Yup the one that gets me every time is the "So you speak English so well". How is it that they can't put 2 and 2 together where they hear the words English and England. Mind blowing.
I had this long conversation with a woman in Reno where she would not believe that English comes from England. One derived the other. She believed the U.S. created English. She also believed I knew Tom Jones, and her friend who lived in London. And London is close to Liverpool.
I visited a museum in the US North East, and got talking to one of the volunteers working there, lovely lady who it turns out was a retired High School history teacher and a big fan of the Royal Family. She was in shock and disbelief when I explained they were descended from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha lineage and changed their name to Windsor due to anti-German sentiment during the first world war. I didn't have the heart to tell her about "Phil the Greek".
You mean 'Prince Phillip of Greece and Denmark' I think, educated by a Jewish Teacher in Germany and Scotland and his mother was a Nun who was born in Windsor Castle.!!! How's that for Diversity!
@@uingaeoc3905 indeed, "Phil the greek" was an affectionate nickname principally from Londoners. He used to drive a black cab around London so he wouldn't be noticed. Quite a guy, RIP.
Our Royal family in Belgium has the exact same name. Queen Victoria's mother was our first King's sister and she also married her mother's other brother's son, meaning her own cousin,making their children related to the same family on both sides.
Yep.. Only Country in the World, with Mass Shootings.. Kids are taught the run and swerve procedure at school.. And lock down procedures for gun on Campass.. Yet one state has Passed a Law, that 16 year olds, can carry a concealed weapon..
I’m from the North of England. One time in Greece I was talking to an American woman who thought I was Australian. I said nope I’m from England. She started to become increasingly angry by me denying I wasn’t Australian. In the end she said “I know you’re Australian because you don’t have a British accent”. Utterly obnoxious woman.
I was sitting in a hotel bar in Dallas, when the young bartender asked me if I felt a greater sense of freedom in the US than at home ( I'm a Brit). After having picked myself up off the floor and pointed out some of the freedoms we have that the US doesn't, ( no civil asset forfeiture, no jaywalking laws, etc.) I completely blew him away when I told him that our police don't routinely carry guns! Don't think he actually believed me.
We do have have jay walking laws, they're just not normally enforced as the paper work would take a police officer off the streets for most their shift. Also I can't remember the distance, but it's only jay walking within a relatively short distance of a designated crossing place.
I had an American friend years ago who couldn't understand why as an Englishman I didn't celebrate American independence Day. "But you have to be doing something special on July 4th." I'm sure he isn't representative of all Americans but he felt very insular.
I'm with that South African. Whilst serving in the RAF we were detached to Midway Island which is/was an American naval base. I was walking on the beautiful white coral sand with a lovely young American lady and she said "Do ya'll have beaches in England?" I said "No, we've concreted right up to the edge." She said "Damn, that's such a shame."
I remember one time years ago I was at the cinema and an American guy was in front of me in the queue at the kiosk buying a hot dog, he pick up the mustard and smothered it like it was ketchup, the woman behind the counter warned him that it was not American mustard but he just said he knew what mustard was and continued squirting it on, as I watched him walking through the door into the auditorium he took a bite of the hot dog and a second latter he let out this howl as he discovered what English mustard was. It raised quite a laugh among the people who saw it.
I might come across like an American even though I am English saying this lol! but I didn't even know American Mustard was not as strong as English Mustard lol!
@@andrewward2010 Americans tell me this ALL the time . Most American condiments have no taste. My US friends bought 'English Mustard' in the States and said it was as weak as theirs was. So they bought lots of jars of REAL English Mustard to take home with them.
Ok I will say that the taste of something cannot truly be appreciated by knowledge alone. I don't know the difference either and would have assumed that mustard is mustard. So this is probably not the best example because of the same English word having two drastically different tastes.
Things that didn't happen. Not only your word choice, but that you think proper English mustard is somehow served by the person buying and in a squeezy bottle. None of those things happen. It's a trope and you are looking for empty likes.
@@aidancolyer7924I've seen English mustard in a squeezy bottle loads of times, in fact (be warned this may shock you) you can even buy it in squeezy bottles 😲
Brit here. I was once going through Newark airport passport control . My occupation on my passport was Psychotherapist. The passport control official read my details out aloud saying "your occupation is Psycho The Rapist?" Unbelievable but completely true🤣
The main problem with Americans in America is, a large percentage of them think that America is the whole world and not just a single country out of 195 countries on Earth. I once read a post written by an American who questioned if people in the UK had ever heard of Simon Cowell or Gordon Ramsay!?! They are both British FFS!
Son of Louisiana here. While in college I introduced some friends to some new Scots who’d just arrived that semester. The gals complemented these guys on their English and asked how long they’d studied it. They also asked how long the drive was from Scotland. It kept going. The guys were good sports about it.
Canadian here… I spent a couple years in the US, and these really are believable stories. It’s not everyone, or even a significant proportion, but there are a few who are extremely ignorant of anything outside the US.
I love my Canadian friends because they get banter and taking the piss. I always use the stereotypes whenwe chat about each others countries. Heck, the Nigerians I used to work with get banter too. I used to ask if elephants roamed the streets of Lagos like Pigeons and foxes here in the UK and they'd just laugh. Asome yanks would believe that.
My Mate owns a Tour Company, in Northern Queensland Australia.. Just last week, he had an American couple in their Thirties come in, they wanted to rent a Car.. so he politley asked, large, small, where you going? The wife replied, oh we are going to Drive Back to America.. When he asked about The Pacific Ocean, the husband replied.. that is Only A Lake.. America Is The World... IE: No Wonder They Are Too Dumb For Gun control... And when he showed them Australia on Google Maps on His Laptop..? They didn't Believe him.. They said, Australia has Different Maps, compared to America.. WTF?
As a child in the early 70s we were looking around Caenarvon Castle. An American kid said to his mother "gee mom this must be really old". Mom replied " don't be silly Junior, it's only a replica".
My father (history teacher) was in Rome on holiday on the 1960s. Part of a tour party at the Coliseum in Rome. The guide was a postgraduate student of history at the University abd was very passionate about Rome at its height and the coliseum. An Texan, in the group, publicly announced that he was unimpressed, his local coliseum (Texas football stadium I think) was bigger. The tour guide nearly exploded! Dad was laughing at this blockhead thinking his (unknown) 1950s sports venue was somehow comparable with the 2000 year old Coliseum.
@@pmurnionYour comment immediately invoked a picture in my mind: Lieutenant Disher to Sergeant Stottelmeyer in the Monk- Episide about the Kidnapped Grandmother where an historic chair once owned by A. Lincoln was important: "Does it swivel?" The authors did a great job.
An elderly American female tourist on holiday in Denmark asked her astonished Danish tour guide, if our native Viking population lives in reservations, like their native American people do back home in the US. 🙄 😂 I would have replied "Yes, of course - and even behind tall electrical fences for our protection, since the Viking men tend to go berserk and fight over the Viking shield maidens" 🙄😂
It is a dumb question but there is still Norse mythology culture across Scandinavia and Europe. There are those who worship the old gods and Freyja is a popular one among certain rural parts of Europe. They just adapted to live in modern times so you don't see them as Hollywood portrays Vikings.
Hi Amanda. True story. I was working with an American buyer who controlled a multi million dollar budget and he was coming to my area to check out our service offering and supply chain. He told me he was a “history nut” and asked whether I could recommend some local history in my area. So I arranged for him to go and have a look at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall. When I met him and asked him how his visit was, I was astounded when he said he was “disappointed.” When I asked him why that was he blew my mind by saying, “well it’s not finished!” I had to gently explain that it was built in the 1230’s. He felt a tad stupid. I tried really, really hard not to be smug. I failed. ☺️
The accent part is very true though. I went to college in Boston and they all seem to think that everybody else has an accent but themselves........ they can't grasp this fact because they live in a bubble thinking that they are the center of the universe and unable to see from the povs of people in other countries. One more thing - I went for college in Boston and I was roomed with an American in the dorms for freshman year. When we first met we talked a bit and I told him I'm from Malaysia. I'm not lying and the first thing he asked was if there were roads and "freeways" in Malaysia. I'm telling u this dude is a very nice and polite person (I know, I lived with him for a whole year) and he was 100% serious when he asked that question. U might think some of these videos might be exaggerated but I'm telling u right now, my story isn't so yeah.....
A German stand up comic came to the US and performed in some clubs. After one show, an American woman asked if he was really German. "Yes." She then asked why Europeans speak so many different languages. "Because we lost the war."
Me (german) and my father went on a Harley Roundtrip through Southwest of the US 2003. We were pulled out by a cop to controll us. While checking our licences an registrations the very unfriendly cop (cheap Dirty Harry copy) asked me "What did you do during World War 2?" My answer: "Sir, i was born in 1960!". He almost freaked out and said "I didn't ask for your date of birth, i wanted to know, what you did during WW2!" After i told him my year of birth was 15 years after the war ended he was so mad, i was sure he would arrest us, but luckily he didn't 😂
Many years ago I worked as a bus conductor in London and I was approached by an American tourist and he looked mystified as he asked me “We’ve been here a few days and we haven’t seen any castles, where are all the castles?” He thought that everyone lived in a castle.
I was complimented on my English by my bosses daughter - but it was because her father had told her I was from Europe, when I explained I was from England she then thought I was from the east coast of the USA - confusion was complete!😃
A very brave post Amanda. My favourite, no doubt apocryphal, story along these lines is about the gauche, rich American lady on safari in Africa who asks the tour guide how they can tell the difference between male and female zebras. The answer was thus 'That's easy ma'am the males have white stripes on a black background and the females have black stripes on a white background'.
Hello Amanda. In the early 2000’s I was working in Amsterdam. I went into Centraal Station and while I was waiting for a train I went into the cafe. An American lady was in front of me and she was having an argument with the cashier. The American lady was insisting that the cashier take US$ in cash for her coffee. She couldn’t understand why Dollars were not accepted in The Netherlands. The cashier said, sorry only Guilders (before the Euro). The American lady’s argument was “Every Country Takes US$”. Had to step in to tell her that the USA won’t take Guilders, why should the NS cafe in Amsterdam take dollars? She went off in a huff, if she was nicer to me and the cashier I’d have paid for her coffee myself.
I worked in Germany in 1995 and was paid in Deutschemarks, though could have been paid in Euro's - but would rather have been paid in £'s Sterling. My argument was that I had to send money home through Western Union and their argument was that paying me in Sterling would cost more - when in fact, it was exactly the same, when adjusted...!
@@PeteLewisWoodwork Yeah, this story is bollocks. Germany was not using the Euro in 1995, because no-one was. And there's no system of currency exchange where someone isn't taking a cut and, therefore, you're losing money. So your request was plain stupid and you're a moron, even if it were real. This is just not true. Why are you lying like this?
The most absurd thing an American has said within my earshot is "I live in the greatest country on earth". He was also the most deluded individual I had the pleasure to laugh at.
Back in the 80s, when Piedmont Airlines had just started a direct flight between London Gatwick and Charlotte, NC, I took that flight as an opportunity to visit family who lived an hour from Charlotte. When my aunt and uncle weren't at the airport to meet me as planned, and thinking we may have missed each other, I went to the information desk to ask if they would put out an announcement for them. I got chatting to the young lady at the desk, who became curious about me and asked where I was from. I told her I was from London. But it was her next question that blew my mind. She asked, "Oh, do y'all speak French there?". 😮🤷♂️ There was definitely an accent issue throughout the whole conversation though. At one point she had obviously started to think about my options should my aunt and uncle not have turned up after all. Her suggestion sounded to me like "Well you could stand on my towel", which I thought was a little odd, until I realised that in her broad NC accent she had actually said "Well you could stay at a motel"!! So maybe to her ears, my London accent sounded like a French accent...who knows! Fortunately my aunt and uncle turned up a few minutes later, having been given the wrong flight arrival time by my cousin. So I didn't need to stand on anyone's towel. 😅
Oh, come on now Amanda, you know they're all true! I was working on the Immigration at Heathrow, diricting incoming passengers towards the channels, preBrexit. Brits and Europeans to the left, rest of the world to the right. The American comes up and asks where is the line for Americans, I explained as politely as I could that there is no seperate line for any specific nation. I could not get it across, so I told him that although the American war of independence was a long time, it's principles still held. He then complained to me that the line for the rest of the world had grown.
