is odd because our office catered to Europe. somehow she got through to us. I propped with question to establish her issue and found myself on the receiving end of a 5 minute lecture on how to correctly pronounce the letter "j" in american. after a while I had enough of the shenanigan and went: "I am sorry but we here in europe learn british english in school. you know, the original version" ....and then there was silence. 🦗🦗🦗🦗
Many a time whilst gaming online, I've had Americans comment on my accent. When I tell them I'm English and not Australian as they thought 🙄 they say my English is very good lol. I've also been told "oh you have an Essex too" when I tell them where I live. I tell them near Harwich of the Mayflower fame, and none of them have the faintest idea what I'm on about.
You're absolutely right about there being people who ask dumb questions being everywhere. My Niece married a lovely German Gentleman who immigrated to Australia as a teenager. Her Dad/My Sister's Husband died from Brain Cancer a few years ago. Everyone in the family knows where he comes from originally. We were having a family get together one night when a cousin asked him a really dumb question. We walked up to him and she asked him "So, do you speak German?" He just looked at her like she was crazy 🤪 and I walked away laughing 😂.
My home state of South Australia is a mix of English and German cultures. In the Baroosa Valley, the Baroosa German language is still spoken there to a certain degree. My ancestors used to speak German when they immigrated back in 1830s.
Some Canadians say really dumb things too....When informed that I spoke Spanish, one of my co-workers said, "Cool! Do you speak Mexican?" 🤦♂🤦♂🤣🤣 Upon learning I was going to Spain on vacation, another co-worker asked me, "Do they have cell phones over there?" (this was two separate occasions....thank heavens!!) Those two guys no longer work with us...wonder why...
I was once on event where all participants had name tags. One american who also came was claiming my name is spelled wrong and I'm lying about pronunciation. Discussion lasted half an hour and the only reason why I entertained him for so long is because it was amusing. For reference my name is Krzysztof and it has at least one sound that doesn't exist in English
How do you pronounce that? I initially read it as Kristof and I know that is wrong. I'm not even going to try and guess what country you are from, all I know for sure is that it's some version of East from England.
On the "I'm scottish thing" We in the UK and I assume everywhere else in Europe, don't actually say "I'm (nationality)" to talk about ancestory, thats likely were the disconnect and annoyence is coming from. If we are talking about ancestory we will say "my ancestors were (nationality) so since we don't hear that, that often, it feels like even if they're not, americans are trying to claim their part of our country, our culture just because of their ancestory, which can cause a lot of annoyence.
Here East europe, Nationality is considered also by traditions, Ancestry is important to connect to the Nation, but without carry on they traditions and values you cant be "Latvian, Polish,Bulgarian;Slovak. We coll thouse who have ANcestory but disconnected from traditions cosmopolitans
Don't forget that in Europe, saying "I'm " generally means *you* are a citizen of that nation or at least born there. Which they clearly aren't. So it comes down to different and incompatible use of language.
So I work in a wildlife sanctuary in Australia, and a lot of foreign tourists are fascinated, and even confused, by some of our wildlife when they see them for the first time. Most tourists are happy for me to tell them about the animals, or correct misconceptions. It is usually the American tourists however, that are so convinced they are right, even when they are very much not (koalas are part of the bear family and are carnivores, echidnas are just larger hedgehogs, red kangaroos can be ridden, tassie devils are fake, lyrebirds are fake, the platypus is a relative of the beaver, tree kangaroos are really monkeys, and so on), and the American tourist will (almost) always argue that they are right no matter what they are told.
When I was still in uni, just that one time, I met an US exchange student at an outdoor birthday party in a local park. Aside from her being uncomfortably loud and a little over the top expressiv (I'm german, we don't do that here :D), she was in disbelive we never ate "buffalo wings". Mind you, I still don't know exactly what's so special about these. It took me some seconds just to understand that these must be chicken wings, nothing to do with real buffalos but the city. Which is somewhere in the northern-east of the US? I don't know every city's location sorry. Yeah well, we do have chicken wings here, maybe some US-style restaurants even serve them 'buffalo styles'. But why would germans have eaten chicken wings from Buffalo?!? Can't nilly-dilly jump over the atlantic to give it a try.. She was dead ass mad, said we know nothing 'bout good taste. Sure hun...
@@goytabr I'm not a dumb American. I know its Swiss, I have relatives in Lucerne. I left this comment late at night and forgot to edit it. OP above is German so I suggested those two brands. But technically Lindt still have a large factory in Germany that produces a lot of stock that gets exported! Thing is you ask any regular Yank they will assume both companies are American like they believe Godiva Chocolate is which is a Belgian brand 🤣
Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath, The Who, Radiohead, Queen, Oasis, The Kinks, U2, The Police, Yes, ELO, Muse, Dire Straits, Judas Priest, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, Cream, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Snow Patrol, ... I could go on for an hour.
