I once had an American woman become very irritated at me for ordering and drinking an alcoholic drink when i was 19. I explained we are in Spain and the legal drinking age here is 18, to which she frustratingly tried to educate me on the fact that American laws are for "everybody" and that their laws are some kind of overarching authority. other countries can choose laws aslong as they dont cross with American ones. Needless to say i was absolutely speechless.
I wouldn't have been speechless. I'd have told her to f**k off back to America. there are a lot of Americans who seem to think they are the only country on Earth and don't understand that nobody who lives outside it gives a damn what their laws are
I once got verbally attacked by a lady in the states while being on vacation. My crime was talking Danish, I tolled her I was a tourist and we speak Danish, she didn't care all she could say was this is America and we speak American, she completely broke when I said no you speak English. I can almost still hear her yelling at me.
I would be talking Danish for the rest of that conversation out of pure spite. 😂 "Jeg er turist, kvindemenneske. Hvilken del af det, er det, at du ikke forstår?!"
@@helenetrstrup4817 hvis jeg havde været alene, havde jeg kørt den meget langt ud. Men min daværende kæreste var meget rystet over situationen, hun er ikke vant til at fremmede fuldstændigt uprovokeret går amok på en, og hendes velbefindende kommer før mig have det sjovt. Så vi forlod bare situationen, det tog hende resten af dagen af ryste det af hende og hun var utryg ved at snakke dansk på resten af turen. Edit: men jeg vil sige i de 2,5 mdr. vi var i staterne var det den eneste dårlige oplevelse vi havde, vi hang enda ud med nogle bandemedlemmer fra "the crips" I 3 timer og drak øl fra en pose, de var super flinke og interesserede i os, og havde aldrig hørt om Danmark og havde så mange spørgsmål. Men for en dansker er det lidt sært at sidde med folk der tydeligt er bevæbnet.
Yt hid the the last part after she said, we speak American, and I was screaming to myself no you speak English. Then I hit the Read more part and seen you put her in her place 🤣 The best one is when people ask what language do we speak in Britain and they stumble..... It's near enough the same freaking language as you guys!!! Just we speak the Queen's (sorry King now) English where as they use a bastardised version of it 🤷 Love and peace from Wales my man 🏴
I was once travelling by plane to the US, and was sat next to an American who commented that I spoke very good English. I asked why he was surprised that an Englishman from England, wouldn't be able to speak good English. The look on his face when he realized that English didn't originate in America was priceless!
He probably was a Southern American who thought all English speakers in the world would sound as if they had a little sweet banjo playing in their mouth. 🗣🎶💕
@@breezy3392 but English origin wasn't in England because there were parts in Europe who talked English words in a different form first. The Germanic tribes who brought those words to the island known as Great Britain today. Bfw to call you yourself Great is smug thing to do though, just saying🤷🏿
@@tyronevaldez-kruger5313 I made no comment about the deeper origins of the language. The origin of any language can be a case of deep study. My comment is stating that it's pretty damn obvious and no functional adult should be surprised that the county called England speaks English 🙄
I'm Canadian, but I've lived and travelled internationally a lot, especially as a kid, so my accent is a bit muddled. I've noticed two big differences between how Americans and non-Americans approach the accents: 1. Non-Americans ask, Americans assume. A British person might say "Your accent sounds vaguely Australian, but not quite. Is it Kiwi?". An American is more likely to say "You're from Britain, right? I can tell from your accent." 2. Americans are more likely to be stubborn when told no. When I tell a European that I'm Canadian but have lived on three continents, they get it. When I say the same to an American, they often say something like "Yeah, but you were originally from England, right?" Americans generally assume they're right, even after being corrected. Ignorance is fine, willful ignorance is what makes Americans annoying to the rest of the world.
We had American exchange students at my university many years ago, and I remember them telling me that they learned pretty quickly when travelling internationally to tell people they're Canadian 😆😆
My neighbour (who's since moved) is from Slovakia. If I heard someone speaking with a similar accent, I never asked "Are you Slovakian?" I usually said that I couldn't quite place the accent, but it sounded similar to my Slovakian neighbour.
That last sentence may be the most accurate description of Americans I've ever seen. The crazy thing about Americans to me is how okay they are with being so ignorant to the rest of the world like if I dont know something I go and learn about it where they never seem to have that willingness to learn about anything except America
I love it when they start to argue with you about where you’re from. Like me, I’m Finnish but I’m ethnically also half East Asian. So if I were to say that I’m Finnish, they’d be like “yeah but where originally?” And if I consent and say that my other parent is Asian, they’d always go “I knew it! You’re Asian!” 🤦🏻♀️ like no sir, I’m Finnish.
I used to be a coach driver and I once heard an American ask a tour guide who was taking them to Fraser Island, "so does the water go all the way around the island?". The tour guide responded, "sir thats the definition of an island."
I'm from England, when I went to Florida I quickly learnt to not to speak to people because I got sick of telling people I've never met the Queen. But the stand out thing someone said to me was..... "How can you afford to come here?" I said "we just can" then he gave me dumb face by saying " You guys don't have guns so you get robbed all the time though". Fella if we don't have guns neither do the criminals!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was asked if I had met the Queen by an American and I asked why do some Americans assume everyone has met the Queen and their response was "Well, it's such a small place you probably see her about quite often"
I was in too was in Florida, when Princess Diana died. When an American Lady heard my accent - she said she was sorry for my loss and asked if was I going home for the funeral...I said no, I don't think she would cancel her holiday too come to mine ...she looked shocked
I was back-packing in Japan, staying at hostels. There were a lot of packers from all over the world and a bunch of us were in the dining room, sitting round a table that had a large brass globe above it. We were pointing out where each of us were from... except for these two American girls sitting together who couldn't identify the US on the globe.
I'm an Aussie who has lived in 5 countries (Canada twice). My accent is very mixed. While working in Canada, I once had an American tell me I'm a liar because he could tell a Columbus, Ohio, accent anywhere. He visited our office quite often and kept the argument going for months. I finally presented my passport but, unbelievably, he still wouldn't concede.
I had the same thing happen to me. An American guy heard my accent (which is softer than my partner’s), asked where I was from, and then proceeded to tell me that there was no way I was from Australia, and told me that I was British. Like, ok. Sure. Guess I don’t know where I was born... silly me. 🙄
On one of my trips to visit Finland, there was an Aussie couple on the same connecting flight as me. I guess they weren't quite sure what my accent was because the husband asked where I was from. I said Canada, and he said "That's why I asked. I didn't want to call you American by mistake." 😂
I'm British, and the dumbest thing an American has said to me was "oh wow, you have a great accent and speak English so well!" and I just looked at him as British as I could and went "I know. I'm British..." and he went "oh yeah, you guys also speak English" and I replied "we don't just speak it, we're the primary native country where it comes from", and OH MY LORD he said back looking so confused "I thought English was from Europe?" and I responded "That would be because the UK is in Europe... I'm European"
Working with Scottish tourism some years ago, I often had to inform tourists that a local stately home was a private residence and not open to the public. Most accepted that, but it took Americans to ask, "How is that allowed?!" I had to inform them they were visiting a sovereign nation, not bloody Disneyland! The owners of that house later told me they'd had several incidents (including a police arrest) where American tourists had DEMANDED entry to their home, based on the fact that, having PAID to visit Scotland, they could surely go where they pleased! I need to add here I found the vast majority of Americans to be very polite. Not always too well-informed, but certainly friendly and polite.
Live near Stonehenge and this happens to me a lot. The area around Salisbury is a very big military area and I have seen the glorious yanks get ripped a new one trying to enter military bases as they have paid to “visit” Normally all the neighbours have signs say our dogs have a taste for dumb tourists. Ye it makes the locals in the pub have some good pissed up chats
Meanwhile in America: “What’s the dumbest thing a foreigner has ever said to you?” “This one girl told me It was Summer when it was Winter!” “An Italian tried to tell me the Mafia isn’t taking applications!” “One girl from Australia couldn’t even tell me WHERE in America Australia IS!”
While in the USA (Chicago) I had the well known dual statements. The first was, "You speak American really well." That was closely followed by "What language do you speak at home? ". I was stunned it could even be asked but told the bloke "French." He had no idea why his friends were laughing. I am 100% English, from England.
Working with Scottish tourism (years ago) I was more than once congratulated on my command of the American language. In contrast, apparently, to so many other countries who "couldn't be bothered."
Since becoming aware of what my country and its people are really like, I accept we deserve all the mockery we get. American's always think they're the best in every way and I couldn't disagree more. Anything they're even the top 10 for is for nothing positive. Collective ignorance is likely one of them. I'm not sure if the ignorance was always there, never improved or if it was somehow worsened. I imagine, but I'm not sure it is the case, that the older they are the more ignorant. While not the best, the youngest generations are better informed but it's not because of the schools but the internet - which is a double-edged sword. Most American's don't seem to have any interest in learning or improving their knowledge. Studies indicate that most of America's youth want to grow up to be an influencer or celebrity. Obviously, a huge concern. Americans value fame too much.
An American tourist in London once asked me where he could get tickets for the Titanic and when I told him he can't because it sank, he said "I meant the real one, not the one in the movie".....🤦♂️
I worked in hospitality for many years and for about half of it we used to get coaches of USA tourists stay in our hotel. The thing that was so hard not to laugh at was just about every morning at breakfast some would be asking in serious tones "Do you fry your fried eggs ?". However there is a reason for this, the UK we use a shallow pan with oil to fry an egg where lots of these people have only ever had them "fried" on a hotplate with a little bit of oil sprayed on it so they keep thinking we're not serving them what they ask for. We had a manager that didn't believe us this happened. One day we were short staffed so he came in to help with breakfast and the very first table asked him this. He just threw the pad and pen in the air and walked away through the doors to the kitchen and burst out laughing. Note due to the coach departure times this was usually at 6AM sometimes even earlier so everyone is not running on full cylinders yet. Bonus story. Due to these coaches being run by a large specialist company there would occasionally be some Australians in the group. One evening we had poached salmon as a main course (the hotel is in my Scottish home town near the Spey River) and one table had an Australian couple and a USA couple. The American chap asked if the salmon was fresh. My reply was yes, the chef had been out with some hand grenades just that morning. The Australians were laughing their arses off while the Americans were deeply confused. Here's to the ancient Oz pastime of dynamite fishing ! ( I, like many, have Australian relatives).
Mine is hilarious honestly, I am Mexican and I have living in Mexico city all my life. I had this online friend from California who i talked with frequently about fandoms and shows until we said about sending each other goodies and I said that if she'd be ok bc it can get expensive to her (I'm used to send packages a lot but was a first for her) and she didn't understand what I was telling and I was explaining that sending to another country was more expensive and took more time to arrive than to same country address, that they pass customs bla bla... But she didn't got it and asked "but what do you mean? New Mexico is in America" and I was in shock but understood the misunderstanding and said "no honey, I'm from Mexico, the country" and she wasn't catching it and was getting mad until she said "but you speak English so you live in America, is another Mexico in America that's not new Mexico?" Oh god, i was in shock! I was explaining her that English was my second language and I learned it in school, but i speak Spanish then she started to ask me if I was mocking her because why would I speak 2 languages and why English would be taught as a second language in school because it was always Spanish or french and i explained "we speak Spanish by default in Mexico, so we are taught English, is like reversed" and after like 1 hours of nonbeliving she just dropped it "but you are white! You can't speak Spanish! People will cancel you! Stop saying you are Mexican, they'll think you are racist" and i said "honey! You saying Mexicans are all browns and can only speak Spanish IS racist!" And she started to cry because she didn't wanted to say nothing racist and i had her all night explaining how the Spanish conquer brought to their colonies all sorts of mixed races and after WWII a bunch of refugees came too and also mixed with people living here so latin America is full of diversity from African, asian, native, Europeans, Arabics and more and more history. The next day she told me her mom said i was a gaslighting bitch and to never talk to her again bc Mexicans are all drug dealers and i was just trying to get her addicted xD
A lot of people refer to us Scots as 'Scotch' and it drives us mad. A friend of mine has a great answer for anyone who asks him if he's Scotch. He replies with "No, I'm Bacardi and Coke" 😭
@@TicketyBoo. no mate regardless of age it is the wrong terminology for a group of people Scot’s Scottish Scotland WTF part of this de ye no understand ?
I'm Croatian, a lot of tourists come over through the summer. This didn't happen to me but to a friend who worked as a receptionist in a hotel. He got complaints from the guests at the hotel and some were really unbelievable, the funniest one was:"The sea is too cold here, what can you do about that?"
An American tourist in Bali was staying in a very cheap local inn in a village area and complain about the neighborhood's roosters noises every morning (it's common for every house to own a rooster and several hens and chicks, sometimes even goats) to the point making a petition to the village leader to remove them 🤣 He only got warning despite the locals demand him to be deported tho. It's weird when not only a foreigner but a broke one as well thought they could demand the locals to change to accomodate for him and him alone
My husband and I was walking g around Florence in Italy looking a all the amazing architecture when these two American ladies behind us started saying "There is so much history here, I wonder if the pilgrim s came here before they came to the states!!!" my husband and I where literally crying with laughter. Keep them coming JT.
I was in Rome a few years ago visiting the Colosseum. There was a group of American tourists next to me, we were all looking at the Colosseum and I heard one of them say to the other "did these guys never finish building anything here?" 😩
Recently had a conversation with a man on Facebook. He said that English should be called American because only people in Britain speak british English and everyone else speaks American English. An Australian, a Canadian, a South African and Singaporean person all backed me up to say that was a huge over generalisation and that most native speakers speak what is essentially more like British English. He wouldn’t back down. A German and a French person even tried to tell him that they learn both, and use British English for academic and business English, but he was adamant that we were wrong.
@TedbundyPlaysCallOfDuty I know. It is so illogical. The day changes , while the month and year remain constant for sometime. So why would I need to know the month first.
@@lightfootpathfinder8218 or largest tp smallest (year-month-day) - in ISO format - as that way when sorting dates (as text) they are in chronological order
At a thanksgiving dinner in the US I was asked "do British people celebrate 4th July?" I replied "Yes, but we call it 'independence from the US day'". Looking at the mess your country is in, I think we dodged a bullet. No pun intended.