A British friend of mine went to work in the US. He was out and about one weekend and he met an American who spotted his strange accent right away so he got asked the inevitable question: "Where are you from?" My friend told him he was from England. To which the American replied: "Gee, how did you learn to speak such good English?" I am told that Americans think all foreigners live in tents somewhere in Canada! OK, that one might not be 100% true!
Sorry, Amanda, I've worked in the hospitality industry for years and dealt with large numbers of American tourists. Not all are like this, but an alarming number are. Yes, every country has their bright sparks, but Americans have a wide reputation for this, mixed with an undeserved arrogance. My dumbest moment with an American was a guy who angrily suggested that a wall be built between the US and Canada. When I asked why, his answer was that it would keep the cold weather out of America. Even trying to explain with the analogy of a fence between his yard and the neighbour's won't keep the rain out of his yard never sunk in.
I’m from New Zealand and was asked what we ate for breakfast? Also I was asked what we spoke in NZ as our American was very good. I said we spoke English
I'm an almost 45 year old American and as much as I hate to have to admit it, I've got a brother that's said things like those. Keep in mind for context that he is my legitimate brother, and that we're only 18 months difference in age. Meaning that we come from the same genetic pool, grew up in the same places, and mainly went to the same schools. Not that I'm bragging or disparaging anyone from anywhere else in the US, but we grew up in the middle to upper class suburbs of Los Angeles, not the middle of nowhere or an economically challenged area, and both the Jr. High and Highschool we both attended, meaning roughly from the age of 12 to 18, were considered among the state of California's top 100 public schools at the time. He had much the same opportunities of information available to him that I had, and realistically, we were probably more privileged than the majority of others that didn't have as many of those opportunities available to them. He's a very lovely guy, but just not very smart. Once many years ago, say the early 90s, our cousins were visiting from Colorado, and when questioning them about their home, which we visited often enough growing up, he was astonished to discover that they had credit cards in Colorado. He was genuinely amazed by that, as were our cousins for him asking it in the first place. Those cousins also still remember that, and will still bring it up. Another time, maybe a bit older as teenagers, we were watching "Gettysburg", a movie about the American Civil War with another uncle, so a movie that took place in the 1860s, and my brother asked my uncle how anyone could possibly know what happened back then. Our uncle was actually kind of stunned by the question, and didn't know how to respond at first, but after a quiet pause, he responded that their were historians and journalists of the time that wrote about what they witnessed, records, people wrote each other letters describing their experiences, etc. With which my brother, quite startled by that relevation, responded to by saying, "People knew how to write things down back then?!" Surely the US isn't the only place that has stupid people, but it does happen, and I don't know personally because I don't have children, but from what I hear, our school system is getting worse.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Am laughing so loud Maybe your Brother is simple minded and you guys didnt know it then........ he seems so sweet and Dumb like totally Dumb that you shouldn't put him in a group of people especially foreigners......Lol
I'm from Mumbai, India. I took a semester in the States a while ago, made a couple of friends there and one day we started talking about my country and how different everything is from the states and I showed my city on Google maps and they were surprised it had buildings and skyscrapers like any city in the States, one blonde friend was literally shocked that we had cars and trains to travel to places and when I asked, how do you think we travel from place to place and this girl's reply was 'camels'.
I used to live in Cambridge, and spoke to some American tourists outside Jesus College as I worked in a shop next to it, and they asked "So, did the college get its name because Jesus went here?" I was so taken aback by the question, I could only muster "I'm not sure..."
I was once walking behind 3, middle aged, American women down a street in Valletta, Malta, when one of them gleefully declared that the streets were laid out in a grid pattern, 'Just like back home'. Valetta is over 500 years old. American education? Say no more!
German here. Had a schoolmate who struggled in 7th and 8th grade to pass over to the next level. He had to perform special exams in summer break. He went to the U.S. for exchange and after 2 weeks he was well known at his 5000 student highschool as "Mr. Brain'".
My favorite from this series is the American lady on the phone to a European who discovers that because of time zones Europe is hours ahead of the U. S and she asks why we didn't warn them about 9/11
When I went to America in 2017, an American couple asked me where I was from, so I said England, and they said, "Why are you lying to us for England doesn't exist where are you really from so I said again I am from England, then they got really angry with me and said do you think that we are stupid everyone knows that J.K Rowling made the English Country up for her Harry Potter books so don't insult us because we are American.
Yes , l have lots . I used to be a safari guide in East Africa taking Americans into the bush . I also got my commercial pilots license in SE Missouri . Give SE Missouri a miss . I perfectly understand how we got Trump .
We were on holiday in Florida and we had a day away from the parks and were in Downtown Orlando. I was wearing a t-shirt with Maine - New England (it was a brand of clothing that Debenhams used to do) on it. An American came up to me and asked what part of Maine I was from (far question), I explained I was from England and that I was wearing a clothing brand. He looked a little confused then asked "where did you learn English then, because it's really good." I had only just told him I came from England and I just didn't know what to say.
In the 90s waling through a Walmart and having to explain to the "hunting" section guy why I didn't want to buy a pistol, rifle or shotgun and having to explain to him UK gun laws... he said are you just "commies?" and I responded with "no we have learn't from two mass shootings and what to stop them in the future"
So now you are #1 in knife attacks. Blaming the tool is foolish and leaves you defenseless against tyranny.... As you are now finding out. JFYI Canada by percentage of population has more gun owners than the USA, however in Canada we don't have 70% of the population on pharmaceutical mind bending drugs or the CIA staging mass shootings. Might be a correlational there.
I’ve been to the USA a few times but the strangest thing I’ve ever seen n heard is the interview given by one of the American young boy bands in the 90’s who asked the interviewer live on tv ‘that he wasn’t sure if Disney had hit our shores at all and if it hadn’t what we was missing out on’. One of the irony’s was the fact that some of the most iconic story’s Disney had made came from the UK. The 2nd irony, right next door to where the interview took place was a Disney franchise shop 😂😂😂😂
Hi Amanda. I'm from Scotland and an American tourist asked me where they can see a 'wild haggis', so I told they live at the foot of mountains and run in anticlockwise circles, to catch one force it run clockwise then it will fall and you pick it up. Believed every word and looked awed as I told them.
Remember telling this exact thing to some American exchange students when they came to our school in the late 90s. We never corrected them before they went back home
I was just about to say the same things, working in hotel bars, night porter and general pubs the past 25 years I run into a lot of tourists and haggis is always mentioned, so yeah you have always need to have a little bit of fun winding them up lol.
My best one is... While in Penang Malaysia two separate American tourist couples asked me what time the fireworks display for independence day took place and where was the best place to go see them... I couldn't resist I had to sit them down and explain that the whole world dose not celebrate American Independence Day😂😂😂
I made the opposite error... when I was visiting Tahiti (from New Zealand) around Christmas time, I pretty much figured that, for the first time in my memory, I would not be hearing _Snoopy's Christmas_ by The Royal Guardsmen on the radio at/around Christmas time... after all, the official languages of Tahiti were French and Tahitian and both cultures have plenty of music of their own, including their own Christmas music. So it was with great surprise I heard the distinctive opening of the song coming through the radio one day when I was there.
1) I once told a Californian woman that I was from South Africa. She looked at me dumbfounded and then asked: "is that near Austin in Texas?" 2) An old man who had lived his entire life in Hackensack, New Jersey (practically on the bank of the Hudson River), could not tell me the river's name. 3) In Battery Park, Manhattan, a man said he had never heard of Manhattan Island and insisted that the island was called New York. 4) A woman from Salt Lake City, Utah, had never heard of Washington DC. In the year 2001 she was convinced that John F Kennedy was the American president. Astonishing.
Hi Amanda, When I was living in Dubai I had an American ask me where I am from. I replied that I am from the UK. He actually said to me that I speak English very well. I was very shocked by the comment that I didn't have the heart to tell him that English originated there.
In the mid eighties we had an American visit where I work, whilst driving him to the airport he looked stunned when he saw the car had a radio with a digital display, he asked if it had been imported form the US because he thought digital displays were only in america and nowhere else
Back in the 70's at work some brit asked me if people in Tennessee had indoor plumbing like we have in the UK. At that point a southern gentleman joined the conversation and asked him if the royals are still marrying their cousins.
I remember a story from way back, where it was said, that the American mid west went into panic, believing they had been invaded by aliens, after the airing of HG Wells' "The War of the Worlds" on radio
Hi Amanda. Whilst living in Vienna I was having lunch with my girlfriend in a fairly upmarket restaurant when I was asked by a rather obnoxious American lady, who couldn't get a seat there at the time she wanted, if the tap water was safe to drink! She then complained that people had finished eating their meals but we're still sitting at their tables, drinking, stopping her from getting seated. I know most Americans are not like this but the thickos do stick in your mind! Happy Easter to you and your family.
In America you’re pretty much pushed out once you finish eating a meal. So they can get the next customers in. Like a sausage factory. While here in Europe eating out is more of a social event. We like to digest our food, have another drink, and a chat before leaving.
@@JarlGrimmToys Which part of the States do you live? Sure in Manhattan or large cities you can do what Europeans do, I think I have been to 20 of the States, and overall most of Texas, New York UNYS and Florida and that is my experience. but most of the US is dry for public consumption in eating places. It depends on the County laws. I went, just a short while ago, to quite a fancy restaurant in the Virginia Vineyards county and they could not in principle serve wines, yet we were in a commuting distance from DC, where of course you can. It is also that lots of Americans won't drink at all in restaurants - or rather 'family restaurants' sit down fast food places - because of the strict DUI laws, you say yourself 'unless I am driving'. Of course the US is so huge and there is not the density of public transport so you have to drive. Honest - so my analysis of MOST of Americans in Europe who base their view on what they do 'back home' is not erroneous because that is their experience. Incidentally, American 'beer' is so weak it is legal to sell it as a soft drink in most of Europe. My American friends are surprised when here in UK as to how good the quality of food in pubs is and that very modest eateries also provide wine, it is a mixture they are unused to.
Travelled to San Francisco airport, and after picking up luggage, stood to the side while companions collected theirs. Cop approaches and asks to see passport. Aye okay no worries help yourself. Cop looks though the passport at all the visa's and stops at the visa for Egypt. Cop became a bit concerned and pointing to the visa asked "why did you visit Egypt?"... guess what the Egyptian visa has printed on it? The only reason for going there... the Pyramids of Giza. He took some convincing. He had a gun.
We just watched the life leave your body 😆 The mindset of people from the U.S. seeing U.S. as the whole world/the whole modern world definitely isn’t a new thing. Which isn’t surprising when a majority of people from the states have never left the country. Obviously by no means universal and is getting better with platforms like this to share experiences. My American person story: I Was in a shop in Italy a few years ago and, no word of a lie, I witnessed an exchange in which an American woman was shocked that she wasn’t able to pay with US dollars, and then proceeded to try and barter for what she was trying to buy because she didn’t have any Euros.
My family and I were at Warwick Castle. Two American women were chatting behind us and they genuinely believed the castle had been built as a tourist attraction 😮
I was in Warwick castle myself , whilst at the top of the main tower admiring the view , a group of Americans struggled up the spiral staircase , upon reaching the top one of them said , Gee you would think they would put an elevator in there , it’s so steep up those narrow steps . 🤔
I could tell you loads of things but I'll stick to just two. I was in a petrol station in Indiana and I went to ask the cashier if I paid before I filled up or after. He told me after I had filled up would be fine. A little girl said to her mum I think that lady's English but she sounds funny. Her mother answered that we, English people don't speak correct English like they do! I put her right. Another time was waiting to pick up my car at LAX when the girl behind me heard me talking and gushed "oh, you're British, I love your accent" I told her I was English first and there were lots of accents in England and the rest of Great Britain not just one "British accent" She asked where I was from and I told her, Manchester and she said that she was from Manchester, New Hampshire. She then asked why England copied American place names!! Educated her on the fact that Manchester, England was around nearly 2,000 years before America was even thought of.
Similar thing happened to me when I was travelling in a coach and we went through Boston, Lincolnshire. The American couple sitting behind me said "goodness, they have named this town after Boston, MA".
German here: A random American guy during a town festival: "Girl, You must be so thankful that America gave that wheelchair to you, otherwise you would lay in bed all day. Why you don't move to the states to make repairs easier? It must take months to get the wheelchair back when stuff needs to be fixed in the States." He won't believe me that we have our own companies creating amazing wheelchairs!
G'day Amanda! Thanks for this video and I have to admit that I have spent the last 45 minutes laughing my socks off at the "comments" which are even funnier than the video...Cheers!