@@TheIrishBosnian The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwestern coast of Europe. The largest of these islands are Britain and Ireland. And I desperately hope that - in context - you know that Ireland is not part of the U.S.
@@TheIrishBosnian Allthough dumb and arrogant make such a nice couple, the often more educated British share that arrogance, that lack of understanding that something is not theirs.
My sister was an exchange student in the US years ago when she was still at school. That was in Arizona and there she was seriously asked if we had electricity, internet, computers and cars in Germany.... She couldn't believe her ears. When she explained to her classmates that Konrad Zuse invented the first functioning, fully automatic, program-controlled and freely programmable computer that worked in binary floating-point arithmetic, and Karl Benz invented the car, they accused her of spreading false information. Tenacious and persevering as my sister is, she went to the public library one of the following days to borrow reference books to prove her point (in 2005, Wikipedia was not yet that old and comprehensive). The classmates were so pissed that not all great inventions come from the US.
Well done for your sister, she showed those vain and ignorant students real facts. Don't worry they think the same or other countries including mine. Greetings from México.
There are stupid ppl everywhere unfortunately 😂 In Ireland every Paddy's Day we always get tons of Americans visiting to see the parade, (and also complain because it's not as extravagant as it is in America lol), but the number one question I always get asked is "So where can we find the Leprechauns?" I feel so bad having to let them down, they're so disappointed. It blows my mind why they think they're real though! 🤣🤣🤣 Much love 💚🤍🧡
I visited the US in the mid 90s as an exchange student. A lot more people in the US were ways less educated about the "rest" of the world back then, so here are just two of many stories. When the daughter of the family I stayed with was vacuuming one day, she asked if we had vaccuum cleaners in Germany. Having already answered a few such questions, I answered that Germany was just another country and not behind the moon. Her mother thought my answer was hilarious. She burst out laughing and told everyone we met that day of this exchange. Her daughter did not speak to me for two days. A few days later, a friend of mine was giving a little presentation about our hometown at school. There was one teacher who was a self-proclaimed expert on Germany. She kept interrupting with the most ignorant remarks. One of the pictures in the presentation showed reconstructions of mobile changing rooms from around 1900 - pretty much small wooden huts on wheels. They were set up at a beach for some kind of anniversary, I think. Before my friend could say anything, the teacher started lecturing about the poor German fisherman and their families living in these mobile homes... the German word for the feeling we all felt is "Fremdscham" (to be ashamed on the behalf of others). On the views on history: When I visited Florida a few years ago, we visited Bonnet House in Fort Lauderdale - and it was said many time that it was "over 100 years old". I mean, that is quite an age for a wooden house in the swamp, no question. But the house I do live in here right now is also around 100 years old, as are all the houses around it. And I do live in one of the youngest cities in Germany. As the old saying goes: For Americans, 100 years is a long time and for Germans, 100 km is a long distance.
same with the log cabin village in texas, i went there and it was good, it was interesting, but i wasnt as enthused as they expected the people i was with.. later on they came to england and i showed them a stone building from 1405 in my home town not to mention the roman walls in chester
I rescued a dog from long term kennels in Hungary. The dog had been brought over by an American man who was teaching English in Budapest. He had been taken ill and returned to US for treatment but never got back to Hungary. During the time I had the dog I moved to Croatia. I used to exchange emails with the American and he even sent gifts for the dog. At one point he mentioned he might visit Hungary at some point so I offered for him to visit me and see the dog. He declined, saying he had heard there were unexploded bombs in Croatia!
It's a wonder he travelled anywhere in Europe, as we still find unexploded bombs from as far back as WWII everywhere. A recent example was an unexploded bomb found in the North of Scotland, dropped in a raid by a German bomber in WWII .
I had to laugh a bit about the girl being confused about things being older than the USA. Especially because it shot through my mind how she would have reacted had she been in the same grade as me in high school school. Reason being: My school celebrated its 400th anniversary while I was attending. While that might not be as long ago as Colombus, it definitely was over 170 years before the independence of the United States. (My school was founded in 1605) Edit: Not even to talk about the city I'm from.