I had an American friend ask me that as well. I'm from Sweden. He was offended when I said no. Same thing happened with Thanksgiving (like, why would we celebrate it with some of the things that happened?) Then I turned it on him asking if he was gonna celebrate on June 6th (National Day of Sweden). He said no, obviously, so I got to act mock offended. At least he understood afterwards.
An American asked me where in Africa is Jamaica? I asked him where did he think Africa was. He said “Asia somewhere”. I said do you know how big Africa is?” He said “Is it bigger than Texas?” I asked him his job. He said he was a school teacher!!!
I'm Australian btw. I remember when I was in high school we had American exchange students and they had no idea that milk comes from cows. Had one come up to me and ask if milk comes from cows then how do you get choc milk? I was like it's simple. We just feed them chocolate.
Lol yup I love spreading the false info myself, had an American man in his 50’s asked me if we have cars in Jamaica 🇯🇲 I told him no that we walk or ride donkeys lol I want him to got tell all his friends that until somebody who has some sense correct him.
I have an American aunt. Some of her acquaintances in Texas repeatedly stated I was a "communist" as I, a Brit, called our own NHS a great institution.
Thank god. Just yesterday an American man had a heart attack 1 week in hospital and his care $150,000 nope no way I don't have that kind of money thank god it's free in Australia
@@ORDEROFTHEKNIGHTSTEMPLAR13 Why should it be free to foreigners ? The money for the NHS comes from the taxpayer, that's why it's `free` to people of the UK.
I’m from New Zealand and was teaching in Fortworth for a week and someone asked where I was from so I told them... they then proceeded to speak horrendously broken Spanish to me... turns out they thought New Zealand was in South America, which I could overlook, NZ being a small island nation... however, when I corrected them they argued with me as if I didn’t know where my own country was 🤷🏽♂️
My best friend was Black Irish. I just want to let people know what that actually means, The term “black Irish” refers to persons of Irish descent who are supposed to be descendants of the Spanish Armada, which sailed around the middle of the 15th century, and had dark hair and or eyes. The term is used among people of Irish descent and sometimes confuses people since it doesn't refer to dark skin color.
Do you use "saucy as a black" to refer to someone rude? Because "black" there is "black Protestant", so called because their Protestantism blackened their souls. Lol.
@@TREVASLARK I'm 60! At least, I've been around the sun 60 times, I guess. My knees and hips have kept the tally of those years, I've had better things to do.I don't know about you, but I think I'm 23 till I have to stand up or move and my knees and hips suddenly get old and grumpy! But it's actually been fun having hair the colour that invalidates your opinion. And it is soooo cool to be the quirky old guy who puts a smile on the faces of the young cashiers and waiters. I am an old antiKaren, and the garden in which I used to grow my "f÷^/s" has been paved over. It's amazing what you get away with when your hair is grey! Lol
@@wfcoaker1398 Really true !! - As an old(er) 😁- lady, I'm doing all sorts of things I would never have dared to do when younger. You wouldn't believe them if I told you ! Two days ago, my 30- year- old nephew asked me if I felt "young". And I said - "Yes, absolutely. I feel like I'm 20 all the time, except for when my medical problems flare up ." That's not a bad thing , is it ??
I worked as a waiter at a resort in Australia. I was once asked where the sun came up, so I pointed over the hills and said, "Just over there." To which she responded, "But what direction is that?" When I lived in Edinburgh, one of my friends overheard some Americans expressing how thoughtful it was to build Edinburgh Castle so near the train station, so they didn't have to walk far to get to it!?!
For some reason, your Edinburgh story reminded me of Eddie Izzard and his take on our (USA's) notion of history and time, "50 years ago! No One Was ALIVE Then!" hahahahaha! For the direction of where the sun rises story, I'm certain it is because so many of us don't understand how globes and hemispheres work, so everything is subject to being changed on us. Instead of us realizing that it is our motion relative to the sun's position that causes our difference in dates and seasons, AND keeps our directions the same, we'll think, "It's a different day, and a different season, so the directions are going to be different, too." As a USian, I apologize to the world.
@@keepdancingmariaso you dont learn it in School? We in Germany have a Poem that every child knows! Im Osten geht die Sonne auf, im Süden nimmt sie ihren Lauf. Im Westen will sie untergehen, im Norden ist sie nie zu sehen. (The Sun rises in the East, travels through the South. She goes down in the West, you never see her in the North.)
@@anyathepanther7977 I learned in school, but when I was in school, decades ago, teachers weren't afraid to teach science. Now, if they teach science in a school district that won't allow it, they can lose their jobs. Also, I don't know if students are learning what they are told. I'm not connected to current education. I want to add, that too many families are choosing to school at home, not to teach the children well, but to avoid the children learning facts that conflict with the parents' religion. We are a mess.
My little story I have that can relate to this was when I was working in a Restaurant in Edinburgh (UK). American said "Your city is beautiful, There is one thing I don't get though..." I decided to play along "What is that then?" I ask. American "Well... I am an urban planner back home...So I have a bit of experience... but I really can't beleive that the urban planner in Edinburgh decided it was such a good idea to build the Castle right next to the train station." I opened my mouth to respond and decided to stay quiet and just walk away! Edinburgh Castle started to get built in around the 11th century.... 800-900 years ago! First passenger train.... 1825.... What came first then do you think!
YThis is a very recent one - like last week. In an online discussion, a couple of the candidates were talking about visiting York - it's only about thirty or so miles from me. One guy said that York in the UK must have been named after New York in the USA. Everyone told him it was the other way around. Even when somebody showed him an article saying that York (UK) has been in existence since 71AD when no white person even knew that the American continent even existed. NOPE - he wasn't having it, even when someone explained that the clue was in the name "NEW" York as opposed to the original old York.
It's one thing not knowing and being ignorant. It's a whole new level of stupid if you're literally shown the facts and still deny it. That must have been frustrating and hilarious.
@@MrScottev I've heard of the New York in Lincs, near RAF Coningsby, but I didn't know there was one in the Northeast. Where is it, and how come it's named after NYC?
I've been asked by an American if we have polar bears in Finland. Just not to spoil a good story with real facts, I told him yes, but they normally eat penguins. He was happy with that answer.
This one I heard from a Colombian but I was asked if Finland was the country where it rains gypsum during winter. Now THAT would require some extra sisu :D
When my wife and I were at the airport flying back from New York, we were getting some coffee and donuts. We casually mentioned to the person serving us that we were using up our dollars so we didn't have to exchange them when we got home. She was confused and asked "don't you use dollars in Britain?" This wouldn't have been such a big deal if she hadn't said she had a trip booked to London for her birthday that year.
@@missnesi4525 There's also the people who try and go to the Alaskan bureau de change when they're from Indiana or Florida. "we need alaskan money." There's a US flag on the Post Office, you think that would give it away.
I am Swedish and lived in the US for 7 years. I could probably write a book about all the strange weird questions the the Americans asked me. Often it was about geography. Where is Sweden? It's in northern Europe. Once I got the question "where is Europe?" Another really stupid, in my mind, question that I got was "aren't you afraid to live so close to Russia?" I dragged that person to a large world map and pointed out where Alaska is and how really close it is to Russia from there! Do you celebrate 4th of July? Do you celebrate Thanksgiving? 😂😂😂😂😂😂 I knew I would never let my son attend school there, sorry! At my work I constantly had to help my American born co-workers ask me how to spell and phrase letters.
Working with Scottish tourism years ago, I often simply gave up on Americans who simply couldn't grasp why Thanksgiving isn't celebrated in the UK. A common response was, "Why not? Don't you have any patriotism at all?!"
1:35 oh yes, I have seen that coming. I‘m German and I work for a big German company as a commissioning engineer and installation supervisor. We installed a lot of our stuff in the USA and I never had a problem with people understanding that I am German. They always were really nice: „Oh, I am German, too….“ - „Ach echt? Wo kommst Du her?“ - „ Nononono… I don‘t speak German, but my Greatgrandfather came from there.“ - „Ah, ok.“ After some time another German colleague came to site. He was born as a German citizen in Duisburg, grew up and lived there all his life, married a nice (and actually blond) German girl. But coincidentally his parents had immigrated to Germany from Vietnam 15 years or so before his birth. He cannot even speak Vietnamese well. People on site were really nice to him at first. Then they asked him, where he was from. His reply „I‘m German“ really confused them completely. An American can have German roots or Vietnamese roots, they would not have cared at all, both would have been fine for them. But a German having Vietnamese roots? no, that cannot be. I realized that to most Americans American is the only nationality they really understand, everything els is not really a nationality, but an origin. A Vietnamese American, now that they can cope with. But a Vietnamese German somehow challenges their reception of reality and they go into immediate denial. As if they had seen a 9 ft tall werewolf (2.75 m for the rest of the world).
The dumbest thing an American said to me was along the lines of .... 'what religion are you?' I merely told them I am a Muslim, to which they replied 'but your from Wales and you're white' so I asked them back what's your religion and they said Roman Catholic, so I merely replied 'But you're not from Rome so you can't be a Roman catholic'...... That Uno reverse spun them right out 😁😂😂
I think the most significant thing I could say about this topic is that when I was in high school I participated to an exchange program with a school in the USA, and my class ( 14-15 years old kids ) were paired with 17-18 years old kids because our school programs were similar. But actually it was not. It was too easy.
I'm German, and I visited the US (California) after I finished school in 1990. Three questions that made my jaw drop: Did we have electricity, did children ride horses to school and was Hitler still in power? And yes, I know that's not all Americans, I apologize to the ones that get thrown in with these examples. Edit: typo
@@Llama_charmer That was the same person asking whether we had electricity, so they probably assumed we didn't have cars, trains or buses either. ;) Everybody outside the US living in caves. :D
The dumbest thing an American said to me, is when I told him that I'm from Kazakhstan he replied: "What? Such counries exist?" I was baffled and flabbergasted. Turns out he's not even aware of the whole middle Asia region's existence
I first questioned the quality of my daughter’s education when my brother told her he was moving to Pennsylvania and she excitedly responded, “Oooooh, vampires!” 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
@@draculakickyourass for sure, and if Penn State wasn't immediately the first thing that popped into my head, that is associated with Pennsylvania, then I'd have used something other than educational institutions in my hypothetical foreign exchange scenario.
I live in London and I am on a few London travel tips pages as I am happy to help people navigate our public transport and generally assist, a lot of Americans come on looking for help or offering advice after their visit, most are not dumb but more than once an American has posted their summary tips including not to worry about the language barrier, everyone speaks English!
Lol. In 🇨🇦 I’m used to multiple bus routes sharing the same stop. Fighting jet lag, I was not able to bend my mind around multiple train routes using the same stop. In the rush to get on a train before it leaves the station I have accidentally taken an express train to the airport. And in the underground, took a train on the wrong colour line to a different section of London entirely. Jet lag scrambles brains. So even crossing at traffic lights can be dangerous for a Canadian in the UK. (The red don’t walk symbol is a person... but the red degrading to a washed-out muddy red made me think the light was white with rust stains... so I thought it was saying walk instead of don’t walk. Fortunately the drivers refrained from mowing me down. (Fast drivers in Glasgow or Edinburgh. I can’t recall which city.) We all can have moments of stupidity... but more so when 8 time zones (or more) have been crossed. Which is why tourists are often targeted by criminals. Vulnerability.
I really love these dumb American videos. I'm from the Netherlands and had an American tourist ask me why nobody was wearing wooden shoes. I told him we only wear them on workdays. I just love the stupidity gullibility combination 😂
A good 1/4th of Australian culture is just lying to tourists and gullible outsiders about our country. But 3/4ths of said tourists and gullible outsiders are USAmericans. We love those research-averse idiots.
Wodden shoes aka Clogs 🤓 The wikipedia page gives "Klompen" as an example of clogs. Clog as a word has other meanings: 1) impediment/encumbrance 2) block
My husband (British) travelled to the USA often for work. One evening he was chatting to a supermarket cashier as she heard his accent. When he came to pay in cash, she was astounded that the UK also had the dollar! She then said that she wanted to travel around all the European states like London, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, etc. He patiently explained that they were all different countries with different languages, cultures, history. I'm not sure what she imagined.
Im from the UK and spent year in New Zealand. Was working in a restaurant at the time and some American woman noticed my accent and asked ‘ Are you from England?’ Yes I said. To which she replied ‘OMG can you speak some English?’ 😶🤣🤣
I had a few funny encounters myself in the days I travelled the US, but was more incredulous about hearing an American on a clip criticise a girl on the news getting shot because she didn't zigzag when running away like she was taught in school. She didn't understand that this girl in different country didn't get taught that in school because they don't have school shootings like the States because guns were not commonly available. She thought this was a normal thing for school and taught everywhere in the world. Even when explained to her, she still looked confused.
There's a lot to choose from. I am from Norway, and spent a year as an exchange student in Oklahoma. For some reason, several of my classmates wondered if we had electricity and running water. Most thought Norway was located in one state or another, mostly Texas for some reason. When I tried to explain, Scandinavia was a dead end, but most people knew Sweden. So from then on I was Swedish. Which is a deadly insult to a Norwegian (not really, but also kinda). Some wondered if we had polar bears roaming the streets and if it was dangerous to be outside because of that. One person actually knew about Norway, which was a pleasant surprise, but almost immediately asked if we still went on Viking raids?! I mean, I'm happy you know about Norway, but that was almost 1000 years ago.
Me and my partner were camping in North Wales. One night were in a local pub were we got taking to an American couple. The woman asked why the Welsh language was mainly composed of consonants. I told her that hundreds of years ago there was a war between the Welsh and the Irish, in which the Irish were beating the Welsh. As a compromise the Welsh agreed that the Irish could have most of their vowels. Her response was ' That's amazing,
I remember speaking to some locals in a non-touristy bar in NYC around 15 years ago, and one of them was amazed that we had the internet in Scotland.... and another was annoyed that I didnt know his Aunt as she was from Scotland too! That one night taught me all I needed to know about the American education system lol! I have been to the states many times, but those guys will live long in the memory lol!
we have some people like the aunt one in the UK i was in the army in the REME which at the time was 16,000 strong and a lady asked if i knew her nephew as he was in the REME also.