I'm with the guy at 06:30 on the accents thing. I am British and every time I am in America I get the "OMG you have an accent" - and I would say "yes so do you" and they would reply "No I don't... you do - are you from Australia" (always get that too). Always nice and polite. But a funny story, I was once in a club in Santa Fe, NM and I wanted to go outside for a cigarette and upon going outside the security guy stopped me and said "where are you going" and I said "I need to go and smoke a fag" and he grabbed me and whispered "listen if you want to go and set fire to Homosexuals you really shouldn't be saying it out loud" - I showed him my pack of cigarettes he still didn't understand.
Sorry Amanda, but I've gotta say that I fully believe these people. I've flown into, out of, and passed through various parts of the US East Coast roughly 30 times now. In all of those times, whilst I have met some incredibly intelligent and switched on Americans, I have also been asked and overheard some of the most stupid, illogical and incoherent things ever uttered by humans 😂😂 I love most of the Americans I've come in contact with, and am still friends with some of them two decades later, but there have also been quite a few who couldn't tell shit from clay 😅 Oh, and it's completely true that the American tourists who either come here to the UK, or those who've ventured out to the Caribbean, are largely completely ignorant of how the rest of the world works and that the US isn't the centre of the world. Despite that, they, more often than not, are loveable - in a dozy pup kind of way 😂😂
"So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous - whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light - and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing … supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too."
l was in Tahiti(1970),by the pool in a hotel when an American asked me if l could speak English. A fair question as we were in a French {&Tahitian)speaking country. l answered him & we had a conversation. He asked where l was from(Australia)& remarked that l spoke excellent English & asked where l learned it. When l told him that we speak English in Australia, he was astounded. Seemed a well travelled person too. He told me later that he thought our language in Australia was German. Maybe he got us mixed up with Austria?
Visiting friends in America we had dinner with them and some of their friends. Should mention they were college professors. They commented on how good my English was for an Austrian when English was a second language for me. You guessed it! I'm AUSTRALIAN 😮
About 20 years ago I mentioned the layout for a major city in England to an American. He was shocked that we had tall office buildings and thought the architecture for cities had not developed since “Mary Poppins”.
Whilst in Germany we were detailed to cover the European championships some years ago. While we were staying with the us mp btn, we paraded with our red hats and arm bands. Later that evening we convinced them the reason our hats and armbands were red is because we were the communist faction of the uk armed forces. They stopped talking to us immediately after.
Just 3 stories: One American insisted that the history of mankind started in 1492. World War 2 started in 1942. (of course not in 1939 when Germany attacked Poland... 🤔) And, me being German, "Hitler is still alive", "Every German is so dumb they still worship their Führer", and one American told me I could NEVER name ONE negative thing from US history. Took me one second to tell him: "When you return to the US, just make sure your slaves work on your cotton plantage, okay?" I never saw a jaw drop to the floor that quickly again...
As a Scottish person, I love nothing more than telling Americans who ask "if haggis is a real animal/where can they see a haggis" with oh, its a wee furry creature that lives up the hills & it's got shorter legs on one side to make running around the tops of hills easier. You'll need to go up to the Cairngorms to see one, but they're quite shy. Good luck". They believe it EVERY time. The really funny thing is that practically the whole of Scotland is in on this joke. There's even a "haggis" on display at the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow.
I wonder if you could crossbreed a haggis and a dahu ( from the Alps mountains) . I worry if the cubs would have shorter legs on both sides instead of only one, so they'd keep falling.
being from the UK, i was asked by an waitress in an american bar, did i know 'John from Cheshire' - another thought i had an Aussie accent - in the same bar after an hour of eating and drinking with other Uk people, we noticed many americans had moved closer to our seating area and were listening - coming from London they seemed to like us talking in rhyming slang - i did learn they get shocked when one of our members went out for 'fag break' - on visiting a home of prof on a visit to the states, they were totally confused by some of Uk tv programmes, "the sweeney", "only fools & horse", "east-enders" - they had almost no idea what was going on or being said and thought we all talked like this - one US waitress had not heard of England, and was confused about what makes up the UK some US mil advisors came over in the 90's to the uk as part of an gov tech exchange - they saw our tech and very openly stated 'How could you lot have developed this kind of tech' - we explained not everything comes from the states and we have been doing quite well on our own - they had 400 researchers on their project and we had 20 with all this said, i never had a bad experience, other than with the TSA, on any of my visits to the states - such a friendly nation, with so many possibilites
An American once asked me if we celebrate the 4th July in England. I said that we did and we celebrate every anniversary of the countries that gained independence from us, we’re never at work.
I'd completely forgotten this but.... After I graduated back in 1995 (!) we took a family holiday out to California & Arizona. Everywhere (and I do mean everywhere) we went the locals noticed our 'strange' accent and accused us of being Australians (we're Brits with a fairly non-descript accent). We found out later that the 'star' witness at the OJ Simpson trial that week was an Australian pathologist... On the same trip we visited the Grand Canyon and while we were there we noticed that one of the 'Park Rangers' spoke with a British accent. An American had picked up on this and the Ranger said "I'm from a small town you've probably never heard of, Grimsby". This is in Lincolnshire, and about 50 miles from where my parents live. Small world. No wonder we recognised the accent.
Talking of small worlds, my sister and I were visiting New York City once and stopped to buy a hotdog from a street vendor and we got chatting and it turned out the vendor had an aunt who lived 8 miles from us in England!
I'm from the Newcastle area in the UK and I've been asked if I was Australian and another asked if I was Jamaican? Jamaican?? Considering my skin colour I don't think my skin tone is dark enough to fit the stereotype!
kajh151 I apologise if I offended. I was working on the stereotype people use for people born and bred in Jamaica, regardless of skin colour. There is a distinctive accent and rhythm to the way Jamaicans (and Geordies), talk. There seems to be similar things between the Jamaican and Geordie accents. Bad attempts to copy either accent is so obvious to any native of that area.
I'm originally from the middle area of England so I don't have the stereotypical posh or cockney accent which Americans seem to expect (Mary Poppins is to blame for this). I was working in the US for a while and on more than one occasion someone asked where I'm from and when I said England they didn't believe me because "you don't sound British" (Britain being made of multiple nations this doesn't make sense but I'll put that aside). I had to show my passport to prove the point on several occasions and there were three times that girls accused me of putting on a bad British accent to try and pick them up! The first few times I shrugged off but after a while it became quite tiresome.
".. and there were three times that girls accused me of putting on a bad British accent to try and pick them up!" There's a reddit thread about times when girls were dropping a hit and the OP just missed it ;)
@@rogerjenkinson7979 I had a girlfriend at the time mate, and I detest people who cheat so there wasn't going to be any fun times with those three girls. They weren't trying to pick me up anyway. They were just genuinely disbelieving of my being English (or British as they kept saying).
We are from an English local club rugby/cricket/sporting club and we went a tour to the USA (all of us English), we ended up one evening in Mustang Sally's in NY. Got talking to the bar staff and one asked where we were from? We replied Manchester UK. He said, '' Where is that?'' We said north England... he replied, ''Oh you mean Scotland?'' We were also mistaken for Aussies and one thought we were Kiwis.
A guy I used to work with had spent a few years working in the southern states of America. He told me lots of stories but the one I remember most is when he was talking to a lady in a bar. She was amazed that he was from a whole other country but they spoke English too. Then she said, I wonder who spoke it first, I bet it was us here in the US. Lol, love it.
Dumbest thing that I ever heard. My parents and I were crossing the border from Canada to go to the US. We were driving to Florida. The guy at the border asked us how we were getting to Florida. Keep in mind we were in a car.
My Dad worked for an American steel company here in Scotland in the early 70's and a delegation came from Phoenix. They were shocked that we had television. We invented the thing!
I actually had an American ask me , ‘When I came to America from England, how long did it take me to learn ENGLISH! I just stood there waiting for the punch line, only to realise that he was serious. So I told him that it only took two weeks, he was astounded that it only took that long, so I told him that I am a quick learner! I have also been asked what country am I from. When I tell them England, they reply with, I thought you came from London, when I tell them that London isn’t a country, they say “ it isn’t?”. No London is the capital city of England! 🙄
I am an Englishman, I was once asked what part of New Zealand I am from I said the tiny part on the other side of the world called Great Britain, he said your English is very good.
Okay, doll, for you to say that these people are lying or exaggerating, shows your own ignorence. I saw a man in NY ask people on the street simple, general knowledge questions and the answers were absurd! One question was, "What three countries make up North America?" The guy, standing on the street of NY city in one of those three countries said, "Oh! That's easy! Africa, Asia and JAPAN!!!!!!!!" Now tell me there isn't a problem with education in America, yes one of three countries, along with Canada and Mexico that make up North America. And for those who don't know . . . Africa & Asia are continents, not countries! Sweet Jesus!!!!
Ms Rae, I understand that it's hard for you to believe, but I assure you it's true. All across Europe people have dealings with Americans that are loud, arrogant and obnoxious. They are firmly convinced that they are the top of the food chain no matter where they are. I've had an American stop me in the street and asking me where O'Connell Street was. He was standing on it outside of the O'Connell Street tourism office and 20 feet away from a sign which said O'Connell Street in English and Irish. I once asked an American if he could point out America to me on the globe, he glanced at it and pointed to Russia which was clearly labelled. I asked him why he believed that was America? He said because America is the biggest best country in the whole damn world. I have friends in America who share your episodes with and it's a case of facepalm when things like this come up. There are intelligent, brilliant and understanding people, who are saddened that the once high level of American education has simply been flushed away.
The whole English speaking world , including the UK , is pretty ignorant about others.With English speakers , my experience is that Australians abroad learn and adapt the quickest. The Irish are better at it as well.
You are lying. So this guy could not point out his own country on the globe (that you had in your back pocket) but he could point out the largest country on it? Try again idiot.
20 odd years ago my dad's job took him to Silicon Valley California for 5 years. Myself and my brothers stayed here as we had our own lives but my baby sister was only about 12,so she went with my parents. At her first day of school one of the girls came up to her and said ( I shit you not btw) " hey your English is really good ! " my sister said " well yeah,I am English " only to be told " oh,don't you guys speak French in England?" I mean,just how dumb can you get😅😅
I used to do tours around a Tudor Manor house in the UK. The house was quite close to Stanstead airport. An American couple said, and I quote "It's a lovely house but fancy building it so close to an airport". I had to explain that the house was built around 400 years before the Wright brothers invented flight. WTF! And , yes Americans do think they are the only country with Internet. I do love pointing out to them that actually the World Wide Web was invented by a British scientist. Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee. Why do these dummies have so much power. Scary!
One of the worst parts of America in my opinion is how censorship especially online tends to be catered towards American culture. I'm very Danish culturally and as a result I say things very plainly cause Danish doesn't have PG filters like America does and as a result I get censored in some way or another just I didn't walk on eggshells to avoid hurting people's feelings. What's worse is that at the same time I'm being censored for saying these things you got transphobes and homophobes and racists and all kinds of extreme conservatives and conspiracy theorists able to freely say the craziest things. Meanwhile I can't even use one "swear word" without getting entire comments removed. It's so ridiculous and I completely relate to that guy who got told not to say the C word. Like not every culture and language is catered towards Americans.
For me it was 25 years ago at Windsor Castle when a loud and proud American tourist asked their tour guide... "Why did they build the queens castle under the Heathrow flight path?"
I spent a summer in the US as a counsellor at a summer camp. One of the Amercian counsellors asked where I was from. The conversation went like this: "England" I replied. "Did you drive here? How long did it take? Cos me and my friend were thinking of driving there one day." I was a bit taken aback but wondered if he thought I meant I was from New England, although my accent should have given it away. "When I said England I meant I'm British so I flew." "Yeah, I knew that. But is that cheaper than driving?" "Well it's 3000 miles, plus you have to cross this big sploshy thing called the Atlantic Ocean so flying is definitely the way to go. I wouldn't recommend driving." "Oh right." pause while he thinks about it. "So how about Europe? Could I drive there?" "Er no. Britain's part of Europe so it's the same problem. You'll need to fly." "Yeah I knew that. I'm not dumb, I went to college!"🤣🤣🤣 Not that there aren't equally ignorant people here in Britain. I once had to explain to a housemate that St. Georges cross was the flag of England. She was 23 and didn't know her own national flag! I also had to explain to a dozen colleagues (all townies) where Manchester was. I asked them where they thought it was. The closest guess was up "up North. Near Newcastle"🙄. One of the largest cities in their own country and they didn't have a clue. They protested they hadn't been to uni like me. I responded that I knew that in primary school and pointed out that it was often on the map of Britain on the weather forecast each night FFS. Chatting to two housemates I described someone as 'condescending'. They didn't know what it meant. I was a bit shocked as they were both doing English degrees. I asked if they knew what patronising meant. They didn't. "When someone talks down to you like you're an idiot." I explained. "Like I'm doing to you both now."😁
When I was at Oxford University, posh Public School kids from the South East told me that 'Leicester is in Yorkshire'; I replied - oh yes, like Nottingham you mean - THEM 'Yes'. I am a Scouser - yes we go to Oxford too - and I mentioned that Blackpool is North of Liverpool. THEM "It can't be, because it is a holiday resort with beaches and too cold north of Liverpool !" ME 'Look, it is not the Arctic Circle up there and there is no town South of Liverpool on the West Coast of England until you get to Bristol, so I can assure you , it is North". THEM, "Why is there no town in England on the West Coast South of Liverpool then?" ME "Because between Liverpool and Bristol it is WALES".