Ooh I've got a few, back in 2000 on Anzac Day in Kings Cross, I saw a few men from the American navy, they came right up to me, i was dressed to the 9's, and they asked me where to find the local McDonald's, it was literally behind them they just hadn't seen the sign across the road. And i walked off. - In 2001, I got punched in the face by an Australian guy, cause he thought i sounded American. His friend saw the rage in my eyes where i was about to kill him, he said its not worth it sweetie. - At the Archibald Prize (Fancy art prize) in 2004, got into an argument with an assistant from Sony from the states, I was asking what it was like to have a president like George W Bush, she seemed to think that he wasn't the American president cause she didn't vote for him, I had to explain how American politics worked to her. My mother was in Pearl Harbor, where she got into an argument with some Americans about the war. They seemed to think that Australia had nothing to do with World War Two, not only was her father shot down by a Japanese Zero over Papua New Guinea (Which was considered part of Australia at the time) and survived, she went onto explain about the over 100 bombings by the Japanese navy, including the bombing at Darwin which faced a bigger force than Pearl Harbor and for longer. And that we had over 350 Navy ships in the pacific fleet. Not to mention, every other theatre of war from Africa to Greece and many more. She was really pissed.
The Football thing always makes me grin, try explaining to Americans that Football or Footy here in Oz needs further clarification as there are 4 main versions of it here. Rugby league, Rugby Union, Soccer and Australian Rules. Saying "You watching the footy?" is a multiple choice question.
One time i had a visitor from the US and he was thinking that we don´t have electric energy in germany because he couln´t see any power cables. i had to explain to him that in central europe most of the countries have build the power cables under the road. I was a bit shocked afterwards.
6:34 if an american would tell me he´s german, i would start talking to him in german, and wonder when he doesen´t understand a word and ask him, you just said you´re german, how can it be that you don´t speak the language at all? :D
I've been binge watching these videos, because it's interesting to see how locals react to their natives. Refreshing to see that nobody got defensive. 👍🏼😊 Here's mine. A few years ago, i was asked if we had seasons in Argentina. I swear this is true. 🙈
I said once to a girl on Playstation that my delay from the Westcoast to europe was -8 hours and told her in lived in the Future. No joke no kidding she believed me...and asked why i didn'd prevent September 11th....this is a true story guys!!!!! I had to mute myself because i couldnt stop laughing😅
This is not so bad, but when I was younger, I lived in a dorm with 2 American Girls. One day I was going out to a party and had some white cloths on (and here I have to mention back in the end 90's start 2000's white was normal as a complimentary color to black and other colors in scandi). They the laughed, pointed at me saying in unicorn: "have you not heard, that you don't wear white after labour day". I looked at them and asked them, when is the official "labour day" in Denmark where we were. They were so confused, and I asked them, do you also think we are celebrating Thanks giving and 4.th of July. They just got angry at me and walked away to there room. Oh and just as a bonus, they asked me in July. First after that insident I looked up labour day and it's in freaking September. The best thing is that they dressed so "American" with oversized hoddies, sweetpants and caps and I was almost pointing out, that they probably should not give fashion advice when looking like that in a country with so many stylistic people.
Labour day is on the first of May: an INTERNATIONAL day to celebrate all workers, and especially the worker unions and to commemorate the struggle for better work conditions. Even in Denmark in certain circles: mostly socialist, communist or anargist, the day is a special one. It marks the establishment of the eight hours workday and in 1889 by the first congres of the Second International is agreed to start on 1 may 1890. In Denmark it is an official free holiday.
@@Roel_Scoot Labor day is not internationale the same day. It's called that, but for eksampel its the first monday in Freaking Septemeber in the US. Calling somthing international is not the same as it being it. Just like calling something world championsship and It's only the US compeeting 😉
in the early nineties we had an American talk show host Don Lane, his Australian TV history started in sixties, who had a sportscasting show on the ABC where he taught us about NFL and baseball. I liked NFL except for the fact it went on too long. I mean 4hrs of tv, shit I could have conquered a country in that time 🤣🤣🤣🤣.The show ran for 5 yrs and included NCAA basketball. He was a very popular face on Australian television and scored quite a few logies in his time.
I had a similar experience to some of the american football fans as a young kid growing up in South Australia who'd never had enough money to see anywhere else but the region I grew up in, and occasionally going to Adelaide. And I wasn't a diehard footy fan and didn't have a preferred team, but I enjoyed going to the games. And I fully believed that our two national AFL teams must be the best in the country because "everyone" goes for either Port or Crows. I'd never met a single person who didn't go for one or the other and I turned that supposed knowledge into the belief that they were the best. It wasn't until Year 10 (15 or 16 y.o.) when I went on a school camp to Melbourne and one of our activities was going to an AFL match, and saw that everyone there was wearing any of the Vic teams that it finally clicked and I got a dose of reality and a view outside of my own little world.