Ask them if they know some random relative of yours living in whatever state they're from, and then get huffy when they say no. Maybe it will sink in ... or maybe not
I’ve been on both sides of this. I’ve had people ask me if I know 1 specific individual of the 33M people in my country. I’ve also asked people if they know someone I know from their country too... because the coolness factor of unlikely connections overwhelmed me emotionally. So. Now I get the attempt to connect with someone you like can make you foolish.
im from germany. a friend of mine worked for 3 years in the us and came back married with a child. i have talked to his wife a lot. and she is sometimes a little naive. but she realized for herself, that it was stupid, when in school, she and most of her friends all thought "why should i learn this? it doesnt concern me..." while sitting in school during history/geography/etc classes. and she said, in hindsight, she should have learned. but while growing up in the us, it just didnt matter...
As a Brit for me. In Cancun, I politely chatted to a drunk Texan man in the hotel pool. He could not believe I could fly to Mexico. He started shouting to his family “guys, this guys from England, can you believe that?” Same holiday, I was talking to my friend in the hotel reception and an American couple asked each other “what language are these guys speaking?”. I politely turn round and said “English”. At work my US colleagues often ask what I’m doing for July 4th. 😂
When I lived in the US (I'm Australian) some of my colleagues were amazed to hear that we didn't celebrate the 4th of July in Australia. Why would Australians celebrate it? It has nothing to do with us 😂😂
So, I am from Canada. I did my master's degree in the US. In preparation to move, I thought I should find out if there was any paperwork I needed to have for my cat, as he was coming with me. I thought I'd call the ASPCA to find out since they might know or be able to point me in the right direction. The woman on the phone told me I didn't need any paperwork as I was moving INTERSTATE. I had to then explain to her that Canada was, in fact, its own country.
I once witnessed an American student trying to convince our professor in international law that U.S laws was applicable in other countries because they had been "voted for in Congress." How can you study at a university, in a class named International law, in a foreign country and believe this? He couldn't accept being wrong either.
I'm from the UK and while i was in Florida an American told me he had an aunt who lived in Italy and then said her name and asked if i knew her. He looked at me strange when i said Italy was a 4 hour flight away from where i live.
During government class in high school in Merica, we were divided into groups based on which political candidate we supported. One group came up with a solution to the National Debt. They said a certain billionaire candidate should donate his billions to completely pay off the national debt. I tried to explain to the group that the National Debt was in the trillions, and billions would not cover the National Debt, but they couldn't understand it, no matter how many times I explained it. The teacher didn't understand it either, or was happy to let me explain it. It was a "National School of Excellence". I'd hate to see the other schools that weren't "Excellent".
I was a flight attendant for the Australian airline .and I was chatting to an American lady towards the end of a LAX SYD sector and she said " well I had a great flight but why there are dinosours on everything? I mustve looked puzzled and she pointed to her tv sceen and said look! another dinosour" as she pointed to the Kangaroo on the airline livery😅
Ya. I was thinking even IF they could somehow build such a bridge spinning Australia with the U.S. you could only drive a fraction of the length of it before running out of fule.
My first encounter with Americans happened when I was about 10 years old. I was picking wild strawberries near the highway, not far from home, when a camper stopped and a teenage boy walked up to me and asked where all the snow and igloos are. I must have had a very confused look on my face, and I told him to keep driving north. He told me his family is from US. It was summer in Nova Scotia.
I used to drive an open top double decker tour bus in London. One day I was asked, by an American tourist, "Why do your pedestrian crossings make a beeping noise?" I told him "That's so blind people know when the lights have changed." and his response was " Gee, you let blind people drive?"
@@blackbob3358it's likely true. Thick folk exist everywhere... I had a learner in the car about to go in for her test. There was an obbiously deaf candidate with a signing intrtpreter going in the office. To reassure my candidate I mentioned the fact and how much tougher it must be than for her. Then I asked just how much harder it must be if someone was blind... She fell for it. About to take a test with no wits about her at all.
I was working with an American carpenter in the 70s he asked me to cut a piece of wood two eights shorter I returned and said " I have cut a quarter of an inch off " and he replied " I said two eights " 🤣🤣🤣
I'll admit you had me going there for a minute. I often work with rough milled lumber that comes in thicknesses such as five quarter or nine quarter so you can finish them into 1" or 2" thick, so being told to take off 2/8ths I would have planed an 1/8 from each side.
When I was a little kid, I remember my father coming back from a business trip to the US saying that when he got to his room, the bloke that helped with the luggage showed him around the room and mentioned this fantastic device called a fridge that keeps drinks and food cold and was gobsmacked when he said we'd had them for a very long time.
• European people You’re on an American made website (RUclips), you use American made social media, American made internet and you’re probably using an American made phone (Apple) unless you’re using a laptop or computer which was also American made. Your country listens to American music, follows American trends, culture and celebrities, copies how Americans dress and American slang, American abbreviations like “Lol” “Lmao” “omw” and you wear American made clothes, always copying American style The highlight of non American youths (probably whole life) is when Americans artists, American concerts and festivals come to perform in other countries. I know you hate to admit it but the world knows how much America has carried humanity. IN ONLY 244 YEARS AMERICANS HAVE ACCOMPLISHEDz 1.) became our planets world power. 2.) landed on the moon and lead humanity in space travel science and technological advances. 3.) Americans invented. Inventions by Country 2023 The United States The U.S. is the hub of all innovative inventions. Most new technology was invented in America -- from personal computers, lasers, mobile phones, video games, photocopiers, and even the internet. Other inventions from the U.S. include hearing aid, micro-ovens, steamboats, submarines, refrigerators, telegraphs, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, cash registers, electric cookers, electronic TV, credit cards, air conditioners, and much more. Source: worldpopulationreview Here is an overview of inventions by country for the top ten most inventive countries in the world as of 2022, focusing on inventions that have been fundamental in shaping modern society. 1. The United States 2. Japan 3. South Korea 4. Germany 5. Taiwan 6. China 7. France 8. United Kingdom 9. Canada 10. India Source: worldpopulationreview Nobel Prizes by Country 2023 First issued in 1901, the Nobel Prize is one of the highest honors a person can receive in their lifetime. The Nobel Prize was founded by Swedish engineer, inventor, and chemist Alfred Nobel, whose will established the Nobel Foundation and directed that the prizes be awarded annually "to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Nobel further instructed that "no consideration be given to nationality, but that the prize be awarded to the worthiest person, whether or not they are Scandinavian." Nobel Prizes are awarded in five areas: peace, literature, physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine. In 1969, an additional prize, titled the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" (SRPESMAN), was established by Sweden's central bank and has been incorporated into the Nobels as well. Here are the 10 countries with the most Nobel Prize winners: 1. United States - 400 2. United Kingdom - 137 3. Germany - 111 4. France - 71 5. Russia - 32 6. Sweden - 32 7. Japan - 29 8. Canada - 28 9. Switzerland - 27 10. Netherlands - 22 Source: worldpopulationreview We built America from the ground up and accomplished all of this in only 244 years. We took the world out of the dark ages and we are literally the reason humanity is so modern. Every other country in the world hasn’t accomplished shit there’s no comparison when it comes to America and the world knows that, that’s why they wish they could live with us. I don’t know why European people feel the need to impress us Americans or try and prove themselves to us or try so hard to make themselves noticed by us Americans or try to make themselves feel better by trying to downplay humanities greatest nation… Americans are obviously elite in everything that we do. You guys don’t realize how embarrassing you are to Americans. Americans laugh when little European people try and call americans stupid knowing americans literally are the reason why the world has advanced. Now imagine life before America existed? You’re welcome. Americans carry humanity so how you gonna hate from outside of the club? YOU CANT EVEN GET IN 😂 🇺🇸 I’m just glad my ancestors moved to “the new world” and I’m not still stuck in Europe because I can’t blame you guys. I’d be mad and probably hate on Americans too knowing I got left behind and could’ve been born in America instead. 😭😂 I know you hate to hear it but we all know Europe youth secretly wishes they lived in America so they could go to Travis Scott shows and experience “the American dream…” like the rest of the world does. So yeah Europeans, you definitely do copy us lol. like the rest of the world does, it’s funny you all “hate” Americans until you meet one then you’re all asking us all about America and what it’s like to live here complimenting us non stop lol. (by the way that was so wild that some of you say Americans copy the Europe? copy WHAT exactly? Gross haha gross haha never! 🤮 You guys are like a lame weird boring wannabe version of us. Americans been trendsetters but you already knew that lol. We also think of those corny ass wannabe gangsters you guys have in the Europe who TRY to copy American rap and throw up American gang signs. 😂 Like boy sit yo crumpet eating, king and queen having, European accent having ass down you ain’t no blood 🩸there’s nothing funnier than seeing videos of European wannabes with European accents throwing up American gang signs trying to act like he’s from LA and even wearing Lakers jerseys lol see? Even your lame ass rappers and wannabe gangsters straight up copy us too. Corny asses I wish you could see yourselves through our eyes. 😭🤣 You probably live in the EU with crooked teeth in your moms basement, cope harder, the U.S. is one of the most technologically innovative countries, if not the most, the EU have been irrelevant for over a century. Good for you, you all are irrelevant with crooked teeth, I promise you we don’t like you guys either, as well as many other parts of the world, very snobby arrogant people with a superiority complex even though you haven’t been irrelevant since ww2, when one of EU’s countries kinda killed 6 million jews, which the U.S. HELPED LIBERATE!!
I'm Scottish and can relate to that Inverness guy in the video so much. I used to work in tourism, so I've got a ton stories, but these ones stick out: I live on a loch (a lake), and was asked what time the tide went out at... I had a guy who wanted to do the whole of Scotland as a daytrip and flipped his lid when I told him he couldn't. Like Scotland is small, but it's not that small! This guy comes in and asks me if I know Ian from Inverness (it's a city about 4 hours away, I know no-one there). I replied "no, I don't know anyone called Ian who lives there", "are you sure?", "yes", "but it's a small country", "yes but I don't really know anyone up that way", "I think you're lying, Sure you know him", "no". Then he lost his temper. Also had someone claim I wasn't Scottish because when he asked me to tell him the story of his clan, I didn't know it off the top of my head...
I used to work in the tourist trade in Stirling and one question I always got was ' I want to go to the Highlands this afternoon, what's the best way?'. To which the only sensible answer is 'The Trossachs are nearby but it'll take you a little longer to get to Caithness....'Plus, 'you know we're related to Robert the Bruce, our surname is Bruce.' Good luck proving that one😃. Saying that, when my sister lived in London she was often asked where she came from. She'd reply 'Alloa' and the Londoner would say 'oh, you're Hawaiian then?' (usually when they were drinking in a pub owned by the Alloa Brewery Company with the words 'An Alloa Pub' on the shingle😂).
I'm from South Africa, and while chatting online in a chatroom, the guy asked if we had Internet here. After saying "obviously" he asked how we get it here. He was really under the impression that we still live in the bush with the wildlife.
A lot of the whites I knew in South Africa have their houses in the bush with the wildlife, it is a lot quieter, cleaner and safer than living in a big city or a township.
Story I saw on Facebook by a friend within the past 2 days from Ireland. There were two American tourists on a local service bus, when a group of Spanish children got on the bus. Of course the children were boisterous and loudly talking away in Spanish. One of the Americans piped up and loudly commented they love to hear the local children talking Gaelic.
In an elevator in Las Vegas, my wife and I were talking when a man interrupted us to tell us how he loved the English accent. I said to him that I liked his accent too. He replied that he did not have an accent because he was from Chicago.
I've had two American experiences that couldn't be more different. I served in the AU military and spent some time with USAF - those guys couldn't get over the amount of training and knowledge we had. After the military I went to university, (UQ St Lucia campus) and met the USAF counterparts who were intelligent. It depends on the individual, not all Americans are idiots however the majority of the ones I have spent significant amounts of time with generally were. That's why they get a bad name, the dummies out-number the smart ones.
I was at EPCOT, in the Japanese department store. You were able to buy a pearl, taken directly out of an oyster. A whole room full of people watched a short ceremony. The employee opened the oyster and showed everyone watching the pearl inside. An American woman was totally shocked by this. She asked "if that it hurt the oyster?" The employee explained to her that this actually killed the oyster. The woman then demanded that they "restart its brain or something!?"
@@hungariangiraffe6361 At a risk of sounding incredibly racist, the Japanese department store was, immaculate, quiet and calm. The American woman, was not! She literally shouted her questions aggressively!!! Do you take your name from the Giraffe's you can feed at Budapest Zoo? its been a while since I have been. Maybe 6 years?
@@Kirkland-rv5jf oh, so she wasn't that nice. I expected too much from someone who didn't know that this will kill the oyster and thought it has a brain. Btw no, giraffe was pretty much the totem animal of our class in 7th and 8th grade and I'm Hungarian, that's why I've picked this name. Did you like Budapest?
@@hungariangiraffe6361 I love Budapest! I have visited it 8 times from England! My wife and I would visit the zoo and then go to the baths!! It doesn't get better than that! :-)
Jamaican here. I go to America and people say they like my accent. I had one who complimented me on speaking English so well. I told him English is our language in Jamaica. He got mad/confused, tried to tell me no it's not. I asked him what language he thinks Jamaicans speak... He couldn't answer, like a record scratch on his brain 😂 And no, he wasn't just confusing standard English with creole/patois.
I had a yank try to celebrate the 4th of July with me in a pub in Southern England. That turned out to be "popular" with the locals in the pub, considering just what and who he was trying to celebrate independance from. Sometimes, it is not just the lack of education - sometimes it is the complete arrogance that gets under people's skin. I might do him a favour and go to his hometown and suggest in his local bar that we celebrate the victory in Vietnam or something. Whilst i don't begrudge the USA it's identity and national pride - it would be nice if US citizens recognised other people's as well.