I met an elderly American couple in the U K on holiday, and when I asked them where they were going when they were here they said ‘we’re visiting the 4 islands.’ Pause. Um which islands are these? Answer ‘England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales’. Um. Have you looked at a map? ‘No. Why?’ Because there’s more than 4 islands, but England Scotland and Wales aren’t different islands. Complete shock. ‘Really? Oh, well there you go!’
An old English teacher at one of the schools I attended was often saying to his pupils to engage brain before operating mouth. That from someone who never learnt how to spell or pronounce my name correctly now matter how often corrected. I think all of us have said something or asked a stupid question without thinking at times.
So according to my family when my American uncle's parents first visited Germany sometime in the late 80s they asked him beforehand whether Germany had plumbing, sandwiches and highways. The highway part is especially ridiculous to a German as it's known here that the Autobahn was the precursor to all motorways and highways (I think I once read however that the first German Autobahn was not the first fast road of such kind, but at the very least it was one of the first widely implemented ones). I always thought those questions were really ridiculous, but at least this was pre-internet and I dunno how much attention they paid to international news and such. But when I went to study abroad in China a decade ago I had some people here in Germany ask me whether the Chinese have supermarkets, etc. I always answered, that obviously they weren't living "behind the moon" as we Germans like to say, meaning obviously they had modern amenities, especially in the provincial capital I lived in. We had internet when this happened, so there's really no excuse for that one...
I live in Ireland, and (back in the 1980's) while on holiday in south of France, I met an American girl who during one conversation asked me, "Do you have hair dryers in Ireland?". I told her we do. I also went on to tell her, we have gas TV's and steam radios. I told her, to watch TV, you have to light the gas and after a minute or so the picture appears. And when you want to listen to the radio, we boil the kettle, pour the hot water into the radio and when the radio then comes up to heat, we can listen to it. Girl believed EVERY word of it...
Oh being told by an American in the UK that a church they just saw was dated back to 1146... and they said "that can't be right... America was founded in 1496..."
"Hello" from Prince Edward Island, Canada. I have spent a lot of time in the States and have heard some good ones, but I think my favorite was when at a student conference at an Ivy League University (Penn) a group of students wanted to know (I kid you not) if it was true that we all lived in igloos, and if I was impressed with "indoor plumbing" ??????????
In 2006 when I was 15 we were the second class of our school to go to Boston, MA. We are from Sweden. So this was the second time these people met Swedes when we got there. 1. They were disappointed we weren't Vikings.... yep, they thought we'd all be blonde, blue eyed people stuck in the Middle Ages. And yes, they knew we flew.... still thought we'd be vikings. 2. So again, they knew we have airplanes, they knew about IKEA and they had studied Sweden for 2 years, right. We studied the US history and mostly about Boston for the same amount of time. They learned nothing. 3. We were asked if we have the Swiss alps, if we had Polar bears roaming the streets, if we'd ever heard of ice cream, elevators, refrigerators, coca-cola, cellphones, video games and more. Basically anything that excisted since the Industrial revolution. They asked if we had internet after speaking with us through the f*** internet before we even got there!!! 4. When they came to visit Sweden the year after this, they STILL thought we lived in medieval castles, igloos or viking long houses. The fact that they lived with Swedish families in regular houses with showers and stoves and refrigerators etc and had nutella sandwiches for breakfast or a bowl of cereal or were taken to school in cars was still a disappointment to them. So after meeting Swedes for 3 years now, studying our country and history they just couldn't get into their heads that we weren't stuck in the Viking age and only had modern stuff exported to them. Like Volvo or IKEA or SAS for example. 3 years just flew over the heads of most of these people. And this was a fancy school, everyone was in 7th and 8th grade. It was called INLY School. So weird.... Mindblowing.
Years ago, very hot high summer, packed tourist crowds on Piccadilly, an anonymous, very strong american accent floated from the crowd -"The Royal Academy of Fine Art; I wonder what's in there?"
I worked on a project with a bunch of American colleagues. The decided they had to come over to England to work on the project plan. We all went to dinner one evening. One colleague asked if we celebrated the 4th of July Independence Day - I reminded him from whom they had won their independence - England - that is the country you are in right now, so NO, we don't celebrate 4th of July - although I suggested, we should as we got rid of those pesky rebellious colonies! :-) We then got on to the topic of our public holidays, and Guy Fawkes night came up, the whole firework thing and burning a guy on a big fire. The African American in our party commented - "They still do that in some parts of the US" I have to say I loved those guys, the were good company, generous and warm hearted. Just a little insular perhaps!
The Australian country music singer Keith Urban, who is also the husband of Australian actress Nicole Kidman, once had a birthday party thrown for him by his record label in Nashville, Tennessee and one of the guests, who was American and a fellow songwriter, asked him if they had birthday parties in Australia too.
Hello UK here was in London at the time. Now I'm a white stereotypical male so you think they'd know where I'm from. So I meet an American who looked as though they had retired and complimented me on how great my English was. 1. Our language is in the title of the country that we are currently in so what were you expecting. 2. Don't you know your own history that the slave trade so what language would they have been speaking 3. What do you speak if it is not English?!
I have used a variation of the "Mechanical internet" line, Americans seem amazed that we have the internet, I'm British, from the same nation as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet!
I’m from Australia, and while in Boston I got asked many times if I was Canadian. When I asked why they thought I was Canadian the reply was “because you have an accent” ….. 😳😳
As a tourist in Orlando, my accent prompted an American to ask where I was from and I said South Africa...... he asked if I did any hunting and had I ever shot a kangaroo. Geography is obviously missing from the school curriculum in the US
I remember a Canadian lady, in the UK, that she had to explain that there were lots of Blacks in her country to an American lady she met in the UK. The American's response was 'How? You had Slaves in the South?', CAN : - Well , no but many Slaves in America did escape to Canada during the American Revolution and were freed and many blacks emigrated to Canada afterwards" US Lady : " 'So Canada is a Northern State?" CAN: "No, we did not participate in the Revolution , nor in the Civil War, only in the War of 1812." US Lady "Well we won that 1812 War, so you should be a Northern State!" CAN "Erm, if you won the 1812 War and yet we burned down DC, the White House and the Capitol, then why am I a Canadian if we lost?" US Lady, "What you mean you burned DC down" CAN To me, "There comes a point you just have to give up with Americans."
Think the weirdest thing was when I was on Princes Street in Edinburgh and an American asked me where the castle was, I pointed it out looming over the street, and the didn't believe me
An American on here accused me of being a white dude posing as a black dude because of the different phrases I used, when I tried to explain to her that I was definitely black and the reason she and I used different phrases was because im English and she's American, she couldn't grasp that at all, couldn't understand that we don't talk like Americans at all, I gave up trying to explain it.
I remember back in 1960 when I was a kid an American kid same age as me was visiting his grandma who lived in our street here in Liverpool. He became good friends with both myself and my older brother. My brother and his friend took Ray, that was the American kids name, on a train journey to a local seaside resort. One of the stops on the journey was a station in Bootle, Liverpool. Ray asked my brother the name of the station and my brother told him it's called Bootle. Ray got really excited and said you have a Boot Hill here in Liverpool.
![American reacts to How Stupid are Americans? [part 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-PA34wSTf44/mqdefault.jpg)
Yup the one that gets me every time is the "So you speak English so well". How is it that they can't put 2 and 2 together where they hear the words English and England. Mind blowing.
I mean, who would have expected that the English people would have created the English language? Shocker. 😂
I had this long conversation with a woman in Reno where she would not believe that English comes from England. One derived the other. She believed the U.S. created English.
She also believed I knew Tom Jones, and her friend who lived in London. And London is close to Liverpool.
I'm english and was told by an American that I spoke good English for someone who came from Europe
@@The_Scienceboy What did she think people in England spoke before U.S. independence?
I visited a museum in the US North East, and got talking to one of the volunteers working there, lovely lady who it turns out was a retired High School history teacher and a big fan of the Royal Family. She was in shock and disbelief when I explained they were descended from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha lineage and changed their name to Windsor due to anti-German sentiment during the first world war. I didn't have the heart to tell her about "Phil the Greek".
You mean 'Prince Phillip of Greece and Denmark' I think, educated by a Jewish Teacher in Germany and Scotland and his mother was a Nun who was born in Windsor Castle.!!! How's that for Diversity!
@@uingaeoc3905 indeed, "Phil the greek" was an affectionate nickname principally from Londoners. He used to drive a black cab around London so he wouldn't be noticed. Quite a guy, RIP.
The shameful thing is, that many US American teachers do no nothing about their topic. Who will blame the students?
@@T0MT0MmmmyAmerican teachers are products of the American school system so.......
Our Royal family in Belgium has the exact same name. Queen Victoria's mother was our first King's sister and she also married her mother's other brother's son, meaning her own cousin,making their children related to the same family on both sides.
When they say "they're from the greatest country in the world"😂😂
To which the correct response is "How'd you end up like this then?"
Yep.. Only Country in the World, with Mass Shootings..
Kids are taught the run and swerve procedure at school..
And lock down procedures for gun on Campass..
Yet one state has Passed a Law, that 16 year olds, can carry a concealed weapon..
@@nw73000 Please provide data on that. Lie.
@@joeysausage3437 Why are you crying on so many posts? Every country has their share of idiots.
@@joeysausage3437 Plenty of it on RUclips and Google. Look it up for yourself!
I’m from the North of England. One time in Greece I was talking to an American woman who thought I was Australian. I said nope I’m from England. She started to become increasingly angry by me denying I wasn’t Australian.
In the end she said “I know you’re Australian because you don’t have a British accent”.
Utterly obnoxious woman.
When I went to Canada they wouldn't let me stop talking, I'm Scottish.
I was sitting in a hotel bar in Dallas, when the young bartender asked me if I felt a greater sense of freedom in the US than at home ( I'm a Brit). After having picked myself up off the floor and pointed out some of the freedoms we have that the US doesn't, ( no civil asset forfeiture, no jaywalking laws, etc.) I completely blew him away when I told him that our police don't routinely carry guns! Don't think he actually believed me.
The land of the free but no freedom to walk across the road lol
@@B-A-L Well... That's also in Germany. Don't be a bad example, for little kids...!
We do have have jay walking laws, they're just not normally enforced as the paper work would take a police officer off the streets for most their shift. Also I can't remember the distance, but it's only jay walking within a relatively short distance of a designated crossing place.
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I had an American friend years ago who couldn't understand why as an Englishman I didn't celebrate American independence Day. "But you have to be doing something special on July 4th." I'm sure he isn't representative of all Americans but he felt very insular.
I'm with that South African. Whilst serving in the RAF we were detached to Midway Island which is/was an American naval base. I was walking on the beautiful white coral sand with a lovely young American lady and she said "Do ya'll have beaches in England?"
I said "No, we've concreted right up to the edge."
She said "Damn, that's such a shame."
I bet at least once, someone asked you if you knew the queen. Been there got the squardron t-shirt.
I remember one time years ago I was at the cinema and an American guy was in front of me in the queue at the kiosk buying a hot dog, he pick up the mustard and smothered it like it was ketchup, the woman behind the counter warned him that it was not American mustard but he just said he knew what mustard was and continued squirting it on, as I watched him walking through the door into the auditorium he took a bite of the hot dog and a second latter he let out this howl as he discovered what English mustard was. It raised quite a laugh among the people who saw it.
I might come across like an American even though I am English saying this lol! but I didn't even know American Mustard was not as strong as English Mustard lol!