Hi there, I'm from Munich, Germany. I was sitting in the Metro when a bunch of students from Michigan State entered the train and were discussing completely shocked... They were blasted by the fact, that the entire city has colours and the buildings are pretty nice - not looking like the pictures they saw in their history class books (I guess the topic was WWII)... I nearly had to puke because of laughing my ass off...
I'm laughing my ass off! 🤣 I thought by now the Americans would be a little smarter than 40 years ago. As students, so 7th-8th grade we got addresses of students from the USA from our English teacher, so that we can improve our written English. The first response from a student in Des Moines was really shocking to us. She asked us how often we go to school, she thought it would be very difficult. And it would be amazing that the post office still works, after all there would be war. 🫣 That was at the end of the 70s...
@@petersilie8549 Okay, you're right. It is excusable that a 13 year old without internet and with half or misinformation from school books thinks something like that. With adults with today's possibilities of information definitely not. I find both sad.
Today, in retrospect, it is rather amazing that she didn't think at all about us learning English when she was convinced it was war. In Hitler's time, one would either have been punished for this as a traitor to the people, or one would have been trained by the party itself to infiltrate the Americans. In any case, an exchange of letters with the U.S. at that time would have been guaranteed to be viewed as very suspicious by both countries. 🤣
Hey mate , still remember years ago in Sydney Australia , saw a American woman in McDonald’s hand over u.s. dollars to pay her bill , still makes me laugh 🤘🏻🇦🇺🤘🏻
I encountered that at Taronga Park Zoo. The guy tried to pay for his entry with American money and was first astonished, then offended when told that he couldn't pay with American currency, that he'd need Australian currency. He couldn't believe there was a country that didn't accept US currency. lol
@@Melrick72 Some 3rd world countries accept US currency because it's worth more than theirs - Egypt it was actually recommended to us to bring both Egyptian and US currency for tipping/bakshish.
My cousin was showing his Florida neighbours photos of my village in England. One of them said why does that house have a hairy roof? It was a thatched cottage. The same person commented on that house with the black and white stripes. A Tudor house lol
Please tell my why, why, why the 4th of July is the only date Americans use right and the rest of the year they go like month/day/year. Has it anything to do with why Americans only use the metric system when it comes to bullets and guns? Just wondering. :) ....But IW had again a good laugh at this video. Keep up the good work.
Regarding getting the gun over the border. I studied in canada for a semester and a couple of times we drove over the boarder to the US. While we as germans were checked going into the US quite hard, they did not check the car. If you have some fast pass as a canadian you get to just drive through. On the way back the canadian officers were just checking our passports. So i fully get how she was able to bring her gun
On the topic of old stuff. The earliest European settlement on current US territory was Fort San Juan (wich later became the city of San Juan) settled by the Spanish. The oldest settlement in the lower 48 is Fort Augustine, Florida, again, settled by the Spanish.
I am Canadian and over 60 years old I lived 2 km from the US border. So this happened a long time ago. I was stopped by an American on a July day when I was about 10 years old. Walking home barefoot from the swimming pool it was about 25°C ( 77°F ) asking me and my friends where the snow was. We just started laughing you should have seen the expresion of his kids in back seat as to say my parentes are idiots. I later thought it was funny that he had no snow tires and it was good that it wasn't snowing.
My college at the time always had an exchange program with a college in Texas during summer vacation. I had to go to the library one morning during the vacations to drop off books, and there were several freezing ladies standing outside in very unsuitable clothing at about 11 degrees C (52F), freezing miserably. The temperature is not unusual in northern Germany even in midsummer, but as the day progresses it quickly warms up. One lady (the Karen from the group, see below) asked me dramatically for help and they should go to the cafeteria to be picked up. I led the group to the cafeteria, big signage and a 50 meter walk away, very visible. Inside it was quite warm because the building was still heated up from the warm day before and has no air conditioning, there was even louder grumbling from the Karen in the group, I sat down to be polite to the ladies and Karen continued to grumble: about how they would get "no authentic German food". Only schnitzel, roast pork, fried potatoes .... my objection that this was German food was not believed. Also with the temperatures .... I said that we are just geographically on the same longitude as Edmonton/Canada and Texas on the level of North Africa - that was also not really believed. And also that our summers, at least in the past, have not been so extremely warm and humid that we need air conditioning to survive. After that, I almost had tears in my eyes from laughing: The Karen complained that they went to the North Sea beach (the college is right on the coast) and there would have been no water at all! How should one swim there? I only say ebb and flow .... I didn't know what to say anymore. But two ladies from the group had to laugh as well and refrained from it as best they could. It was one person who stood out so stupidly from the group. I talked politely with the rest of them for almost ten minutes and then an employee of the university, who was in charge of the students from then on, came. He asked me quietly in German whether "the blonde there" had been nice, she would be permanently only grumble. 😂
Nice video With lots of laughs I remember a comment on one of my old videos about pulp wood handling. Paper is not made from wood, it is only made from recycled paper 😂 So apparently no new white paper is never needed 😂
I was a Aussie in America coming up on Thanksgiving. A woman freaked out screeching "Australia doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving ?!" I actually had to explain HER own National Holiday to her.