I believe a lot of them think they are recognizing other people's identity and national pride, because they think it is the same. Their identity is the identity of everyone. Their holidays are celebrated everywhere... It isn't true, of course, but they think it is. They live in that kind of bubble.
Whilst living in the US, my oldest children were attending schools inside the Beltway from Mon to Fri. The first weekend home at our house in VA, my son told me some younger bugs at his school were surprised he spoke English so well. Did he speak any other languages in addition to English and British? When he told them he also spoke Kiswahili and Kibukusu, they insisted he'd made up those words! He was 9 at the time, which suggests the bugs (first years) were probably eight.
@@myopicautisticmetal9035 When I referred to the 8 yr olds being first years, it was because the school he attended only accepted pupils from the age of 8 in junior prep boarding. At 9, my son was enrolled in grade 5, as schools in our home country begin at 5.
I’m a Canadian and back in the early 70s, I was attending university for a semester in Poitiers, France with a fellow Canadian student. We met students from Oregon State University who were astounded and refused to believe that our currency was the Canadian dollar. They insisted that dollars were only the currency of the United States and that no other country could have the dollar as its currency as well. They were positively annoyed when we showed them Canadian currency and even more so when we told them that Australia has the Australian dollar and New Zealand has the NZ dollar. They insisted we were fabricating a whole story just to embarrass them. Oy! We couldn’t get over the level of ignorance. 🤦🏼♀️
I’m Australian and have had wonderful online American friends for many years who have never asked me one dumb question. We ask for translation for different terminology or different objects etc and usually crack up laughing in friendship. I’ve made friends with her family and friends, all lovely people and they’ve made friends with my family and friends. I told her to swim on over for a cuppa the other day lol, she lol’d and said, “on my way” lol. We’ve spoken on the phone but now use messenger to send voice msgs. I love hearing her accent, she likes mine. I keep telling her, I don’t have an accent, you do lol. We are still learning things about each other’s countries only when they come up in conversation. We’ve watched each other’s children grow up. My daughter went to USA re work many times over the years, I have about 15 or so key rings from many states in USA. My daughter missed her every time she went as both not being free re weddings, holidays and work. Will we ever meet - who knows, hopefully 😊
To make you feel better, it's not just Americans! I was in Canada (Toronto) on holiday when I was 16, went to buy something and didn't hear what the lady on the stall said so said "Sorry, I didn't hear you, can you say that again please? (or words to that effect)". She then said "Oh, you don't speak English" and looked away from me. I am English. I know I'm from Newcastle so have a bit of a Geordie accent (mine is pretty mild compared to most from the area) so it's a bit harder to understand but it took me about a minute to convince her I spoke perfectly good English as I'm from there. She did look suitably horrified once she realised her mistake. It was pretty funny at the time as nobody else had had any problems with my accent.
I was once in a meeting with an American on the phone and many other nationalities in the room. The American could understand the Polish, Glaswegian, Dutch, Spanish and German. But she never got a single word I said. I'm Geordie but have quite a mild accent. When I kept speaking clearer and louder she still didn't get any of it, but all of my colleagues were just sitting in stunned silence.
I am Canadian and over 60 years old I lived 2 km from the US border. So this happened a long time ago. I was stopped by an American on a July day when I was about 10 years old. Walking home barefoot from the swimming pool it was about 25°C ( 77°F ) asking me and my friends where the snow was. We just started laughing you should have seen the expression of his kids in back seat as to say our parents are idiots. I later thought it was funny that he had no snow tires and it was good that it wasn't snowing.
@Rick Hawkins. I am English, but came to Thunder Bay from US as spring started. The snow disappeared and within a week it was hot, like summer in UK. The strange thing was that you could kick away the topsoil and it was still like ice underneath, though it seemed too far south for permafrost. On spotting a massive bear, we English jumped straight into the car. Our Canadian host was unconcerned, stating they had them regularly on the family farm as kids. She had previously visited us in UK at Christmas and could not believe just how far north we were, it being dark so early and not light until late. My relatives used to live near Windsor and work in US. They moved to Vancouver, but when I arrived there, they had just moved up the coast. I found I only just missed them, on my tour of North America, when one later phoned to see how my parents were doing. That city is beautiful and I would not have moved from it, being from a city myself. My timing did seem right though, as I caught someone on roller blades, who was overwise heading for a long fall from a path in Stanley Park.
The most dumb thing an american said in front of me , was not having her passport with her on the border between switzerland and france and instead to apologise she actually shouted and said "im am american" well you can imagine where she ended
I' m French . so a few years ago I did an Amtrak tour of the United States . These journeys last several days, so of course you chat a lot with the other passengers, which is what makes travelling by train so interesting and charming, especially when you're travelling alone. I was chatting to a lovely middle-aged lady. I told her that my children were Franco-Brazilian. She asked me if my children also spoke Spanish. A bit surprised , I told her that Brazilians speak Portuguese. And she replied: "What do you mean? The Portuguese speak Spanish, don't they? I had a hard time swallowing my laughter but she was too nice to take the risk of offending her ...
Oh dear Lord. As an American may I say that not all of us are that stupid. A great many of us do pay attention, know our geography, are thoughtful and polite. Sorry world, you've seen the worst of us.
Take comfort in the only reason it's allowed is because you're American you can take it. It's not considered punching down. So in a way it's a compliment, some of the nations out there you can't even mimic the accent.
An American university student asked my friend where he’s from (he’s Spanish). When he said he was Spanish, the guy said ‘yeah, I know, but what country are you from’? My friend repeated he was Spanish a couple more times and the guy got really angry and asked if he was from Mexico. My friend then told him he was from Spain and the guy had no clue that Spain was a country or where it was.
My husband was in the US Army and we were in Germany. I learned to count to 10 and a courtesy phrases. I could point out and tell them how many. If it got too complicated they would switch to English. Some other Americans kept saying but they speak English! True but we are in THEIR country. Be polite!
@@kariissmol9172 It IS a complicated ass language. I happily (or stupidly) speak "German" despite having had only one lesson (the French teacher was ill, so I went to German class instead). I once tried to tell a story beginning with my mother (who spoke German like a German and also Dutch, and to whose chagrin I never learned German; however, whenever I said something smart, she said: "Das hat schon Goethe gesagt.") standing outside her workplace waiting for the bus. I have learned from reading German texts (I am Swedish, so I actually get some of what I read) that Betrieb can mean some kind of business, so I said: Meine Mutter war ausser Betrieb. (Hysterical laughter ensued.) You can't blame a girl for trying!
Even at 4 years old I learned basic German phrases and my address and my Sergeant dad's contact number on base. Most of us did. Our parents did even more. They claimed it was basic decency. Although some families didn't bother, to their own loss and often urgent difficulties too. Even now 59 years later I can tell when English subtitles say something subtly different on German movies and TV dramas.
@@mademoiselledusfonctionell1609In Bulgarian I tried to talk about a dog and kept mispronouncing the word, without realising that my constant referral, (in the crude vernacular), to prostitutes was causing the tears and hilarious head shaking going on around me. But my attempts at pigeon Bulgarian always won me friends there.
Some of us know about the outside world. However honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the typical person in North Korea actually knows more about the outside world then 1/2 of U.S. adults. Which of course is sad
My mom was a nurse when I was younger. At the time we lived in Colorado. She had one of her co-workers come to our house to drop off her dog so I could groom the dog. My parents started talking about vacation. She piped up and said she was has always wanted to drive to Hawaii. I gave my dad a very confused look, he just shook his head. I sat there thinking to myself, I can’t believe this lady is a nurse!
I once had an American asking me where I was from because my accent was cute. I told him that I'm from Sweden and he went: "Oh! I know Sweden! I went to Berlin two years ago!" I looked at him and went: "Berlin is in Germany." He went: "Oh... so you're German?" I just smiled at him and said: "Yeah... I'm German."
A Belgian coworker of mine helped an old lady carry her bags in the US; She asked him where he was from (he had an accent) and then said "Oh yes, my niece went to Belize last year!"
I got my American sister-in-law an expensive silk sari as a wedding gift. She liked it a lot and wore it for her after-wedding party, receiving many compliments from her family and friends. Only her eldest brother didn't look too happy. Later he came to me and asked if I or my family expected his sister to dress in traditional Indian dresses after the wedding. I was tempted to pull his leg; with a straight face I said it was up to her to decide. Mind you, this happened in St Louis, Missouri. What is funnier is that another brother and sister-in-law as well as a cousin were guests at the wedding and both the ladies were wearing very elegant and formal Western outfits.
Ah... I have hundreds of stories to share but one similar to that of Janine Adriana in the comments. I am a language teacher, I speak 7 languages fluently and I am studying another two, because I like languages, some like to compose music, others collect plants, well I like to learn languages, and believe it or not, it is common among Mexicans, especially from my city. The point is that this pleasure opened up a world for me and I started as a teacher, my native language is Spanish, I am from Mexico and I have very very white skin. I worked at Preply during 2020 (I do not recommend them, they steal your money, your biometric data, your personal information, they put spyware on your computer, and when you stop working with them you have to have it cleaned completely to prevent them from continuing to get involved in your life, not to mention that they let the students freely sexually harass the teachers, and do nothing, because they pay money to Preply, but since you as a teacher get paid, you are useless to them, they have to defend the one who pays) The point is that I don't like to put my photo on social networks but in preply they force you as a teacher to upload a photograph of yourself (unfair because the student is never forced to do anything in preply, not even respect you, and you don't know what kind of person or pervert you are dealing with until you have them face to face) I had several American students and most of them gave pity, entitled ignorant and racist. They were supposed to learn from me, but they wanted to teach me my own language. The point is that a stupid recurring line when we finally got online for the first time was "Oh my gosh I can't believe that your are the one in the picture, I thought it was a sort of cat fishing, is that really you?" and me thinking "what? are you not seeing me?". The classic "You can’t be Mexican, Where are you really from?" "From Mexico" "You meant New Mexico" "No, Mexico, the country." One of the stupidest things I ever heard about this was "Mexico is not a country, it's a cultural tale about the Aztecs of Peru, and the only real Mexico is New Mexico".... Another thing was "I can't believe that you're white and you're speaking English. I mean... it's not logical, it's just not... it's that..." They couldn't process it, their brain couldn't handle that information, literally like a failed computer. Regarding my skin one of the stupidest talks I had to endure was "Why do you wear so much makeup? Are you a gothic or something?" and when I told this girl, it's my skin "No way girl, listen I know you think Americans are stupid, but we are not, and I KNOW that all Mexicans are brown, some are black of course, but it's obvious that you're wearing makeup because white Mexicans can't exist, look at me, I am a real white person and I'm not even as white as you" Oh God, give me patience... and she continued "so don't feel ashamed of your skin color, if you cover it up because you are afraid that I'm racist and I'm not going to hire you, I'm telling you, I'm a civilized person who doesn't believe in racism"... "And I really love your makeup, I mean, I want one of these for me! it looks so natural, it looks like real skin, I can't believe that there are such high-quality products in Mexico, Mexico! I mean, well you understand me, it's crazy. And by the way, I loooove your contacts, those are American right? I can see it by the quality, they look extremely cool and real " And I noticed that in her tone of voice she was trying to be, according to her, friendly and kind. Wow really stupid… So I told her "You know what? In Mexico there are very good quality products in all areas, and Mexico is a leader in aerospace products. But even on Earth, nature, to begin with, the fruits have a higher quality than in your house, that's why we export them all over the world as many many other things. As for me… My eyes are real, I'm not gothic, my skin looks real because it's real, in fact you are being very racist but most of all brutally ignorant. To begin with, Mexico is a mega diverse country not only in its nature but in its people, There are Mexicans who look European but are the children of generations and generations of Mexicans born and raised in Mexico, I mean REAL MEXICANS, and the truth is, my friend, you sound pretty stupid with everything you just said." She said that I had no reason to offend her after how NICE she was being with me, ME! being that she was from such an advanced and top country, so I said "You really were excessively racist rude and ignorant and you made it very clear how "advanced" your country is. You know what sweety, I don't need a student like you, but thanks for participating, we’ll call you" and closed the chat. She obviously reported me for being, please read the list that Preply sent me: rude, racist, pedantic, ignorant, that I didn't even have basic education, and that I had also made her feel like an inferior person and they should fire me. I cleared things up with Preply and they just told me "Ignore that girl, it’s crazy". Since in Preply you have to put how many languages you can speak in your profile, another stupid thing I heard a lot was "But... why do you speak so many languages? Aren't you Mexican?" and I said "Yes I am, So what?" "Daaah you are Mexican.... I mean, you should only speak Spanish" one day one even dared to add "It is not possible that you speak so many languages Mexico is a poor country, barely developing, you don't have a computer, internet or good schools to study other language" and I replied "If we don't have internet or computers in Mexico... explain to me how we are connected on Skype? Or… how comes that we both are speaking in ENGLISH?" Her mind went blue as a screen, she had to be reset. In a nut shell, the gringos are the maximum exponent of human stupidity. I got to meet really valuable, kind and intelligent students from the United States, but... there were very very few.
While in the line for pirate of the Caribbean in Disney Florida. My family were in the line shuffling through the dark passageway. We ended up chatting to the family in-front of us due to them hearing our accents. We explained that we live just outside Glasgow Scotland. Now given the fact we were on holiday having shorts and T shirts on the next thing we were asked was “do you like were kilts all the time”!!! They were so serious After explaining to them that kilts are classed as formal clothing, something you were to a wedding, funeral, international rugby/football game ect it’s not a day to day form of clothing. When I said that it’s heavy, I could not were it in the summer especially in Florida they got the message lol
I was in a petrol station somewhere in Illinois when I asked if I filled up then paid or paid before I filled up. There was a woman with a child in the queue who was still there when I came back in to pay. I heard the little girl say to her mum, "I think that lady is English but she doesn't speak like us" Her mother replied, "they don't speak proper English in England like we do!". I had to remind her that they spoke our language and not the other way round.