@@andrewward2010 Americans tell me this ALL the time . Most American condiments have no taste. My US friends bought 'English Mustard' in the States and said it was as weak as theirs was. So they bought lots of jars of REAL English Mustard to take home with them.
Ok I will say that the taste of something cannot truly be appreciated by knowledge alone. I don't know the difference either and would have assumed that mustard is mustard. So this is probably not the best example because of the same English word having two drastically different tastes.
Things that didn't happen. Not only your word choice, but that you think proper English mustard is somehow served by the person buying and in a squeezy bottle. None of those things happen. It's a trope and you are looking for empty likes.
@@aidancolyer7924I've seen English mustard in a squeezy bottle loads of times, in fact (be warned this may shock you) you can even buy it in squeezy bottles 😲
Brit here. I was once going through Newark airport passport control . My occupation on my passport was Psychotherapist. The passport control official read my details out aloud saying "your occupation is Psycho The Rapist?"
Unbelievable but completely true🤣
Brilliant! Never noticed that! Yes, technically if you break the word up it does say that! Hmm, interesting!
As a little kid, that’s how I remembered how to spell it, at that age I thought it was hilarious!
Didn't Ali G make the same joke 😂
@@simonatkinson6389 Its actually a joke from Saturday Night Live.
Since when did UK passports give ones occupation?
The main problem with Americans in America is, a large percentage of them think that America is the whole world and not just a single country out of 195 countries on Earth. I once read a post written by an American who questioned if people in the UK had ever heard of Simon Cowell or Gordon Ramsay!?! They are both British FFS!
Sorry, Gordon Ramsay is Scottish. So yes, he's British but not English!
Son of Louisiana here. While in college I introduced some friends to some new Scots who’d just arrived that semester. The gals complemented these guys on their English and asked how long they’d studied it. They also asked how long the drive was from Scotland. It kept going. The guys were good sports about it.
Canadian here… I spent a couple years in the US, and these really are believable stories. It’s not everyone, or even a significant proportion, but there are a few who are extremely ignorant of anything outside the US.
I love my Canadian friends because they get banter and taking the piss. I always use the stereotypes whenwe chat about each others countries. Heck, the Nigerians I used to work with get banter too. I used to ask if elephants roamed the streets of Lagos like Pigeons and foxes here in the UK and they'd just laugh. Asome yanks would believe that.
@@shanchat yeah, again it’s no universal, but most of us Canucks can handle a decent piss take.
My Mate owns a Tour Company, in Northern Queensland Australia..
Just last week, he had an American couple in their Thirties come in, they wanted to rent a Car.. so he politley asked, large, small, where you going?
The wife replied, oh we are going to Drive Back to America..
When he asked about The Pacific Ocean, the husband replied.. that is Only A Lake..
America Is The World... IE: No Wonder They Are Too Dumb For Gun control...
And when he showed them Australia on Google Maps on His Laptop..?
They didn't Believe him.. They said, Australia has Different Maps, compared to America.. WTF?
And there are ignorant people from Canada.
@@graemejohnson9025 The 16 + hours from America wasn't even their first giveaway of the distance they had travelled.
As a child in the early 70s we were looking around Caenarvon Castle. An American kid said to his mother "gee mom this must be really old". Mom replied " don't be silly Junior, it's only a replica".
My father (history teacher) was in Rome on holiday on the 1960s. Part of a tour party at the Coliseum in Rome. The guide was a postgraduate student of history at the University abd was very passionate about Rome at its height and the coliseum. An Texan, in the group, publicly announced that he was unimpressed, his local coliseum (Texas football stadium I think) was bigger. The tour guide nearly exploded! Dad was laughing at this blockhead thinking his (unknown) 1950s sports venue was somehow comparable with the 2000 year old Coliseum.
@@pmurnionYour comment immediately invoked a picture in my mind: Lieutenant Disher to Sergeant Stottelmeyer in the Monk- Episide about the Kidnapped Grandmother where an historic chair once owned by A. Lincoln was important: "Does it swivel?"
The authors did a great job.
Must have thought she was in Disneyland 🤦♀️
I thought you were going to say that the American said the Coliseum would be better when it was finished!😊@pmurnion
An elderly American female tourist on holiday in Denmark asked her astonished Danish tour guide, if our native Viking population lives in reservations, like their native American people do back home in the US. 🙄 😂
I would have replied "Yes, of course - and even behind tall electrical fences for our protection, since the Viking men tend to go berserk and fight over the Viking shield maidens" 🙄😂
That is one of the funniest rejoinders to a stupid American I have ever read! Bravo!
😂😂 Esbjerg her 🖐🏻🇩🇰 I have to go to the Viking reservations sometime soon. Where is it located 😂😂😂
😂😂😂
I'm Mexican and yes, they think native Mexican population lives in reservations... reservations don't even exist here
It is a dumb question but there is still Norse mythology culture across Scandinavia and Europe. There are those who worship the old gods and Freyja is a popular one among certain rural parts of Europe. They just adapted to live in modern times so you don't see them as Hollywood portrays Vikings.
Hi Amanda. True story. I was working with an American buyer who controlled a multi million dollar budget and he was coming to my area to check out our service offering and supply chain. He told me he was a “history nut” and asked whether I could recommend some local history in my area. So I arranged for him to go and have a look at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall. When I met him and asked him how his visit was, I was astounded when he said he was “disappointed.” When I asked him why that was he blew my mind by saying, “well it’s not finished!” I had to gently explain that it was built in the 1230’s. He felt a tad stupid. I tried really, really hard not to be smug. I failed. ☺️
I bet he went to Rome and complained about the Coliseum too!
He’d probably be disappointed with the pyramids too
@@jamalhassan901 Well... possible. But they are fuckin' high. So I would think, he would be impressed anyway...
@@jamalhassan901Thousands of years they have worked on those...the still don't fly! Oh, and that isn't a cheesy American SG-1 reference.
I imagine if he went to Italy and saw the Colosseum he would say that wasn’t finished either.
The accent part is very true though. I went to college in Boston and they all seem to think that everybody else has an accent but themselves........ they can't grasp this fact because they live in a bubble thinking that they are the center of the universe and unable to see from the povs of people in other countries.
One more thing - I went for college in Boston and I was roomed with an American in the dorms for freshman year. When we first met we talked a bit and I told him I'm from Malaysia. I'm not lying and the first thing he asked was if there were roads and "freeways" in Malaysia. I'm telling u this dude is a very nice and polite person (I know, I lived with him for a whole year) and he was 100% serious when he asked that question. U might think some of these videos might be exaggerated but I'm telling u right now, my story isn't so yeah.....
A German stand up comic came to the US and performed in some clubs. After one show, an American woman asked if he was really German. "Yes." She then asked why Europeans speak so many different languages. "Because we lost the war."
That took me second to process but when I realised I was laughing my head of 😂
Michael Mittermeier is the comedians name 😊
Then the woman said: „Ooh, I’m so sorry for you!“
Actually, that is true...and funny as well!!!
Me (german) and my father went on a Harley Roundtrip through Southwest of the US 2003. We were pulled out by a cop to controll us. While checking our licences an registrations the very unfriendly cop (cheap Dirty Harry copy) asked me "What did you do during World War 2?" My answer: "Sir, i was born in 1960!". He almost freaked out and said "I didn't ask for your date of birth, i wanted to know, what you did during WW2!" After i told him my year of birth was 15 years after the war ended he was so mad, i was sure he would arrest us, but luckily he didn't 😂
Many years ago I worked as a bus conductor in London and I was approached by an American tourist and he looked mystified as he asked me “We’ve been here a few days and we haven’t seen any castles, where are all the castles?” He thought that everyone lived in a castle.
I was complimented on my English by my bosses daughter - but it was because her father had told her I was from Europe, when I explained I was from England she then thought I was from the east coast of the USA - confusion was complete!😃
Lol
A very brave post Amanda. My favourite, no doubt apocryphal, story along these lines is about the gauche, rich American lady on safari in Africa who asks the tour guide how they can tell the difference between male and female zebras. The answer was thus 'That's easy ma'am the males have white stripes on a black background and the females have black stripes on a white background'.
🤣👏
or just look and see if they have BALLS.....
I believe, I'm a very good mixture because my mother was a woman and my father was a man.
Hello Amanda. In the early 2000’s I was working in Amsterdam. I went into Centraal Station and while I was waiting for a train I went into the cafe. An American lady was in front of me and she was having an argument with the cashier. The American lady was insisting that the cashier take US$ in cash for her coffee. She couldn’t understand why Dollars were not accepted in The Netherlands. The cashier said, sorry only Guilders (before the Euro). The American lady’s argument was “Every Country Takes US$”. Had to step in to tell her that the USA won’t take Guilders, why should the NS cafe in Amsterdam take dollars? She went off in a huff, if she was nicer to me and the cashier I’d have paid for her coffee myself.
I worked in Germany in 1995 and was paid in Deutschemarks, though could have been paid in Euro's - but would rather have been paid in £'s Sterling. My argument was that I had to send money home through Western Union and their argument was that paying me in Sterling would cost more - when in fact, it was exactly the same, when adjusted...!
If she walked off in a huff does that mean she didn't pay for the coffee?
Its guldens not guilders😉
@@PeteLewisWoodworkThe euro didn't exist in 1995
@@PeteLewisWoodwork Yeah, this story is bollocks.
Germany was not using the Euro in 1995, because no-one was.
And there's no system of currency exchange where someone isn't taking a cut and, therefore, you're losing money. So your request was plain stupid and you're a moron, even if it were real.
This is just not true. Why are you lying like this?
The most absurd thing an American has said within my earshot is "I live in the greatest country on earth". He was also the most deluded individual I had the pleasure to laugh at.
Back in the 80s, when Piedmont Airlines had just started a direct flight between London Gatwick and Charlotte, NC, I took that flight as an opportunity to visit family who lived an hour from Charlotte. When my aunt and uncle weren't at the airport to meet me as planned, and thinking we may have missed each other, I went to the information desk to ask if they would put out an announcement for them. I got chatting to the young lady at the desk, who became curious about me and asked where I was from. I told her I was from London. But it was her next question that blew my mind. She asked, "Oh, do y'all speak French there?". 😮🤷♂️
There was definitely an accent issue throughout the whole conversation though. At one point she had obviously started to think about my options should my aunt and uncle not have turned up after all. Her suggestion sounded to me like "Well you could stand on my towel", which I thought was a little odd, until I realised that in her broad NC accent she had actually said "Well you could stay at a motel"!! So maybe to her ears, my London accent sounded like a French accent...who knows!
Fortunately my aunt and uncle turned up a few minutes later, having been given the wrong flight arrival time by my cousin. So I didn't need to stand on anyone's towel. 😅
Oh, come on now Amanda, you know they're all true! I was working on the Immigration at Heathrow, diricting incoming passengers towards the channels, preBrexit. Brits and Europeans to the left, rest of the world to the right. The American comes up and asks where is the line for Americans, I explained as politely as I could that there is no seperate line for any specific nation. I could not get it across, so I told him that although the American war of independence was a long time, it's principles still held. He then complained to me that the line for the rest of the world had grown.
@niels lund Maybe I should have said Murican? He obviously thought Britain was the same as the US.
ContinentS. North and south.@nielslund641
A British friend of mine went to work in the US. He was out and about one weekend and he met an American who spotted his strange accent right away so he got asked the inevitable question: "Where are you from?" My friend told him he was from England. To which the American replied: "Gee, how did you learn to speak such good English?"
I am told that Americans think all foreigners live in tents somewhere in Canada! OK, that one might not be 100% true!
In igloos in Canada of course.
And Americans live in log cabins or teepees.
Skyscraper's
Sorry, Amanda, I've worked in the hospitality industry for years and dealt with large numbers of American tourists. Not all are like this, but an alarming number are. Yes, every country has their bright sparks, but Americans have a wide reputation for this, mixed with an undeserved arrogance.
My dumbest moment with an American was a guy who angrily suggested that a wall be built between the US and Canada. When I asked why, his answer was that it would keep the cold weather out of America.
Even trying to explain with the analogy of a fence between his yard and the neighbour's won't keep the rain out of his yard never sunk in.
Geezus..