I actually have a different story of this--basically this in reverse. A classmate of mine had an exchange year in the US a few years back. When she came back to Germany, at some point she started talking about (laundry) dryers. And apparently, because her parents didn't have a dryer at home, she wasn't used to them, and told all her American friends in the US how they weren't a thing in Germany, bamboozling the Americans. Coming back, we had to tell her, that no, they very much are a thing. Since then, I sometimes wonder if some of these misconceptions actually started because an unknowing kid from another country came to share some wrong bit of information accidentally.
on a hot summerday in texas the late 90s was hugging the fridge in my american girlfriends house for fun and said, "i really love this ice maker". her friend stared with big eyes at me and asked, "are there no fridge in europe?"
The second last one reminded me of Carl Pilkington. When looking at a run down section of the great Wall of China stated. "If my yard looked like that the council would be onto me to clean it up"
I once visited the Great Wall in the company of an American teacher. It's worth noting that she'd been in China for over a year at the time and that she's not handicapped in any way. "They should make this wheelchair accessible" she grumbled "It would be in America." I asked her in utter disbelief if she really thinks one of the wonders of the world should be altered because it's not wheelchair friendly. "Yes, they're constantly repairing it, they can easily change it."
I've definitely been asked whether we celebrate the fourth of July and Thanksgiving on Australia. Trivia, our Logie Awards in Australia (like your Emmys) were named after Logie Baird, the inventor of television.
In LA They said where are you from? I said Australia. They said what? Austria? I said no Australia, They said, same thing. We wear Jumpers here. Wooly jumpers not pullover. One said why do you call it a jumper? I said well, sheep jump sp we call it a jumper. I dunno
I spent my 7th-grade year in a public school in Atlanta, and every day the whole school would recit a pledge to the USA together over the speakers. Since I was French, I didn't say the pledge, and nearly got in trouble for not standing (note: here in France, this sort of practice would come off as cultish - my 12 y-o self was mostly just uncomfortable, but also...) Like, this was not my country, and to this day I'm a bit salty they would have me stand at all. Anyway, I was complaining about this on the internet, and a bunch of people told me I could just consider I was standing for a bunch of random other random reasons (their tone was condescending, btw) - standing for France, standing in thanks to the soldiers of the US who participated in wars that helped France, etc, as if that was something I would do - but like, I love my country, but I wouldn't recite a pledge to it, and I wouldn't THANK soldiers dying in a war, that's a tragedy - also, why American soldiers? Do these people realize France has fought its own wars as well, and the US didn't jist always do the entire job? Like what. Why not for ALL soldiers then. Anyway, I got berated by a bunch of internet strangers for not standing to the pledge because "it would've been so easy to just do it for something else", wording it as if I just didn't see a point in standing for the US specifically, when the issue was standing at all. If I were religious, it would've probably been a great moment to pray for a bit - then again, their pledging was really loud, I'm not sure I'd have been able to concentrate - and I'm not, I literally had nothing to do. We have holidays for celebrating our country and soldiers, what do these people think those are for? I'm certainly not celebrating those every. Single. Day. And the entire thing felt very forceful. Anyway, whether I should've just stood like everyone else right off the bat or not, the fact that most of the replies I got were this... It's not a lack of knowledge per se - but dumb...maybe
As British I have to disagree. Standing is a mark of respect as is standing for any nations national anthem. You don’t need to put your hand over your heart or turn to face the flag. In the US we stood when invited to stand for any US veterans in the audience. No big deal.
@@stevetaylor7403 as British i dont stand for any anthem, i dont need to show everyone how much i love my country i just LOVE IT. and i lived in america for a time
I’ve come across many Americans who are as knowledgeable as myself (if not more) but I’ve also come across plenty who believe the sun rises in New York & sets in Los Angeles 😮
Yeah I play alot of video games and so I have met alot of americans. For the msot part they are smart people not dumb at all. but the dumb americans give the rest a bad name and when they are dumb they are proper dumb haha.
The 'Australia voting' one is mostly thanks to the Americans refering to the President as "leader of the free World" which is such an arrogant & incorrect term