Lol I'm from New Zealand and I met an American once who thought that the English language originated in the US and that missionaries had gone to the UK to teach them English!
Here are a couple (of so many) occasions of American dumbness I have encountered. I was recently buying some items and talking to the cashier in a Walgreens in Chicago when she said “I love your accent, where are you from?” I said thanks and told her I’m English. She looked at me curiously then her eyes started looking up as though she was having serious difficulty understanding what I just said. I started putting the items I’d purchased into my bag when she said “I’m sorry, I have no idea where that is.” To save her some embarrassment I was telling her it was ok as England is a small country when I noticed a magazine on the counter which had Harry and Meghan on the front cover. I pointed to Harry and said “I’m from where he’s from” when her jaw dropped and her eyes opened so wide, she took a step back and started bowing at me and saying “Oh my gawd, you’re a Prince, oh thank you, thank you, thank you.” I knew there wasn’t much point in holding up the queue to educate this girl so I just smiled and said “shhhh” then walked out the shop as she carried on bowing. I was once in a bar in New York when a customer seated next to me overheard me making an order when she asked where my accent was from. I told her I was from England and she said “Oh Europe right?” to which I agreed with a smile. She started telling me how she once went to Paris, Italy and London so I asked her if she enjoyed London and she said “Oh London is the most amazing city, I had such an awesome time but England, jeez I have to visit there some day. It’s on my bucket list.” For a bit of fun I often ask Americans what’s closer… is England closer to Great Britain or is Great Britain closer to France. 95% of Americans say Great Britain is closer to France.
...well sort of.. Great Britain is closer to France, as the Channel Islands aren't technically England as they're independent or semi-independent entities under/as Crown Dependencies.. ..but that I'm sure they didn't know that.
Hello and thanks for the laugh! One dumb thing I can speak about here was when I was studying in Ireland (I'm French), as most others were through work and that would take a few series just to itself (Such as my telling one we had to attend an event for the French-German Friendship, and every time being asked if it was American or upon being told I was a French national, being asked if I spoke French too). So here it is for one of the dumbest thing an American said to me.T here were very few cars and it was a long holiday weekend anyway, so the streets were pretty quiet in Dublin city centre but for one extra loud guy with an American accent, dressed in a Granny Smith apple green set of denim and Aran style sweater with neon green cowboy boots, cowboy belt and cowboy hat on Good Friday ((Easter weekend, in case you call it something different) and an American flag on his hat. He was loudly asking the oncoming traffic why everyone was looking at him, as if he was not perfectly fitting, although he had made certain his attire made him "inconspicuous for 100% Irish". When he zeroed in on me, I found it really difficult to know where to start!
An American friend once asked me what animal Haggis is made from. With my dry British sarcastic humour I told them "Haggis is like a sheep with left legs that are shorter then it's right legs so it can walk around the Scottish hills more easily." They believed me until they googled Haggis to see a picture of this strange creature that I made up. 😅
I'm Canadian, in Niagara Falls, Ontario-side, obviously. Ran into some American tourists, who stopped me to ask how long it would take them to drive to see the CN Tower (in Toronto), Science North (in Sudbury), and the Peggy's Cove lighthouse (in Nova Scotia on the Atlantic Ocean). When I told them the drive from Niagara Falls to Toronto was an hour and a half drive away from where we were, Sudbury was four hours north of that, and from where we were to Peggy's Cove was 18hrs. They didn't believe me. And I told them that was the shortest route to drive, by going back through the United States. Canada has a bigger landmass than the United States, but no one there seems to believe it!
I'm British, living in the UK and we've long had the term "stupid Americans" that we occasionally use to mock the US education system. Having said that, I know quite a lot of Americans and, on the whole, I don't find them to be dumb - most are pretty smart and well-informed, but when I do actually encounter a stupid one, I think it's fair to say that they take their stupidity to a completely new level. I'm sure that the fault lies with the education system over there, which seems to be constantly failing. That's not to say that ours doesn't have serious problems of course, but in general, our system is geared to teach kids in a way that inspires them to want to learn things for themselves. There's too many people (not just Americans) that have no willingness to learn anything after they leave school, yet learning is a lifelong endeavour - I'm 60 years old and I learn new things every single day because I've always been a curious person that wants to know things. I was lucky that my parents taught me a ton of stuff - even before I went to school I could read and write and do basic maths... Unfortunately, too many of today's kids are content to pass the time on social media rather than actually go outside and see what wonders the world can offer to those who are willing to find out about stuff. Add to that the proven fact that dumb people tend to have more kids than the well-educated ones, we're in serious danger of breeding intelligence out of the human species, and that holds true worldwide, not ust in America :(
when I was 14 we went to the US for holiday and as expected, I was asked a lot whether I was australian when showing my austrian passport. but what was weird after I explained that austria is in europe: I got asked whether we also had roads and refrigerators and whether we had fled the country to be able to have a holiday O_o
Well here goes, I was trundling down the river in a punt owned by a friend in Cambridge in the UK, there were some Americans with us, one of the Americans said looking at the buildings around us “Is that pre war” my friend replied very quickly “No it’s pre America” 😂😂😂. Another for you when I was in the US, this chick asked me if I lived in a grass hut, think she may have been referring to a thatched cottage 😂😂😂.
I once went to America for a job thing (I am from Greece) and I rented a car to move around. So there was this "all American girl" co-worker who, I personally think, is straight up stupid. So this one time she sees me get out of my rented car and she comes up to me all happy and giggly and the conversation went something like this 👇 Her: OMG good morning Me: hey, good morning Her: how do you feel? Me: emmmm... Fine?... You? Her : aren't you excited you get to use a car? Me: wdym? Her: I bet it was the first time you get to use one!!! Me: no, I have one of my own back home... Her(IN SHOCK) : WHAT? Me: Yeah... Her: I thought you went around on donkeys. I just laughed it of... And left... I couldn't do anything else other than laugh.
I would have indirectly called her a moron by questioning her about the origin of cars, etc. until she hopefully realized how stupid she was. I am not putting this one as ignorant. It's just stupid
I'd an Austrian friend living like 19yrs in USA and unfortunately she couldn't even see a difference between Italians, Portuguese, French or Romanians. For her we were all Mexicans, Brazilians or Colombians... something like provinces but in a place named Europe (what…?!) I really felt that pain in my chest like something shattering. My fellow Austrian was Americanized and 7 years of friendship explaining her l'm Spanish and European, not Mexican, Colombian or Brazilian
Not something said to me but a clip I saw on YT. A woman on the American version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The first question for $100 was which is bigger, she used a 50/50 lifeline and ended up choosing between an elephant and the moon. She said if you look at the moon it's small, and an elephant is huge, so the answer she gave was the elephant. Out on the first question and no prize money.
I live in Vancouver, a Canadian city on the west coast. An overweight, tracksuited family from Georgia came in and said they were heading to Alaska, and wanted to know what type of currency they used. Another time I met a man in LV who called my country Canadia.
My favourite one was when I told someone I was from New Zealand and they responded confidently that they knew exactly where that was: It's a little island connected to Australia via the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 🙄
I had an American once ask how long is the bridge, thinking she meant the Harbour bridge. Nope, she wanted to know how long the bridge was between Australia and New Zealand!!
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I once had an American ask if I'd ever been outside of the UK... while we were both in Spain.
LMAO
Oh dear 😂
Laugh or cry hmmmm, definitely laugh 😂🤣😂😆😅... Bah, not enough emojis
@N7 🤣🤣🤣
Haha! Brilliant 👏 👏
I once had an American woman become very irritated at me for ordering and drinking an alcoholic drink when i was 19. I explained we are in Spain and the legal drinking age here is 18, to which she frustratingly tried to educate me on the fact that American laws are for "everybody" and that their laws are some kind of overarching authority. other countries can choose laws aslong as they dont cross with American ones. Needless to say i was absolutely speechless.
@Matty had same experience with an American lady because I dared to sell her 18 year old son a beer
Wow so nuts 😳
Murica fu*k yeah! /s
JFC. It's utterly ridiculous. They think they govern over everybody... It's infuriating! O__O
I wouldn't have been speechless. I'd have told her to f**k off back to America.
there are a lot of Americans who seem to think they are the only country on Earth and don't understand that nobody who lives outside it gives a damn what their laws are
I once got verbally attacked by a lady in the states while being on vacation. My crime was talking Danish, I tolled her I was a tourist and we speak Danish, she didn't care all she could say was this is America and we speak American, she completely broke when I said no you speak English. I can almost still hear her yelling at me.
Thick as a Sequoia log and even more arrogant...........
Brilliant 😂😂😂🙌
I would be talking Danish for the rest of that conversation out of pure spite. 😂
"Jeg er turist, kvindemenneske. Hvilken del af det, er det, at du ikke forstår?!"
@@helenetrstrup4817 hvis jeg havde været alene, havde jeg kørt den meget langt ud. Men min daværende kæreste var meget rystet over situationen, hun er ikke vant til at fremmede fuldstændigt uprovokeret går amok på en, og hendes velbefindende kommer før mig have det sjovt. Så vi forlod bare situationen, det tog hende resten af dagen af ryste det af hende og hun var utryg ved at snakke dansk på resten af turen.
Edit: men jeg vil sige i de 2,5 mdr. vi var i staterne var det den eneste dårlige oplevelse vi havde, vi hang enda ud med nogle bandemedlemmer fra "the crips" I 3 timer og drak øl fra en pose, de var super flinke og interesserede i os, og havde aldrig hørt om Danmark og havde så mange spørgsmål. Men for en dansker er det lidt sært at sidde med folk der tydeligt er bevæbnet.
Yt hid the the last part after she said, we speak American, and I was screaming to myself no you speak English. Then I hit the Read more part and seen you put her in her place 🤣 The best one is when people ask what language do we speak in Britain and they stumble..... It's near enough the same freaking language as you guys!!! Just we speak the Queen's (sorry King now) English where as they use a bastardised version of it 🤷 Love and peace from Wales my man 🏴
I was once travelling by plane to the US, and was sat next to an American who commented that I spoke very good English.
I asked why he was surprised that an Englishman from England, wouldn't be able to speak good English.
The look on his face when he realized that English didn't originate in America was priceless!
He probably was a Southern American who thought all English speakers in the world would sound as if they had a little sweet banjo playing in their mouth. 🗣🎶💕
However ☝️🧐 Here in Germany Heidelberg I bump into US tourists a lot and they are really really polite.
English, England, it's in the name. I will accept no defense of any functional adult who can't figure that out on their own.
@@breezy3392 but English origin wasn't in England because there were parts in Europe who talked English words in a different form first. The Germanic tribes who brought those words to the island known as Great Britain today. Bfw to call you yourself Great is smug thing to do though, just saying🤷🏿
@@tyronevaldez-kruger5313 I made no comment about the deeper origins of the language. The origin of any language can be a case of deep study.
My comment is stating that it's pretty damn obvious and no functional adult should be surprised that the county called England speaks English 🙄
I'm Canadian, but I've lived and travelled internationally a lot, especially as a kid, so my accent is a bit muddled. I've noticed two big differences between how Americans and non-Americans approach the accents:
1. Non-Americans ask, Americans assume. A British person might say "Your accent sounds vaguely Australian, but not quite. Is it Kiwi?". An American is more likely to say "You're from Britain, right? I can tell from your accent."
2. Americans are more likely to be stubborn when told no. When I tell a European that I'm Canadian but have lived on three continents, they get it. When I say the same to an American, they often say something like "Yeah, but you were originally from England, right?"
Americans generally assume they're right, even after being corrected. Ignorance is fine, willful ignorance is what makes Americans annoying to the rest of the world.
Agreed. We're all ignorant about something, it's when they argue with you about your own country it gets weird.
We had American exchange students at my university many years ago, and I remember them telling me that they learned pretty quickly when travelling internationally to tell people they're Canadian 😆😆
My neighbour (who's since moved) is from Slovakia. If I heard someone speaking with a similar accent, I never asked "Are you Slovakian?" I usually said that I couldn't quite place the accent, but it sounded similar to my Slovakian neighbour.
That last sentence may be the most accurate description of Americans I've ever seen. The crazy thing about Americans to me is how okay they are with being so ignorant to the rest of the world like if I dont know something I go and learn about it where they never seem to have that willingness to learn about anything except America
I love it when they start to argue with you about where you’re from. Like me, I’m Finnish but I’m ethnically also half East Asian. So if I were to say that I’m Finnish, they’d be like “yeah but where originally?” And if I consent and say that my other parent is Asian, they’d always go “I knew it! You’re Asian!”
🤦🏻♀️ like no sir, I’m Finnish.
I used to be a coach driver and I once heard an American ask a tour guide who was taking them to Fraser Island, "so does the water go all the way around the island?". The tour guide responded, "sir thats the definition of an island."
😂😂😂
🤣 but not the full definition, that would be: "all land surounded by water and smaller than australia"
That's hilarious
I'm from England, when I went to Florida I quickly learnt to not to speak to people because I got sick of telling people I've never met the Queen.
But the stand out thing someone said to me was..... "How can you afford to come here?" I said "we just can" then he gave me dumb face by saying " You guys don't have guns so you get robbed all the time though". Fella if we don't have guns neither do the criminals!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was asked if I had met the Queen by an American and I asked why do some Americans assume everyone has met the Queen and their response was "Well, it's such a small place you probably see her about quite often"
You could just say she is a regular at the local pub and sometime play around of Darts 😀
I was in too was in Florida, when Princess Diana died. When an American Lady heard my accent - she said she was sorry for my loss and asked if was I going home for the funeral...I said no, I don't think she would cancel her holiday too come to mine ...she looked shocked
Now that I think of it it would totally work with King Charles he is not as well known 🤣
Some criminals do
I was back-packing in Japan, staying at hostels. There were a lot of packers from all over the world and a bunch of us were in the dining room, sitting round a table that had a large brass globe above it. We were pointing out where each of us were from... except for these two American girls sitting together who couldn't identify the US on the globe.