I’m from New Zealand and was asked what we ate for breakfast? Also I was asked what we spoke in NZ as our American was very good. I said we spoke English
I'm an almost 45 year old American and as much as I hate to have to admit it, I've got a brother that's said things like those. Keep in mind for context that he is my legitimate brother, and that we're only 18 months difference in age. Meaning that we come from the same genetic pool, grew up in the same places, and mainly went to the same schools. Not that I'm bragging or disparaging anyone from anywhere else in the US, but we grew up in the middle to upper class suburbs of Los Angeles, not the middle of nowhere or an economically challenged area, and both the Jr. High and Highschool we both attended, meaning roughly from the age of 12 to 18, were considered among the state of California's top 100 public schools at the time. He had much the same opportunities of information available to him that I had, and realistically, we were probably more privileged than the majority of others that didn't have as many of those opportunities available to them. He's a very lovely guy, but just not very smart.
Once many years ago, say the early 90s, our cousins were visiting from Colorado, and when questioning them about their home, which we visited often enough growing up, he was astonished to discover that they had credit cards in Colorado. He was genuinely amazed by that, as were our cousins for him asking it in the first place. Those cousins also still remember that, and will still bring it up.
Another time, maybe a bit older as teenagers, we were watching "Gettysburg", a movie about the American Civil War with another uncle, so a movie that took place in the 1860s, and my brother asked my uncle how anyone could possibly know what happened back then. Our uncle was actually kind of stunned by the question, and didn't know how to respond at first, but after a quiet pause, he responded that their were historians and journalists of the time that wrote about what they witnessed, records, people wrote each other letters describing their experiences, etc. With which my brother, quite startled by that relevation, responded to by saying, "People knew how to write things down back then?!"
Surely the US isn't the only place that has stupid people, but it does happen, and I don't know personally because I don't have children, but from what I hear, our school system is getting worse.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Am laughing so loud
Maybe your Brother is simple minded and you guys didnt know it then........ he seems so sweet and Dumb like totally Dumb that you shouldn't put him in a group of people especially foreigners......Lol
I'm from Mumbai, India. I took a semester in the States a while ago, made a couple of friends there and one day we started talking about my country and how different everything is from the states and I showed my city on Google maps and they were surprised it had buildings and skyscrapers like any city in the States, one blonde friend was literally shocked that we had cars and trains to travel to places and when I asked, how do you think we travel from place to place and this girl's reply was 'camels'.
I used to live in Cambridge, and spoke to some American tourists outside Jesus College as I worked in a shop next to it, and they asked "So, did the college get its name because Jesus went here?" I was so taken aback by the question, I could only muster "I'm not sure..."
I bet you you were laughing so hard inside your head lol
It was named after a Mexican scholar called Jesus.
Should have replied 'Of course he did, that's why William Blake wrote the hymn Jerusalem!'
It is, apparently where Jesus left the Holy Grail.
Actually the famous Monty Python Institute (*1) at Cambridge University has made a documentary movie about it.
(*1) named after a biblical reptile
I was once walking behind 3, middle aged, American women down a street in Valletta, Malta, when one of them gleefully declared that the streets were laid out in a grid pattern, 'Just like back home'.
Valetta is over 500 years old.
American education? Say no more!
German here. Had a schoolmate who struggled in 7th and 8th grade to pass over to the next level. He had to perform special exams in summer break. He went to the U.S. for exchange and after 2 weeks he was well known at his 5000 student highschool as "Mr. Brain'".
My favorite from this series is the American lady on the phone to a European who discovers that because of time zones Europe is hours ahead of the U. S and she asks why we didn't warn them about 9/11
I've heard about that and the fact she was serious is shocking!
Did they tell her that they tried, but the messengers could only run so fast?
Thats kind of like the stupid brit who thought white sharks don't attack humans.
Hilarious 😂
When I went to America in 2017, an American couple asked me where I was from, so I said England, and they said, "Why are you lying to us for England doesn't exist where are you really from so I said again I am from England, then they got really angry with me and said do you think that we are stupid everyone knows that J.K Rowling made the English Country up for her Harry Potter books so don't insult us because we are American.
This couldn't be true, pal...
Oh yes it could , believe me! And the arrogance that goes with it!
Yes , l have lots . I used to be a safari guide in East Africa taking Americans into the bush . I also got my commercial pilots license in SE Missouri . Give SE Missouri a miss . I perfectly understand how we got Trump .
We were on holiday in Florida and we had a day away from the parks and were in Downtown Orlando. I was wearing a t-shirt with Maine - New England (it was a brand of clothing that Debenhams used to do) on it. An American came up to me and asked what part of Maine I was from (far question), I explained I was from England and that I was wearing a clothing brand. He looked a little confused then asked "where did you learn English then, because it's really good." I had only just told him I came from England and I just didn't know what to say.
In the 90s waling through a Walmart and having to explain to the "hunting" section guy why I didn't want to buy a pistol, rifle or shotgun and having to explain to him UK gun laws... he said are you just "commies?" and I responded with "no we have learn't from two mass shootings and what to stop them in the future"
So now you are #1 in knife attacks. Blaming the tool is foolish and leaves you defenseless against tyranny.... As you are now finding out. JFYI Canada by percentage of population has more gun owners than the USA, however in Canada we don't have 70% of the population on pharmaceutical mind bending drugs or the CIA staging mass shootings. Might be a correlational there.
I’ve been to the USA a few times but the strangest thing I’ve ever seen n heard is the interview given by one of the American young boy bands in the 90’s who asked the interviewer live on tv ‘that he wasn’t sure if Disney had hit our shores at all and if it hadn’t what we was missing out on’. One of the irony’s was the fact that some of the most iconic story’s Disney had made came from the UK. The 2nd irony, right next door to where the interview took place was a Disney franchise shop 😂😂😂😂
Hi Amanda. I'm from Scotland and an American tourist asked me where they can see a 'wild haggis', so I told they live at the foot of mountains and run in anticlockwise circles, to catch one force it run clockwise then it will fall and you pick it up. Believed every word and looked awed as I told them.
idd. (my family is Scottish) They are 3 legged animals living on the side of a mountain.
@@FU2Max And vicious little buggers too. Haggis hunting season is the most dangerous of the year.
Remember telling this exact thing to some American exchange students when they came to our school in the late 90s. We never corrected them before they went back home
"Och Oink" - the call of the wild haggis.
I was just about to say the same things, working in hotel bars, night porter and general pubs the past 25 years I run into a lot of tourists and haggis is always mentioned, so yeah you have always need to have a little bit of fun winding them up lol.
My best one is...
While in Penang Malaysia two separate American tourist couples asked me what time the fireworks display for independence day took place and where was the best place to go see them...
I couldn't resist I had to sit them down and explain that the whole world dose not celebrate American Independence Day😂😂😂
I made the opposite error... when I was visiting Tahiti (from New Zealand) around Christmas time, I pretty much figured that, for the first time in my memory, I would not be hearing _Snoopy's Christmas_ by The Royal Guardsmen on the radio at/around Christmas time... after all, the official languages of Tahiti were French and Tahitian and both cultures have plenty of music of their own, including their own Christmas music.
So it was with great surprise I heard the distinctive opening of the song coming through the radio one day when I was there.
1) I once told a Californian woman that I was from South Africa. She looked at me dumbfounded and then asked: "is that near Austin in Texas?" 2) An old man who had lived his entire life in Hackensack, New Jersey (practically on the bank of the Hudson River), could not tell me the river's name. 3) In Battery Park, Manhattan, a man said he had never heard of Manhattan Island and insisted that the island was called New York. 4) A woman from Salt Lake City, Utah, had never heard of Washington DC. In the year 2001 she was convinced that John F Kennedy was the American president. Astonishing.
Hi Amanda, When I was living in Dubai I had an American ask me where I am from. I replied that I am from the UK. He actually said to me that I speak English very well. I was very shocked by the comment that I didn't have the heart to tell him that English originated there.
When asked by an American if I speak English, I always like to say "Yes, a little but speak slowly" :-) (my native tongue BTW)
Why didn't you? If you don't educate people ( Whether you think its cruel or not) then how are they ever going to learn ?
In the mid eighties we had an American visit where I work, whilst driving him to the airport he looked stunned when he saw the car had a radio with a digital display, he asked if it had been imported form the US because he thought digital displays were only in america and nowhere else
You had a smart one in your car. A lot of Americans don't even know there are other countries.
Back in the 70's at work some brit asked me if people in Tennessee had indoor plumbing like we have in the UK. At that point a southern gentleman joined the conversation and asked him if the royals are still marrying their cousins.
@@joeysausage3437 Unlike the hill billies of Tennessee who marry their siblings you mean?
Digital displays were invented in Malvern, here in England.
I remember a story from way back, where it was said, that the American mid west went into panic, believing they had been invaded by aliens, after the airing of HG Wells' "The War of the Worlds" on radio
I've heard accounts of thousands of cars trying to exit New York City when that program was first broadcast.
Hi Amanda. Whilst living in Vienna I was having lunch with my girlfriend in a fairly upmarket restaurant when I was asked by a rather obnoxious American lady, who couldn't get a seat there at the time she wanted, if the tap water was safe to drink! She then complained that people had finished eating their meals but we're still sitting at their tables, drinking, stopping her from getting seated. I know most Americans are not like this but the thickos do stick in your mind! Happy Easter to you and your family.
"Thickos do stick in your mind" I like that! Might get a t-shirt printed
In America you’re pretty much pushed out once you finish eating a meal. So they can get the next customers in. Like a sausage factory.
While here in Europe eating out is more of a social event. We like to digest our food, have another drink, and a chat before leaving.
@@JarlGrimmToys I think the main issue is that most restaurants in the States cannot sell wine or booze .
@@uingaeoc3905 Is that true, I didn’t know that.
I always have a glass of wine with a meal in a restaurant, unless I’m driving.
@@JarlGrimmToys Which part of the States do you live? Sure in Manhattan or large cities you can do what Europeans do, I think I have been to 20 of the States, and overall most of Texas, New York UNYS and Florida and that is my experience. but most of the US is dry for public consumption in eating places. It depends on the County laws. I went, just a short while ago, to quite a fancy restaurant in the Virginia Vineyards county and they could not in principle serve wines, yet we were in a commuting distance from DC, where of course you can. It is also that lots of Americans won't drink at all in restaurants - or rather 'family restaurants' sit down fast food places - because of the strict DUI laws, you say yourself 'unless I am driving'. Of course the US is so huge and there is not the density of public transport so you have to drive. Honest - so my analysis of MOST of Americans in Europe who base their view on what they do 'back home' is not erroneous because that is their experience. Incidentally, American 'beer' is so weak it is legal to sell it as a soft drink in most of Europe.
My American friends are surprised when here in UK as to how good the quality of food in pubs is and that very modest eateries also provide wine, it is a mixture they are unused to.
Travelled to San Francisco airport, and after picking up luggage, stood to the side while companions collected theirs. Cop approaches and asks to see passport. Aye okay no worries help yourself. Cop looks though the passport at all the visa's and stops at the visa for Egypt. Cop became a bit concerned and pointing to the visa asked "why did you visit Egypt?"... guess what the Egyptian visa has printed on it? The only reason for going there... the Pyramids of Giza. He took some convincing. He had a gun.
We just watched the life leave your body 😆
The mindset of people from the U.S. seeing U.S. as the whole world/the whole modern world definitely isn’t a new thing. Which isn’t surprising when a majority of people from the states have never left the country. Obviously by no means universal and is getting better with platforms like this to share experiences.
My American person story: I Was in a shop in Italy a few years ago and, no word of a lie, I witnessed an exchange in which an American woman was shocked that she wasn’t able to pay with US dollars, and then proceeded to try and barter for what she was trying to buy because she didn’t have any Euros.
My family and I were at Warwick Castle. Two American women were chatting behind us and they genuinely believed the castle had been built as a tourist attraction 😮
I was in Warwick castle myself , whilst at the top of the main tower admiring the view , a group of Americans struggled up the spiral staircase , upon reaching the top one of them said , Gee you would think they would put an elevator in there , it’s so steep up those narrow steps . 🤔
Same thing also at warwick castle, only the American tourists thought it was a set from game of thrones,
I could tell you loads of things but I'll stick to just two. I was in a petrol station in Indiana and I went to ask the cashier if I paid before I filled up or after. He told me after I had filled up would be fine. A little girl said to her mum I think that lady's English but she sounds funny. Her mother answered that we, English people don't speak correct English like they do! I put her right. Another time was waiting to pick up my car at LAX when the girl behind me heard me talking and gushed "oh, you're British, I love your accent" I told her I was English first and there were lots of accents in England and the rest of Great Britain not just one "British accent" She asked where I was from and I told her, Manchester and she said that she was from Manchester, New Hampshire. She then asked why England copied American place names!! Educated her on the fact that Manchester, England was around nearly 2,000 years before America was even thought of.