🤦♀️
Oh, wow... that's sad
There are videos about this on RUclips but the Americans claim that they only took a select group of people which is bulshit
Um... my jaw has dropped
Their own country?? 😂 I mean, I'll forgive a lot, I suck at geography myself, but America is huge, wtf 😅
I'm an Aussie who has lived in 5 countries (Canada twice). My accent is very mixed. While working in Canada, I once had an American tell me I'm a liar because he could tell a Columbus, Ohio, accent anywhere. He visited our office quite often and kept the argument going for months. I finally presented my passport but, unbelievably, he still wouldn't concede.
I had the same thing happen to me. An American guy heard my accent (which is softer than my partner’s), asked where I was from, and then proceeded to tell me that there was no way I was from Australia, and told me that I was British. Like, ok. Sure. Guess I don’t know where I was born... silly me. 🙄
On one of my trips to visit Finland, there was an Aussie couple on the same connecting flight as me. I guess they weren't quite sure what my accent was because the husband asked where I was from. I said Canada, and he said "That's why I asked. I didn't want to call you American by mistake." 😂
I'm British, and the dumbest thing an American has said to me was "oh wow, you have a great accent and speak English so well!" and I just looked at him as British as I could and went "I know. I'm British..." and he went "oh yeah, you guys also speak English" and I replied "we don't just speak it, we're the primary native country where it comes from", and OH MY LORD he said back looking so confused "I thought English was from Europe?" and I responded "That would be because the UK is in Europe... I'm European"
And what he said 😂
You’re not European you’re English ! Good grief
How can you be British AND European AND speak English?! 😱😱
Oh dear.
Information overload!
Instant meltdown. 🤣🤣🤣
Are you from UK or Great Britain? So confusing! 🤣
@@nataliasalmanova6020 England 😂..... shouldn't confuse them
Working with Scottish tourism some years ago, I often had to inform tourists that a local stately home was a private residence and not open to the public. Most accepted that, but it took Americans to ask, "How is that allowed?!"
I had to inform them they were visiting a sovereign nation, not bloody Disneyland!
The owners of that house later told me they'd had several incidents (including a police arrest) where American tourists had DEMANDED entry to their home, based on the fact that, having PAID to visit Scotland, they could surely go where they pleased!
I need to add here I found the vast majority of Americans to be very polite. Not always too well-informed, but certainly friendly and polite.
Live near Stonehenge and this happens to me a lot. The area around Salisbury is a very big military area and I have seen the glorious yanks get ripped a new one trying to enter military bases as they have paid to “visit”
Normally all the neighbours have signs say our dogs have a taste for dumb tourists. Ye it makes the locals in the pub have some good pissed up chats
maybe they thought that a stately home means one owned by the state. Still not entitled to visit though.
Hahahahaha
Meanwhile in America: “What’s the dumbest thing a foreigner has ever said to you?”
“This one girl told me It was Summer when it was Winter!”
“An Italian tried to tell me the Mafia isn’t taking applications!”
“One girl from Australia couldn’t even tell me WHERE in America Australia IS!”
You really think they understand what foreigner means?
Yeah 😂😂😂
While in the USA (Chicago) I had the well known dual statements. The first was, "You speak American really well." That was closely followed by "What language do you speak at home? ". I was stunned it could even be asked but told the bloke "French." He had no idea why his friends were laughing. I am 100% English, from England.
lmao lmao omg
Omg whahahaha
Working with Scottish tourism (years ago) I was more than once congratulated on my command of the American language. In contrast, apparently, to so many other countries who "couldn't be bothered."
haha, I might have said Elvish.
Since becoming aware of what my country and its people are really like, I accept we deserve all the mockery we get. American's always think they're the best in every way and I couldn't disagree more. Anything they're even the top 10 for is for nothing positive. Collective ignorance is likely one of them. I'm not sure if the ignorance was always there, never improved or if it was somehow worsened. I imagine, but I'm not sure it is the case, that the older they are the more ignorant. While not the best, the youngest generations are better informed but it's not because of the schools but the internet - which is a double-edged sword. Most American's don't seem to have any interest in learning or improving their knowledge. Studies indicate that most of America's youth want to grow up to be an influencer or celebrity. Obviously, a huge concern. Americans value fame too much.
An American tourist in London once asked me where he could get tickets for the Titanic and when I told him he can't because it sank, he said "I meant the real one, not the one in the movie".....🤦♂️
No stop
Please tell me you're lying, please
@@breezy3392 I second your "Please" !!!!!
Ahahahahah😂
😂😂killed it.
I worked in hospitality for many years and for about half of it we used to get coaches of USA tourists stay in our hotel. The thing that was so hard not to laugh at was just about every morning at breakfast some would be asking in serious tones "Do you fry your fried eggs ?". However there is a reason for this, the UK we use a shallow pan with oil to fry an egg where lots of these people have only ever had them "fried" on a hotplate with a little bit of oil sprayed on it so they keep thinking we're not serving them what they ask for. We had a manager that didn't believe us this happened. One day we were short staffed so he came in to help with breakfast and the very first table asked him this. He just threw the pad and pen in the air and walked away through the doors to the kitchen and burst out laughing. Note due to the coach departure times this was usually at 6AM sometimes even earlier so everyone is not running on full cylinders yet.
Bonus story. Due to these coaches being run by a large specialist company there would occasionally be some Australians in the group. One evening we had poached salmon as a main course (the hotel is in my Scottish home town near the Spey River) and one table had an Australian couple and a USA couple. The American chap asked if the salmon was fresh. My reply was yes, the chef had been out with some hand grenades just that morning. The Australians were laughing their arses off while the Americans were deeply confused. Here's to the ancient Oz pastime of dynamite fishing ! ( I, like many, have Australian relatives).
Mine is hilarious honestly, I am Mexican and I have living in Mexico city all my life. I had this online friend from California who i talked with frequently about fandoms and shows until we said about sending each other goodies and I said that if she'd be ok bc it can get expensive to her (I'm used to send packages a lot but was a first for her) and she didn't understand what I was telling and I was explaining that sending to another country was more expensive and took more time to arrive than to same country address, that they pass customs bla bla... But she didn't got it and asked "but what do you mean? New Mexico is in America" and I was in shock but understood the misunderstanding and said "no honey, I'm from Mexico, the country" and she wasn't catching it and was getting mad until she said "but you speak English so you live in America, is another Mexico in America that's not new Mexico?" Oh god, i was in shock! I was explaining her that English was my second language and I learned it in school, but i speak Spanish then she started to ask me if I was mocking her because why would I speak 2 languages and why English would be taught as a second language in school because it was always Spanish or french and i explained "we speak Spanish by default in Mexico, so we are taught English, is like reversed" and after like 1 hours of nonbeliving she just dropped it "but you are white! You can't speak Spanish! People will cancel you! Stop saying you are Mexican, they'll think you are racist" and i said "honey! You saying Mexicans are all browns and can only speak Spanish IS racist!" And she started to cry because she didn't wanted to say nothing racist and i had her all night explaining how the Spanish conquer brought to their colonies all sorts of mixed races and after WWII a bunch of refugees came too and also mixed with people living here so latin America is full of diversity from African, asian, native, Europeans, Arabics and more and more history.
The next day she told me her mom said i was a gaslighting bitch and to never talk to her again bc Mexicans are all drug dealers and i was just trying to get her addicted xD
bottom line: don't deal with incorrigible idiots.
😂😂😂😂😂😂
There's no cure for that kind of stupid, smh
Ok, well, that one at the end.... wow
Your friend is fitting better into the world than her mother. Hope for the future.
A lot of people refer to us Scots as 'Scotch' and it drives us mad. A friend of mine has a great answer for anyone who asks him if he's Scotch. He replies with "No, I'm Bacardi and Coke" 😭
@@Mex1c070 At 85 he's earned the right to call us what he wants - well within reason 🙂
Well with what Sturgeon is doing at the moment you could "identify" as being a scotch :-)
The Second Lady got some damn eyebrows lol
@@TicketyBoo. no mate regardless of age it is the wrong terminology for a group of people
Scot’s
Scottish
Scotland
WTF part of this de ye no understand ?
@@bobbyscott2123 old people get confused sometimes.
I'm Croatian, a lot of tourists come over through the summer. This didn't happen to me but to a friend who worked as a receptionist in a hotel. He got complaints from the guests at the hotel and some were really unbelievable, the funniest one was:"The sea is too cold here, what can you do about that?"
Help global warming.... does that answer that?😁
Canadian here. A friend owns a B and B. He had an American tiurist ask if they coupd turn down the noise of the ocean, it was keeping him awake.
An American tourist in Bali was staying in a very cheap local inn in a village area and complain about the neighborhood's roosters noises every morning (it's common for every house to own a rooster and several hens and chicks, sometimes even goats) to the point making a petition to the village leader to remove them 🤣 He only got warning despite the locals demand him to be deported tho. It's weird when not only a foreigner but a broke one as well thought they could demand the locals to change to accomodate for him and him alone
My husband and I was walking g around Florence in Italy looking a all the amazing architecture when these two American ladies behind us started saying "There is so much history here, I wonder if the pilgrim s came here before they came to the states!!!"
my husband and I where literally crying with laughter.
Keep them coming JT.
Omg 😂😂😂 from the Netherlands btw
I was in Rome a few years ago visiting the Colosseum. There was a group of American tourists next to me, we were all looking at the Colosseum and I heard one of them say to the other "did these guys never finish building anything here?" 😩
@@Swooshez90 Hahaha. I gues
Recently had a conversation with a man on Facebook. He said that English should be called American because only people in Britain speak british English and everyone else speaks American English. An Australian, a Canadian, a South African and Singaporean person all backed me up to say that was a huge over generalisation and that most native speakers speak what is essentially more like British English. He wouldn’t back down. A German and a French person even tried to tell him that they learn both, and use British English for academic and business English, but he was adamant that we were wrong.
English is the dumbest language ever!! Just let the Americans have it and we can have something that makes more sense.
@TedbundyPlaysCallOfDuty I know. It is so illogical. The day changes , while the month and year remain constant for sometime. So why would I need to know the month first.
a french wil never back up a british but if they have an american in front of them.after that...truce is done and burried..
@N7 that gets to me aswell. It should be smallest to largest (day/month/year)
@@lightfootpathfinder8218 or largest tp smallest (year-month-day) - in ISO format - as that way when sorting dates (as text) they are in chronological order
At a thanksgiving dinner in the US I was asked "do British people celebrate 4th July?" I replied "Yes, but we call it 'independence from the US day'". Looking at the mess your country is in, I think we dodged a bullet. No pun intended.
I had an American friend ask me that as well. I'm from Sweden.
He was offended when I said no. Same thing happened with Thanksgiving (like, why would we celebrate it with some of the things that happened?)
Then I turned it on him asking if he was gonna celebrate on June 6th (National Day of Sweden). He said no, obviously, so I got to act mock offended.
At least he understood afterwards.
An American asked me where in Africa is Jamaica? I asked him where did he think Africa was. He said “Asia somewhere”. I said do you know how big Africa is?” He said “Is it bigger than Texas?” I asked him his job. He said he was a school teacher!!!
explains a lot 🤦🏼
Not surprised
I really hope he was the PE teacher
@@PizzaLord geography
My head just exploded!
I'm Australian btw. I remember when I was in high school we had American exchange students and they had no idea that milk comes from cows. Had one come up to me and ask if milk comes from cows then how do you get choc milk? I was like it's simple. We just feed them chocolate.
Lol yup I love spreading the false info myself, had an American man in his 50’s asked me if we have cars in Jamaica 🇯🇲 I told him no that we walk or ride donkeys lol I want him to got tell all his friends that until somebody who has some sense correct him.
Ha! I had the same thing I was asked if we had pet cheetahs, I said absolutely! Duh africa doesn't have cars 🙄
@@jaiuchiha6191 American ignorance, the gift that keeps on giving.
nah mate, milk comes from cartons... oat milk, haven't found a a oat with tits yet? almond milk, do almonds breast feed?
I told an American that cricket was played on horseback.
I have an American aunt.
Some of her acquaintances in Texas repeatedly stated I was a "communist" as I, a Brit, called our own NHS a great institution.
It IS a great institution, and I hope you keep it.
Thank god. Just yesterday an American man had a heart attack 1 week in hospital and his care $150,000 nope no way I don't have that kind of money thank god it's free in Australia
@@louisestevenson5102But it's not free to foreigners though unless they paid there one off payment
@@ORDEROFTHEKNIGHTSTEMPLAR13 Why should it be free to foreigners ? The money for the NHS comes from the taxpayer, that's why it's `free` to people of the UK.
@@ORDEROFTHEKNIGHTSTEMPLAR13In Brazil, where I live (I'm Chilean), the public health system is free for locals and foreigners.
I’m from New Zealand and was teaching in Fortworth for a week and someone asked where I was from so I told them... they then proceeded to speak horrendously broken Spanish to me... turns out they thought New Zealand was in South America, which I could overlook, NZ being a small island nation... however, when I corrected them they argued with me as if I didn’t know where my own country was 🤷🏽♂️
😭
@@misanthrophex Too complimentary.
You should have thrown some Te Reo at them Bro
“They argued with me…”
That is SO American
Definitely not a Rugby fan!!😁😁
My best friend was Black Irish. I just want to let people know what that actually means, The term “black Irish” refers to persons of Irish descent who are supposed to be descendants of the Spanish Armada, which sailed around the middle of the 15th century, and had dark hair and or eyes. The term is used among people of Irish descent and sometimes confuses people since it doesn't refer to dark skin color.
Do you use "saucy as a black" to refer to someone rude? Because "black" there is "black Protestant", so called because their Protestantism blackened their souls. Lol.
Samantha Mumba ("The Time Machine") has a Nigerian father and an Irish mother: she gas an Irish passport so she really is Black Irish.
@@wfcoaker1398 Didn't know that. (I'm 73 - still lots to learn, I see.)
@@TREVASLARK I'm 60! At least, I've been around the sun 60 times, I guess. My knees and hips have kept the tally of those years, I've had better things to do.I don't know about you, but I think I'm 23 till I have to stand up or move and my knees and hips suddenly get old and grumpy! But it's actually been fun having hair the colour that invalidates your opinion. And it is soooo cool to be the quirky old guy who puts a smile on the faces of the young cashiers and waiters. I am an old antiKaren, and the garden in which I used to grow my "f÷^/s" has been paved over. It's amazing what you get away with when your hair is grey! Lol
@@wfcoaker1398 Really true !! - As an old(er) 😁- lady, I'm doing all sorts of things I would never have dared to do when younger. You wouldn't believe them if I told you !
Two days ago, my 30- year- old nephew asked me if I felt "young". And I said - "Yes, absolutely. I feel like I'm 20 all the time, except for when my medical problems flare up ."
That's not a bad thing , is it ??
I worked as a waiter at a resort in Australia. I was once asked where the sun came up, so I pointed over the hills and said, "Just over there." To which she responded, "But what direction is that?"
When I lived in Edinburgh, one of my friends overheard some Americans expressing how thoughtful it was to build Edinburgh Castle so near the train station, so they didn't have to walk far to get to it!?!
For some reason, your Edinburgh story reminded me of Eddie Izzard and his take on our (USA's) notion of history and time, "50 years ago! No One Was ALIVE Then!" hahahahaha!
For the direction of where the sun rises story, I'm certain it is because so many of us don't understand how globes and hemispheres work, so everything is subject to being changed on us. Instead of us realizing that it is our motion relative to the sun's position that causes our difference in dates and seasons, AND keeps our directions the same, we'll think, "It's a different day, and a different season, so the directions are going to be different, too."
As a USian, I apologize to the world.
@@keepdancingmariaso you dont learn it in School? We in Germany have a Poem that every child knows!
Im Osten geht die Sonne auf, im Süden nimmt sie ihren Lauf.
Im Westen will sie untergehen, im Norden ist sie nie zu sehen.
(The Sun rises in the East, travels through the South. She goes down in the West, you never see her in the North.)
@@anyathepanther7977 I learned in school, but when I was in school, decades ago, teachers weren't afraid to teach science. Now, if they teach science in a school district that won't allow it, they can lose their jobs. Also, I don't know if students are learning what they are told. I'm not connected to current education.
I want to add, that too many families are choosing to school at home, not to teach the children well, but to avoid the children learning facts that conflict with the parents' religion.
We are a mess.
My little story I have that can relate to this was when I was working in a Restaurant in Edinburgh (UK). American said "Your city is beautiful, There is one thing I don't get though..." I decided to play along "What is that then?" I ask. American "Well... I am an urban planner back home...So I have a bit of experience... but I really can't beleive that the urban planner in Edinburgh decided it was such a good idea to build the Castle right next to the train station." I opened my mouth to respond and decided to stay quiet and just walk away! Edinburgh Castle started to get built in around the 11th century.... 800-900 years ago! First passenger train.... 1825.... What came first then do you think!
Amercan responds
Just a sec, i'll check on Google
that explains why their infrastructure sucks then...
You should have told him : ' Why don't you ask the man himself, he's here every Thursday for a brew..'
YThis is a very recent one - like last week. In an online discussion, a couple of the candidates were talking about visiting York - it's only about thirty or so miles from me. One guy said that York in the UK must have been named after New York in the USA. Everyone told him it was the other way around. Even when somebody showed him an article saying that York (UK) has been in existence since 71AD when no white person even knew that the American continent even existed. NOPE - he wasn't having it, even when someone explained that the clue was in the name "NEW" York as opposed to the original old York.
It's one thing not knowing and being ignorant. It's a whole new level of stupid if you're literally shown the facts and still deny it. That must have been frustrating and hilarious.
And to think that New York was once called New Amsterdam… that information must be even more difficult for this person… 😅🤣🤣
There's a place near me (NE UK) called New York, it's named after the American New York.
@@MrScottev I've heard of the New York in Lincs, near RAF Coningsby, but I didn't know there was one in the Northeast. Where is it, and how come it's named after NYC?
@@tonycasey3183 it's in North Tyneside and it had something to do with Britain taking control of New York.
I've been asked by an American if we have polar bears in Finland. Just not to spoil a good story with real facts, I told him yes, but they normally eat penguins. He was happy with that answer.
This one I heard from a Colombian but I was asked if Finland was the country where it rains gypsum during winter. Now THAT would require some extra sisu :D
But you do have Polar bears
@@vesaseppala5260 I thought because the top of Finland is close to the Arctic circle I thought you "might" have them. We only have penguins
@@vesaseppala5260 cool. We're as hot as balls but have lots of penguins and seals, oddly enough it's because our sea water is very cold.
@@MadhavanMenonisaindian Nope. The closest would be Svalbard, 500km. north from our north border.
When my wife and I were at the airport flying back from New York, we were getting some coffee and donuts. We casually mentioned to the person serving us that we were using up our dollars so we didn't have to exchange them when we got home. She was confused and asked "don't you use dollars in Britain?" This wouldn't have been such a big deal if she hadn't said she had a trip booked to London for her birthday that year.
I’m not surprised because I ve seen Americans trying to pay with US dollars here in Europe
@@missnesi4525 There's also the people who try and go to the Alaskan bureau de change when they're from Indiana or Florida. "we need alaskan money." There's a US flag on the Post Office, you think that would give it away.
I am Swedish and lived in the US for 7 years. I could probably write a book about all the strange weird questions the the Americans asked me. Often it was about geography. Where is Sweden? It's in northern Europe. Once I got the question "where is Europe?" Another really stupid, in my mind, question that I got was "aren't you afraid to live so close to Russia?" I dragged that person to a large world map and pointed out where Alaska is and how really close it is to Russia from there! Do you celebrate 4th of July? Do you celebrate Thanksgiving? 😂😂😂😂😂😂 I knew I would never let my son attend school there, sorry! At my work I constantly had to help my American born co-workers ask me how to spell and phrase letters.
Write the book. Make it a comedy. You'll make a small fortune 💸
@@breezy3392 I proably would ha ha
Working with Scottish tourism years ago, I often simply gave up on Americans who simply couldn't grasp why Thanksgiving isn't celebrated in the UK.
A common response was, "Why not? Don't you have any patriotism at all?!"
@@jackwaycombe patriotism 🤣🤣
but we can't deny the fact that they are by far the most entertaining people on earth. Whether its good or bad,they are so addictively entertaining.
1:35 oh yes, I have seen that coming. I‘m German and I work for a big German company as a commissioning engineer and installation supervisor. We installed a lot of our stuff in the USA and I never had a problem with people understanding that I am German. They always were really nice: „Oh, I am German, too….“ - „Ach echt? Wo kommst Du her?“ - „ Nononono… I don‘t speak German, but my Greatgrandfather came from there.“ - „Ah, ok.“
After some time another German colleague came to site. He was born as a German citizen in Duisburg, grew up and lived there all his life, married a nice (and actually blond) German girl. But coincidentally his parents had immigrated to Germany from Vietnam 15 years or so before his birth. He cannot even speak Vietnamese well.
People on site were really nice to him at first. Then they asked him, where he was from. His reply „I‘m German“ really confused them completely.
An American can have German roots or Vietnamese roots, they would not have cared at all, both would have been fine for them. But a German having Vietnamese roots? no, that cannot be.
I realized that to most Americans American is the only nationality they really understand, everything els is not really a nationality, but an origin. A Vietnamese American, now that they can cope with. But a Vietnamese German somehow challenges their reception of reality and they go into immediate denial. As if they had seen a 9 ft tall werewolf (2.75 m for the rest of the world).
as an american once said: "not all americans are stupid, but if we do it, we do it very well."
Poor people.
*_That's_* some good old fashion patriotism!
I thought that was said by the young Kenyan who was paired with the Haitian kid at School.
The dumbest thing an American said to me was along the lines of .... 'what religion are you?' I merely told them I am a Muslim, to which they replied 'but your from Wales and you're white' so I asked them back what's your religion and they said Roman Catholic, so I merely replied 'But you're not from Rome so you can't be a Roman catholic'......
That Uno reverse spun them right out 😁😂😂
Did they actually get the point you were making?
@@breezy3392 Yeah they did surprisingly. I still chat with them online to this day, we are actually quite good friends now 🙂
Surprised they knew that Wales is a country.
@@geraintwd they may have only known about Wales caus they knew me 🤣🤣🤣
My compliments !
I think the most significant thing I could say about this topic is that when I was in high school I participated to an exchange program with a school in the USA, and my class ( 14-15 years old kids ) were paired with 17-18 years old kids because our school programs were similar.
But actually it was not. It was too easy.
I'm German, and I visited the US (California) after I finished school in 1990. Three questions that made my jaw drop: Did we have electricity, did children ride horses to school and was Hitler still in power?
And yes, I know that's not all Americans, I apologize to the ones that get thrown in with these examples.
Edit: typo
I wonder why she equates horses to Germany?
@@Llama_charmer That was the same person asking whether we had electricity, so they probably assumed we didn't have cars, trains or buses either. ;) Everybody outside the US living in caves. :D
@@Panbaneesha hah imagine being that foolish. Anyway im off to gather water from the well!
@@Llama_charmer Good luck, don't fall in. I'm wittling arrows, so I can hunt for my dinner later. ;).
You should've said yes to Hitler being in charge just to mess with them
The dumbest thing an American said to me, is when I told him that I'm from Kazakhstan he replied: "What? Such counries exist?" I was baffled and flabbergasted. Turns out he's not even aware of the whole middle Asia region's existence
The geography questions that come up in these videos and these comment sections are things I could answer by age 10, smh.
Jamaican btw
Most Americans think that any country that ends in 'stan' was conquered by them ten years ago.
I'd imagine people think Kazakhstan is fictional because of Borat.
Сказала бы "бери книгу географии и читай"
It is called central Asia now. Middle Asia is a direct translation from Russian, nobody except Russians call it middle.
I first questioned the quality of my daughter’s education when my brother told her he was moving to Pennsylvania and she excitedly responded, “Oooooh, vampires!” 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
me....laughing in transylvanian with the fangs out😆
Imagine if the two were actually transposed - Pennsylvania has vampires and Transylvania has... Tran State University????
@@geraintwd Actually there are some prestigious universtities in Trasylvania, in Cluj Napoca and Brasov
@@draculakickyourass for sure, and if Penn State wasn't immediately the first thing that popped into my head, that is associated with Pennsylvania, then I'd have used something other than educational institutions in my hypothetical foreign exchange scenario.
😁
I live in London and I am on a few London travel tips pages as I am happy to help people navigate our public transport and generally assist, a lot of Americans come on looking for help or offering advice after their visit, most are not dumb but more than once an American has posted their summary tips including not to worry about the language barrier, everyone speaks English!
Lol. In 🇨🇦 I’m used to multiple bus routes sharing the same stop. Fighting jet lag, I was not able to bend my mind around multiple train routes using the same stop. In the rush to get on a train before it leaves the station I have accidentally taken an express train to the airport. And in the underground, took a train on the wrong colour line to a different section of London entirely.
Jet lag scrambles brains. So even crossing at traffic lights can be dangerous for a Canadian in the UK. (The red don’t walk symbol is a person... but the red degrading to a washed-out muddy red made me think the light was white with rust stains... so I thought it was saying walk instead of don’t walk. Fortunately the drivers refrained from mowing me down. (Fast drivers in Glasgow or Edinburgh. I can’t recall which city.)
We all can have moments of stupidity... but more so when 8 time zones (or more) have been crossed. Which is why tourists are often targeted by criminals. Vulnerability.
Thank you. You've given me some respite from my depression over American stupidity.
I really love these dumb American videos. I'm from the Netherlands and had an American tourist ask me why nobody was wearing wooden shoes. I told him we only wear them on workdays.
I just love the stupidity gullibility combination 😂
yeah...same here in germany....every US tourist wonders why nobody is wearing Dirndl and Lederhosen ...like Germany is everywhere like Bavaria.
A good 1/4th of Australian culture is just lying to tourists and gullible outsiders about our country. But 3/4ths of said tourists and gullible outsiders are USAmericans. We love those research-averse idiots.
Geweldig 😅😅 They still think we live in the 1800
Wodden shoes aka Clogs 🤓
The wikipedia page gives "Klompen" as an example of clogs.
Clog as a word has other meanings:
1) impediment/encumbrance
2) block
Nooo, that's just ignorance! You didn't have to do them like that 😢
My husband (British) travelled to the USA often for work. One evening he was chatting to a supermarket cashier as she heard his accent. When he came to pay in cash, she was astounded that the UK also had the dollar! She then said that she wanted to travel around all the European states like London, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, etc. He patiently explained that they were all different countries with different languages, cultures, history. I'm not sure what she imagined.
Im from the UK and spent year in New Zealand. Was working in a restaurant at the time and some American woman noticed my accent and asked ‘ Are you from England?’ Yes I said. To which she replied ‘OMG can you speak some English?’ 😶🤣🤣
You were being trolled
Crikey old chum I ain't got time got me fish and chips to scran.
I had a few funny encounters myself in the days I travelled the US, but was more incredulous about hearing an American on a clip criticise a girl on the news getting shot because she didn't zigzag when running away like she was taught in school. She didn't understand that this girl in different country didn't get taught that in school because they don't have school shootings like the States because guns were not commonly available. She thought this was a normal thing for school and taught everywhere in the world. Even when explained to her, she still looked confused.
There's a lot to choose from. I am from Norway, and spent a year as an exchange student in Oklahoma. For some reason, several of my classmates wondered if we had electricity and running water. Most thought Norway was located in one state or another, mostly Texas for some reason. When I tried to explain, Scandinavia was a dead end, but most people knew Sweden. So from then on I was Swedish. Which is a deadly insult to a Norwegian (not really, but also kinda). Some wondered if we had polar bears roaming the streets and if it was dangerous to be outside because of that. One person actually knew about Norway, which was a pleasant surprise, but almost immediately asked if we still went on Viking raids?! I mean, I'm happy you know about Norway, but that was almost 1000 years ago.