... and Egyptians copied Memphis, etc. etc. .. . (Maybe it would please the poor girl if we moved 'old' Manchester down to ''Old'' Hampshire!)
Did she not even realise that New Hampshire is exactly what it says NEW HAMPSHIRE because OLD HAMPSHIRE is in England lol!
@@andrewward2010 they don't understand why 'New' is in US place names AT ALL.
Similar thing happened to me when I was travelling in a coach and we went through Boston, Lincolnshire. The American couple sitting behind me said "goodness, they have named this town after Boston, MA".
@@Sophie.S.. They seem to think they invented the world yet we invented them lol!
German here: A random American guy during a town festival: "Girl, You must be so thankful that America gave that wheelchair to you, otherwise you would lay in bed all day. Why you don't move to the states to make repairs easier? It must take months to get the wheelchair back when stuff needs to be fixed in the States." He won't believe me that we have our own companies creating amazing wheelchairs!
G'day Amanda! Thanks for this video and I have to admit that I have spent the last 45 minutes laughing my socks off at the "comments" which are even funnier than the video...Cheers!
I'm with the guy at 06:30 on the accents thing. I am British and every time I am in America I get the "OMG you have an accent" - and I would say "yes so do you" and they would reply "No I don't... you do - are you from Australia" (always get that too). Always nice and polite. But a funny story, I was once in a club in Santa Fe, NM and I wanted to go outside for a cigarette and upon going outside the security guy stopped me and said "where are you going" and I said "I need to go and smoke a fag" and he grabbed me and whispered "listen if you want to go and set fire to Homosexuals you really shouldn't be saying it out loud" - I showed him my pack of cigarettes he still didn't understand.
And I would ask if a ‘fag’ refers to the German word for a Bassoon: Fagotto.
As an Aussie and bought up with manners, I was told at a restaurant, " you English have such nice manners" The accent thing must go both ways.
Sorry Amanda, but I've gotta say that I fully believe these people. I've flown into, out of, and passed through various parts of the US East Coast roughly 30 times now. In all of those times, whilst I have met some incredibly intelligent and switched on Americans, I have also been asked and overheard some of the most stupid, illogical and incoherent things ever uttered by humans 😂😂 I love most of the Americans I've come in contact with, and am still friends with some of them two decades later, but there have also been quite a few who couldn't tell shit from clay 😅 Oh, and it's completely true that the American tourists who either come here to the UK, or those who've ventured out to the Caribbean, are largely completely ignorant of how the rest of the world works and that the US isn't the centre of the world. Despite that, they, more often than not, are loveable - in a dozy pup kind of way 😂😂
"So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous - whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light - and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing … supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too."
l was in Tahiti(1970),by the pool in a hotel when an American asked me if l could speak English.
A fair question as we were in a French {&Tahitian)speaking country.
l answered him & we had a conversation.
He asked where l was from(Australia)& remarked that l spoke excellent English & asked where l learned it.
When l told him that we speak English in Australia, he was astounded.
Seemed a well travelled person too.
He told me later that he thought our language in Australia was German.
Maybe he got us mixed up with Austria?
Visiting friends in America we had dinner with them and some of their friends. Should mention they were college professors. They commented on how good my English was for an Austrian when English was a second language for me. You guessed it! I'm AUSTRALIAN 😮
About 20 years ago I mentioned the layout for a major city in England to an American. He was shocked that we had tall office buildings and thought the architecture for cities had not developed since “Mary Poppins”.
I thought he would say 'Since Mary Tudor'!
He would never have heard of Mary Tudor .
True story. Some American tourists were most impressed by Windsor Castle, but wondered why it had been built so close to the airport.
I would have answered so that the Royal ghosts can go on vacation more easily...
They also asked why the Hopi natives (in the USA!) built their ruins so close to the highway!
Anachronism!
@@MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl 😂😂
Or Stonehenge so close to the main road.
Whilst in Germany we were detailed to cover the European championships some years ago. While we were staying with the us mp btn, we paraded with our red hats and arm bands. Later that evening we convinced them the reason our hats and armbands were red is because we were the communist faction of the uk armed forces. They stopped talking to us immediately after.
Just 3 stories:
One American insisted that the history of mankind started in 1492.
World War 2 started in 1942. (of course not in 1939 when Germany attacked Poland... 🤔)
And, me being German, "Hitler is still alive", "Every German is so dumb they still worship their Führer", and one American told me I could NEVER name ONE negative thing from US history.
Took me one second to tell him: "When you return to the US, just make sure your slaves work on your cotton plantage, okay?"
I never saw a jaw drop to the floor that quickly again...
As a Scottish person, I love nothing more than telling Americans who ask "if haggis is a real animal/where can they see a haggis" with oh, its a wee furry creature that lives up the hills & it's got shorter legs on one side to make running around the tops of hills easier. You'll need to go up to the Cairngorms to see one, but they're quite shy. Good luck".
They believe it EVERY time. The really funny thing is that practically the whole of Scotland is in on this joke. There's even a "haggis" on display at the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow.
I wonder if you could crossbreed a haggis and a dahu ( from the Alps mountains) . I worry if the cubs would have shorter legs on both sides instead of only one, so they'd keep falling.
being from the UK, i was asked by an waitress in an american bar, did i know 'John from Cheshire' - another thought i had an Aussie accent - in the same bar after an hour of eating and drinking with other Uk people, we noticed many americans had moved closer to our seating area and were listening - coming from London they seemed to like us talking in rhyming slang - i did learn they get shocked when one of our members went out for 'fag break' - on visiting a home of prof on a visit to the states, they were totally confused by some of Uk tv programmes, "the sweeney", "only fools & horse", "east-enders" - they had almost no idea what was going on or being said and thought we all talked like this - one US waitress had not heard of England, and was confused about what makes up the UK
some US mil advisors came over in the 90's to the uk as part of an gov tech exchange - they saw our tech and very openly stated 'How could you lot have developed this kind of tech' - we explained not everything comes from the states and we have been doing quite well on our own - they had 400 researchers on their project and we had 20
with all this said, i never had a bad experience, other than with the TSA, on any of my visits to the states - such a friendly nation, with so many possibilites
An American once asked me if we celebrate the 4th July in England. I said that we did and we celebrate every anniversary of the countries that gained independence from us, we’re never at work.
I'd completely forgotten this but....
After I graduated back in 1995 (!) we took a family holiday out to California & Arizona. Everywhere (and I do mean everywhere) we went the locals noticed our 'strange' accent and accused us of being Australians (we're Brits with a fairly non-descript accent).
We found out later that the 'star' witness at the OJ Simpson trial that week was an Australian pathologist...
On the same trip we visited the Grand Canyon and while we were there we noticed that one of the 'Park Rangers' spoke with a British accent. An American had picked up on this and the Ranger said "I'm from a small town you've probably never heard of, Grimsby". This is in Lincolnshire, and about 50 miles from where my parents live. Small world. No wonder we recognised the accent.
Talking of small worlds, my sister and I were visiting New York City once and stopped to buy a hotdog from a street vendor and we got chatting and it turned out the vendor had an aunt who lived 8 miles from us in England!
Yeah when I went with my parents brother and Uncle to America in 1997 everyone used to think we were Australian lol!
I'm from the Newcastle area in the UK and I've been asked if I was Australian and another asked if I was Jamaican? Jamaican?? Considering my skin colour I don't think my skin tone is dark enough to fit the stereotype!
@@simonatkinson6389hi, we do have white Jamaicans here in Jamaica.
kajh151 I apologise if I offended. I was working on the stereotype people use for people born and bred in Jamaica, regardless of skin colour. There is a distinctive accent and rhythm to the way Jamaicans (and Geordies), talk. There seems to be similar things between the Jamaican and Geordie accents. Bad attempts to copy either accent is so obvious to any native of that area.
I'm originally from the middle area of England so I don't have the stereotypical posh or cockney accent which Americans seem to expect (Mary Poppins is to blame for this).
I was working in the US for a while and on more than one occasion someone asked where I'm from and when I said England they didn't believe me because "you don't sound British" (Britain being made of multiple nations this doesn't make sense but I'll put that aside). I had to show my passport to prove the point on several occasions and there were three times that girls accused me of putting on a bad British accent to try and pick them up!
The first few times I shrugged off but after a while it became quite tiresome.
".. and there were three times that girls accused me of putting on a bad British accent to try and pick them up!"
There's a reddit thread about times when girls were dropping a hit and the OP just missed it ;)
@@johnathanh2660
Dropping a hit or dropping a hint? Either way it doesn't work as I wasn't trying to pick up any of them.
@@laughingachilles perhaps they were trying to pick you up. Oh, the lost opportunities.
@@rogerjenkinson7979
I had a girlfriend at the time mate, and I detest people who cheat so there wasn't going to be any fun times with those three girls.
They weren't trying to pick me up anyway. They were just genuinely disbelieving of my being English (or British as they kept saying).
@@laughingachilles lmao
Those people are fools
We are from an English local club rugby/cricket/sporting club and we went a tour to the USA (all of us English), we ended up one evening in Mustang Sally's in NY.
Got talking to the bar staff and one asked where we were from?
We replied Manchester UK. He said, '' Where is that?''
We said north England...
he replied, ''Oh you mean Scotland?''
We were also mistaken for Aussies and one thought we were Kiwis.
A guy I used to work with had spent a few years working in the southern states of America. He told me lots of stories but the one I remember most is when he was talking to a lady in a bar. She was amazed that he was from a whole other country but they spoke English too. Then she said, I wonder who spoke it first, I bet it was us here in the US. Lol, love it.
Dumbest thing that I ever heard. My parents and I were crossing the border from Canada to go to the US. We were driving to Florida. The guy at the border asked us how we were getting to Florida. Keep in mind we were in a car.
My Dad worked for an American steel company here in Scotland in the early 70's and a delegation came from Phoenix. They were shocked that we had television. We invented the thing!
I actually had an American ask me , ‘When I came to America from England, how long did it take me to learn ENGLISH! I just stood there waiting for the punch line, only to realise that he was serious. So I told him that it only took two weeks, he was astounded that it only took that long, so I told him that I am a quick learner!
I have also been asked what country am I from. When I tell them England, they reply with, I thought you came from London, when I tell them that London isn’t a country, they say “ it isn’t?”. No London is the capital city of England! 🙄
I am an Englishman, I was once asked what part of New Zealand I am from I said the tiny part on the other side of the world called Great Britain, he said your English is very good.
Okay, doll, for you to say that these people are lying or exaggerating, shows your own ignorence. I saw a man in NY ask people on the street simple, general knowledge questions and the answers were absurd! One question was, "What three countries make up North America?" The guy, standing on the street of NY city in one of those three countries said, "Oh! That's easy! Africa, Asia and JAPAN!!!!!!!!" Now tell me there isn't a problem with education in America, yes one of three countries, along with Canada and Mexico that make up North America. And for those who don't know . . . Africa & Asia are continents, not countries! Sweet Jesus!!!!
Ms Rae, I understand that it's hard for you to believe, but I assure you it's true. All across Europe people have dealings with Americans that are loud, arrogant and obnoxious.
They are firmly convinced that they are the top of the food chain no matter where they are.
I've had an American stop me in the street and asking me where O'Connell Street was.
He was standing on it outside of the O'Connell Street tourism office and 20 feet away from a sign which said O'Connell Street in English and Irish.
I once asked an American if he could point out America to me on the globe, he glanced at it and pointed to Russia which was clearly labelled. I asked him why he believed that was America? He said because America is the biggest best country in the whole damn world.
I have friends in America who share your episodes with and it's a case of facepalm when things like this come up. There are intelligent, brilliant and understanding people, who are saddened that the once high level of American education has simply been flushed away.
😂😂😂
The whole English speaking world , including the UK , is pretty ignorant about others.With English speakers , my experience is that Australians abroad learn and adapt the quickest. The Irish are better at it as well.
You are lying.
So this guy could not point out his own country on the globe (that you had in your back pocket) but he could point out the largest country on it? Try again idiot.
@@guntertorfs6486 The Irish don't even realise they are not Irish. It is not a joke they are uniformly more ignorant than most Western Europeans.
20 odd years ago my dad's job took him to Silicon Valley California for 5 years. Myself and my brothers stayed here as we had our own lives but my baby sister was only about 12,so she went with my parents. At her first day of school one of the girls came up to her and said ( I shit you not btw)
" hey your English is really good ! " my sister said " well yeah,I am English " only to be told " oh,don't you guys speak French in England?"
I mean,just how dumb can you get😅😅
I used to do tours around a Tudor Manor house in the UK. The house was quite close to Stanstead airport. An American couple said, and I quote "It's a lovely house but fancy building it so close to an airport". I had to explain that the house was built around 400 years before the Wright brothers invented flight. WTF!
And , yes Americans do think they are the only country with Internet. I do love pointing out to them that actually the World Wide Web was invented by a British scientist. Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee.
Why do these dummies have so much power. Scary!
One of the worst parts of America in my opinion is how censorship especially online tends to be catered towards American culture. I'm very Danish culturally and as a result I say things very plainly cause Danish doesn't have PG filters like America does and as a result I get censored in some way or another just I didn't walk on eggshells to avoid hurting people's feelings.
What's worse is that at the same time I'm being censored for saying these things you got transphobes and homophobes and racists and all kinds of extreme conservatives and conspiracy theorists able to freely say the craziest things.
Meanwhile I can't even use one "swear word" without getting entire comments removed.
It's so ridiculous and I completely relate to that guy who got told not to say the C word. Like not every culture and language is catered towards Americans.
I'm an Aussie only time I get censored is when I'm on a USA site . Like you I don't beat around the bush but the yanks can't handle it .
"Do you have the 4th of July in England?". My response was "Yes, it spans the gap between the third and the fifth.".
😂 😂 😂
Yes and we call it "Good Riddance Day".
@@rattywoof5259 A celebration of the day we got rid of a troublesome colony & convinced them they had won.
For me it was 25 years ago at Windsor Castle when a loud and proud American tourist asked their tour guide... "Why did they build the queens castle under the Heathrow flight path?"
I spent a summer in the US as a counsellor at a summer camp. One of the Amercian counsellors asked where I was from. The conversation went like this:
"England" I replied.
"Did you drive here? How long did it take? Cos me and my friend were thinking of driving there one day."
I was a bit taken aback but wondered if he thought I meant I was from New England, although my accent should have given it away.
"When I said England I meant I'm British so I flew."
"Yeah, I knew that. But is that cheaper than driving?"
"Well it's 3000 miles, plus you have to cross this big sploshy thing called the Atlantic Ocean so flying is definitely the way to go. I wouldn't recommend driving."
"Oh right." pause while he thinks about it. "So how about Europe? Could I drive there?"
"Er no. Britain's part of Europe so it's the same problem. You'll need to fly."
"Yeah I knew that. I'm not dumb, I went to college!"🤣🤣🤣
Not that there aren't equally ignorant people here in Britain.
I once had to explain to a housemate that St. Georges cross was the flag of England. She was 23 and didn't know her own national flag!
I also had to explain to a dozen colleagues (all townies) where Manchester was. I asked them where they thought it was. The closest guess was up "up North. Near Newcastle"🙄. One of the largest cities in their own country and they didn't have a clue.
They protested they hadn't been to uni like me. I responded that I knew that in primary school and pointed out that it was often on the map of Britain on the weather forecast each night FFS.
Chatting to two housemates I described someone as 'condescending'. They didn't know what it meant. I was a bit shocked as they were both doing English degrees.
I asked if they knew what patronising meant. They didn't.
"When someone talks down to you like you're an idiot." I explained. "Like I'm doing to you both now."😁
When I was at Oxford University, posh Public School kids from the South East told me that 'Leicester is in Yorkshire'; I replied - oh yes, like Nottingham you mean - THEM 'Yes'.
I am a Scouser - yes we go to Oxford too - and I mentioned that Blackpool is North of Liverpool.
THEM "It can't be, because it is a holiday resort with beaches and too cold north of Liverpool !"
ME 'Look, it is not the Arctic Circle up there and there is no town South of Liverpool on the West Coast of England until you get to Bristol, so I can assure you , it is North". THEM, "Why is there no town in England on the West Coast South of Liverpool then?"
ME "Because between Liverpool and Bristol it is WALES".
To be fair, most English people can't name the island they live on. Probably not another island in the world where that is the case.
@@TheRealRedAce Twaddle - everybody can name it - Great Britain - as Al Murray said "the clue is in the name 'Great' ".
Well... The St. George thing is not that bad. She was more on the Union Jack...
@@melchiorvonsternberg844 Which is a combination of more ancient flags, the St George, the Sta Andrew and the St Patrick. So still WRONG!
I met an elderly American couple in the U K on holiday, and when I asked them where they were going when they were here they said ‘we’re visiting the 4 islands.’ Pause. Um which islands are these? Answer ‘England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales’. Um. Have you looked at a map? ‘No. Why?’ Because there’s more than 4 islands, but England Scotland and Wales aren’t different islands. Complete shock. ‘Really? Oh, well there you go!’
Should have just pointed out that England, Wales and Scotland are all part of the same land mass!
An old English teacher at one of the schools I attended was often saying to his pupils to engage brain before operating mouth. That from someone who never learnt how to spell or pronounce my name correctly now matter how often corrected. I think all of us have said something or asked a stupid question without thinking at times.
But…I would add, not quite so frequently as Americans do!
So according to my family when my American uncle's parents first visited Germany sometime in the late 80s they asked him beforehand whether Germany had plumbing, sandwiches and highways.
The highway part is especially ridiculous to a German as it's known here that the Autobahn was the precursor to all motorways and highways (I think I once read however that the first German Autobahn was not the first fast road of such kind, but at the very least it was one of the first widely implemented ones).
I always thought those questions were really ridiculous, but at least this was pre-internet and I dunno how much attention they paid to international news and such.
But when I went to study abroad in China a decade ago I had some people here in Germany ask me whether the Chinese have supermarkets, etc.
I always answered, that obviously they weren't living "behind the moon" as we Germans like to say, meaning obviously they had modern amenities, especially in the provincial capital I lived in. We had internet when this happened, so there's really no excuse for that one...
I live in Ireland, and (back in the 1980's) while on holiday in south of France, I met an American girl who during one conversation asked me, "Do you have hair dryers in Ireland?".
I told her we do. I also went on to tell her, we have gas TV's and steam radios. I told her, to watch TV, you have to light the gas and after a minute or so the picture appears. And when you want to listen to the radio, we boil the kettle, pour the hot water into the radio and when the radio then comes up to heat, we can listen to it.
Girl believed EVERY word of it...
My personal favourite from 2006 when in the USA is "do you have DVDs in the UK?"
Oh being told by an American in the UK that a church they just saw was dated back to 1146... and they said "that can't be right... America was founded in 1496..."
"Hello" from Prince Edward Island, Canada. I have spent a lot of time in the States and have heard some good ones, but I think my favorite was when at a student conference at an Ivy League University (Penn) a group of students wanted to know (I kid you not) if it was true that we all lived in igloos, and if I was impressed with "indoor plumbing" ??????????
In 2006 when I was 15 we were the second class of our school to go to Boston, MA. We are from Sweden.
So this was the second time these people met Swedes when we got there.
1. They were disappointed we weren't Vikings.... yep, they thought we'd all be blonde, blue eyed people stuck in the Middle Ages. And yes, they knew we flew.... still thought we'd be vikings.
2. So again, they knew we have airplanes, they knew about IKEA and they had studied Sweden for 2 years, right. We studied the US history and mostly about Boston for the same amount of time. They learned nothing.
3. We were asked if we have the Swiss alps, if we had Polar bears roaming the streets, if we'd ever heard of ice cream, elevators, refrigerators, coca-cola, cellphones, video games and more. Basically anything that excisted since the Industrial revolution.
They asked if we had internet after speaking with us through the f*** internet before we even got there!!!
4. When they came to visit Sweden the year after this, they STILL thought we lived in medieval castles, igloos or viking long houses. The fact that they lived with Swedish families in regular houses with showers and stoves and refrigerators etc and had nutella sandwiches for breakfast or a bowl of cereal or were taken to school in cars was still a disappointment to them.
So after meeting Swedes for 3 years now, studying our country and history they just couldn't get into their heads that we weren't stuck in the Viking age and only had modern stuff exported to them. Like Volvo or IKEA or SAS for example. 3 years just flew over the heads of most of these people. And this was a fancy school, everyone was in 7th and 8th grade. It was called INLY School.
So weird.... Mindblowing.
An American insisted to me that Finland was a Muslim country.
Bwahahahahahahahaha.....epic.
Every country is apparently a Muslim country now if you ask Americans.
We've all been communists always to them, too.
Years ago, very hot high summer, packed tourist crowds on Piccadilly, an anonymous, very strong american accent floated from the crowd -"The Royal Academy of Fine Art; I wonder what's in there?"
I worked on a project with a bunch of American colleagues. The decided they had to come over to England to work on the project plan. We all went to dinner one evening. One colleague asked if we celebrated the 4th of July Independence Day - I reminded him from whom they had won their independence - England - that is the country you are in right now, so NO, we don't celebrate 4th of July - although I suggested, we should as we got rid of those pesky rebellious colonies! :-) We then got on to the topic of our public holidays, and Guy Fawkes night came up, the whole firework thing and burning a guy on a big fire. The African American in our party commented - "They still do that in some parts of the US" I have to say I loved those guys, the were good company, generous and warm hearted. Just a little insular perhaps!
The Australian country music singer Keith Urban, who is also the husband of Australian actress Nicole Kidman, once had a birthday party thrown for him by his record label in Nashville, Tennessee and one of the guests, who was American and a fellow songwriter, asked him if they had birthday parties in Australia too.
I've been ask how I learned English as I speak it really well and don't I get island fever living on such a small island.
I'm from Australia.
Hello UK here was in London at the time. Now I'm a white stereotypical male so you think they'd know where I'm from. So I meet an American who looked as though they had retired and complimented me on how great my English was.
1. Our language is in the title of the country that we are currently in so what were you expecting.
2. Don't you know your own history that the slave trade so what language would they have been speaking
3. What do you speak if it is not English?!
I have used a variation of the "Mechanical internet" line, Americans seem amazed that we have the internet, I'm British, from the same nation as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet!
I’m from Australia, and while in Boston I got asked many times if I was Canadian. When I asked why they thought I was Canadian the reply was “because you have an accent” ….. 😳😳
As a tourist in Orlando, my accent prompted an American to ask where I was from and I said South Africa...... he asked if I did any hunting and had I ever shot a kangaroo. Geography is obviously missing from the school curriculum in the US
you do know that they have wild kangaroos in America think Chile.
I remember a Canadian lady, in the UK, that she had to explain that there were lots of Blacks in her country to an American lady she met in the UK.
The American's response was 'How? You had Slaves in the South?',
CAN : - Well , no but many Slaves in America did escape to Canada during the American Revolution and were freed and many blacks emigrated to Canada afterwards"
US Lady : " 'So Canada is a Northern State?"
CAN: "No, we did not participate in the Revolution , nor in the Civil War, only in the War of 1812."
US Lady "Well we won that 1812 War, so you should be a Northern State!"
CAN "Erm, if you won the 1812 War and yet we burned down DC, the White House and the Capitol, then why am I a Canadian if we lost?"
US Lady, "What you mean you burned DC down"
CAN To me, "There comes a point you just have to give up with Americans."
Think the weirdest thing was when I was on Princes Street in Edinburgh and an American asked me where the castle was, I pointed it out looming over the street, and the didn't believe me
An American on here accused me of being a white dude posing as a black dude because of the different phrases I used, when I tried to explain to her that I was definitely black and the reason she and I used different phrases was because im English and she's American, she couldn't grasp that at all, couldn't understand that we don't talk like Americans at all, I gave up trying to explain it.
I remember back in 1960 when I was a kid an American kid same age as me was visiting his grandma who lived in our street here in Liverpool. He became good friends with both myself and my older brother. My brother and his friend took Ray, that was the American kids name, on a train journey to a local seaside resort. One of the stops on the journey was a station in Bootle, Liverpool. Ray asked my brother the name of the station and my brother told him it's called Bootle. Ray got really excited and said you have a Boot Hill here in Liverpool.
My Mam's Aunt and Uncle when they were alive lived in Bootle.
@@andrewward2010 There are many dead people from Bootle.
You should have said "No - B- O-O-T-L-E it is derived from Beetle and Boots.. Here we say 'it is where the Bugs wear Clogs'!"
I have heard of an Englishman on holiday in the South of France who said 'What a remarkable sunset for such a small village'