Me and my partner were camping in North Wales. One night were in a local pub were we got taking to an American couple. The woman asked why the Welsh language was mainly composed of consonants. I told her that hundreds of years ago there was a war between the Welsh and the Irish, in which the Irish were beating the Welsh. As a compromise the Welsh agreed that the Irish could have most of their vowels. Her response was ' That's amazing,
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
That's my head canon now.
This is Aussie level shit-stirring and I am here for it.
God, I love it!
I remember speaking to some locals in a non-touristy bar in NYC around 15 years ago, and one of them was amazed that we had the internet in Scotland.... and another was annoyed that I didnt know his Aunt as she was from Scotland too! That one night taught me all I needed to know about the American education system lol! I have been to the states many times, but those guys will live long in the memory lol!
we have some people like the aunt one in the UK i was in the army in the REME which at the time was 16,000 strong and a lady asked if i knew her nephew as he was in the REME also.
Ask them if they know some random relative of yours living in whatever state they're from, and then get huffy when they say no. Maybe it will sink in ... or maybe not
I’ve been on both sides of this. I’ve had people ask me if I know 1 specific individual of the 33M people in my country. I’ve also asked people if they know someone I know from their country too... because the coolness factor of unlikely connections overwhelmed me emotionally. So. Now I get the attempt to connect with someone you like can make you foolish.
im from germany. a friend of mine worked for 3 years in the us and came back married with a child. i have talked to his wife a lot. and she is sometimes a little naive. but she realized for herself, that it was stupid, when in school, she and most of her friends all thought "why should i learn this? it doesnt concern me..." while sitting in school during history/geography/etc classes. and she said, in hindsight, she should have learned. but while growing up in the us, it just didnt matter...
As a Brit for me. In Cancun, I politely chatted to a drunk Texan man in the hotel pool. He could not believe I could fly to Mexico. He started shouting to his family “guys, this guys from England, can you believe that?” Same holiday, I was talking to my friend in the hotel reception and an American couple asked each other “what language are these guys speaking?”. I politely turn round and said “English”. At work my US colleagues often ask what I’m doing for July 4th. 😂
A divorce party maybe? I mean, if you wanted an excuse for a party! Haha
When I lived in the US (I'm Australian) some of my colleagues were amazed to hear that we didn't celebrate the 4th of July in Australia. Why would Australians celebrate it? It has nothing to do with us 😂😂
@@chriskelly9476 Chris, mate - I get this every year, it’s July 4th. God kill me America, just please. T
If I was asked,,doI celebrate the 4 th of July, I would reply, Definately. 🙄😂
As them what they're doing on 5th November.
So, I am from Canada. I did my master's degree in the US. In preparation to move, I thought I should find out if there was any paperwork I needed to have for my cat, as he was coming with me. I thought I'd call the ASPCA to find out since they might know or be able to point me in the right direction. The woman on the phone told me I didn't need any paperwork as I was moving INTERSTATE. I had to then explain to her that Canada was, in fact, its own country.
I once witnessed an American student trying to convince our professor in international law that U.S laws was applicable in other countries because they had been "voted for in Congress."
How can you study at a university, in a class named International law, in a foreign country and believe this? He couldn't accept being wrong either.
I'm from the UK and while i was in Florida an American told me he had an aunt who lived in Italy and then said her name and asked if i knew her. He looked at me strange when i said Italy was a 4 hour flight away from where i live.
JT, this is why the British celebrate Independence Day - it was a lucky escape.
We don't celebrate independence day
@@andrewbragg504 Whoosh
@@PedroConejo1939 Straight over the top with that one LOL
@@PedroConejo1939 Al Murray was correct 🤣
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
During government class in high school in Merica, we were divided into groups based on which political candidate we supported. One group came up with a solution to the National Debt. They said a certain billionaire candidate should donate his billions to completely pay off the national debt. I tried to explain to the group that the National Debt was in the trillions, and billions would not cover the National Debt, but they couldn't understand it, no matter how many times I explained it. The teacher didn't understand it either, or was happy to let me explain it. It was a "National School of Excellence". I'd hate to see the other schools that weren't "Excellent".
I was a flight attendant for the Australian airline .and I was chatting to an American lady towards the end of a LAX SYD sector and she said " well I had a great flight but why there are dinosours on everything? I mustve looked puzzled and she pointed to her tv sceen and said look! another dinosour" as she pointed to the Kangaroo on the airline livery😅
So being an Aussie myself, the temptation of replying with, "I drove here, why I had to fill her up", would have been too much for me to hold back ;)
Ya. I was thinking even IF they could somehow build such a bridge spinning Australia with the U.S. you could only drive a fraction of the length of it before running out of fule.
Lol I’d of said I drove … absolutely
My first encounter with Americans happened when I was about 10 years old. I was picking wild strawberries near the highway, not far from home, when a camper stopped and a teenage boy walked up to me and asked where all the snow and igloos are. I must have had a very confused look on my face, and I told him to keep driving north. He told me his family is from US. It was summer in Nova Scotia.
You mean the US--Canadian border doesn't change the climate? Hahahaha.
I used to drive an open top double decker tour bus in London. One day I was asked, by an American tourist, "Why do your pedestrian crossings make a beeping noise?" I told him "That's so blind people know when the lights have changed." and his response was " Gee, you let blind people drive?"
🤦🤣🤣
I are'nt having that, acon face, ya'v just made it up, surely ?
@@blackbob3358 To be fair, ive seen plenty of stories in this comment section far worse than that one and im not sure to beleive em
This is the best comment, by far!😂
@@blackbob3358it's likely true. Thick folk exist everywhere... I had a learner in the car about to go in for her test. There was an obbiously deaf candidate with a signing intrtpreter going in the office.
To reassure my candidate I mentioned the fact and how much tougher it must be than for her. Then I asked just how much harder it must be if someone was blind... She fell for it. About to take a test with no wits about her at all.
I was working with an American carpenter in the 70s he asked me to cut a piece of wood two eights shorter I returned and said " I have cut a quarter of an inch off " and he replied " I said two eights " 🤣🤣🤣
Yes, but you forget that in America "two eighths" is "one sixteenth", so you cut it three sixteenths too long - or something.
@@keithtaylor3347 two eighths is four sixteenths dummy
I'll admit you had me going there for a minute. I often work with rough milled lumber that comes in thicknesses such as five quarter or nine quarter so you can finish them into 1" or 2" thick, so being told to take off 2/8ths I would have planed an 1/8 from each side.
When I was a little kid, I remember my father coming back from a business trip to the US saying that when he got to his room, the bloke that helped with the luggage showed him around the room and mentioned this fantastic device called a fridge that keeps drinks and food cold and was gobsmacked when he said we'd had them for a very long time.
• European people
You’re on an American made website (RUclips), you use American made social media, American made internet and you’re probably using an American made phone (Apple) unless you’re using a laptop or computer which was also American made.
Your country listens to American music, follows American trends, culture and celebrities, copies how Americans dress and American slang, American abbreviations like “Lol” “Lmao” “omw” and you wear American made clothes, always copying American style The highlight of non American youths (probably whole life) is when Americans artists, American concerts and festivals come to perform in other countries. I know you hate to admit it but the world knows how much America has carried humanity.
IN ONLY 244 YEARS AMERICANS HAVE ACCOMPLISHEDz
1.) became our planets world power.
2.) landed on the moon and lead humanity in space travel science and technological advances.
3.) Americans invented.
Inventions by Country 2023
The United States
The U.S. is the hub of all innovative inventions. Most new technology was invented in America -- from personal computers, lasers, mobile phones, video games, photocopiers, and even the internet.
Other inventions from the U.S. include hearing aid, micro-ovens, steamboats, submarines, refrigerators, telegraphs, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, cash registers, electric cookers, electronic TV, credit cards, air conditioners, and much more.
Source: worldpopulationreview
Here is an overview of inventions by country for the top ten most inventive countries in the world as of 2022, focusing on inventions that have been fundamental in shaping modern society.
1. The United States
2. Japan
3. South Korea
4. Germany
5. Taiwan
6. China
7. France
8. United Kingdom
9. Canada
10. India
Source: worldpopulationreview
Nobel Prizes by Country 2023
First issued in 1901, the Nobel Prize is one of the highest honors a person can receive in their lifetime. The Nobel Prize was founded by Swedish engineer, inventor, and chemist Alfred Nobel, whose will established the Nobel Foundation and directed that the prizes be awarded annually "to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Nobel further instructed that "no consideration be given to nationality, but that the prize be awarded to the worthiest person, whether or not they are Scandinavian."
Nobel Prizes are awarded in five areas: peace, literature, physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine. In 1969, an additional prize, titled the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" (SRPESMAN), was established by Sweden's central bank and has been incorporated into the Nobels as well.
Here are the 10 countries with the most Nobel Prize winners:
1. United States - 400
2. United Kingdom - 137
3. Germany - 111
4. France - 71
5. Russia - 32
6. Sweden - 32
7. Japan - 29
8. Canada - 28
9. Switzerland - 27
10. Netherlands - 22
Source: worldpopulationreview
We built America from the ground up and accomplished all of this in only 244 years.
We took the world out of the dark ages and we are literally the reason humanity is so modern. Every other country in the world hasn’t accomplished shit there’s no comparison when it comes to America and the world knows that, that’s why they wish they could live with us.
I don’t know why European people feel the need to impress us Americans or try and prove themselves to us or try so hard to make themselves noticed by us Americans or try to make themselves feel better by trying to downplay humanities greatest nation… Americans are obviously elite in everything that we do. You guys don’t realize how embarrassing you are to Americans. Americans laugh when little European people try and call americans stupid knowing americans literally are the reason why the world has advanced. Now imagine life before America existed?
You’re welcome.
Americans carry humanity so how you gonna hate from outside of the club? YOU CANT EVEN GET IN 😂 🇺🇸
I’m just glad my ancestors moved to “the new world” and I’m not still stuck in Europe because I can’t blame you guys. I’d be mad and probably hate on Americans too knowing I got left behind and could’ve been born in America instead. 😭😂
I know you hate to hear it but we all know Europe youth secretly wishes they lived in America so they could go to Travis Scott shows and experience “the American dream…” like the rest of the world does.
So yeah Europeans, you definitely do copy us lol.
like the rest of the world does, it’s funny you all “hate” Americans until you meet one then you’re all asking us all about America and what it’s like to live here complimenting us non stop lol.
(by the way that was so wild that some of you say Americans copy the Europe? copy WHAT exactly? Gross haha gross haha never! 🤮 You guys are like a lame weird boring wannabe version of us. Americans been trendsetters but you already knew that lol.
We also think of those corny ass wannabe gangsters you guys have in the Europe who TRY to copy American rap and throw up American gang signs. 😂
Like boy sit yo crumpet eating, king and queen having, European accent having ass down you ain’t no blood 🩸there’s nothing funnier than seeing videos of European wannabes with European accents throwing up American gang signs trying to act like he’s from LA and even wearing Lakers jerseys lol see? Even your lame ass rappers and wannabe gangsters straight up copy us too.
Corny asses I wish you could see yourselves through our eyes. 😭🤣 You probably live in the EU with crooked teeth in your moms basement, cope harder, the U.S. is one of the most technologically innovative countries, if not the most, the EU have been irrelevant for over a century. Good for you, you all are irrelevant with crooked teeth, I promise you we don’t like you guys either, as well as many other parts of the world, very snobby arrogant people with a superiority complex even though you haven’t been irrelevant since ww2, when one of EU’s countries kinda killed 6 million jews, which the U.S. HELPED LIBERATE!!
I'm Scottish and can relate to that Inverness guy in the video so much. I used to work in tourism, so I've got a ton stories, but these ones stick out:
I live on a loch (a lake), and was asked what time the tide went out at...
I had a guy who wanted to do the whole of Scotland as a daytrip and flipped his lid when I told him he couldn't. Like Scotland is small, but it's not that small!
This guy comes in and asks me if I know Ian from Inverness (it's a city about 4 hours away, I know no-one there). I replied "no, I don't know anyone called Ian who lives there", "are you sure?", "yes", "but it's a small country", "yes but I don't really know anyone up that way", "I think you're lying, Sure you know him", "no". Then he lost his temper.
Also had someone claim I wasn't Scottish because when he asked me to tell him the story of his clan, I didn't know it off the top of my head...
I used to work in the tourist trade in Stirling and one question I always got was ' I want to go to the Highlands this afternoon, what's the best way?'. To which the only sensible answer is 'The Trossachs are nearby but it'll take you a little longer to get to Caithness....'Plus, 'you know we're related to Robert the Bruce, our surname is Bruce.' Good luck proving that one😃. Saying that, when my sister lived in London she was often asked where she came from. She'd reply 'Alloa' and the Londoner would say 'oh, you're Hawaiian then?' (usually when they were drinking in a pub owned by the Alloa Brewery Company with the words 'An Alloa Pub' on the shingle😂).
I'm from South Africa, and while chatting online in a chatroom, the guy asked if we had Internet here. After saying "obviously" he asked how we get it here. He was really under the impression that we still live in the bush with the wildlife.
A lot of the whites I knew in South Africa have their houses in the bush with the wildlife, it is a lot quieter, cleaner and safer than living in a big city or a township.
😵💫
I get the moer in with their stupidity
I was asked if we had lions as pets when I lived in the States. After a while I just said yes.
the rest of the world for them is like 3rd world countries but in the medieval ages...
Story I saw on Facebook by a friend within the past 2 days from Ireland. There were two American tourists on a local service bus, when a group of Spanish children got on the bus. Of course the children were boisterous and loudly talking away in Spanish. One of the Americans piped up and loudly commented they love to hear the local children talking Gaelic.
In an elevator in Las Vegas, my wife and I were talking when a man interrupted us to tell us how he loved the English accent. I said to him that I liked his accent too. He replied that he did not have an accent because he was from Chicago.
I've had two American experiences that couldn't be more different. I served in the AU military and spent some time with USAF - those guys couldn't get over the amount of training and knowledge we had. After the military I went to university, (UQ St Lucia campus) and met the USAF counterparts who were intelligent. It depends on the individual, not all Americans are idiots however the majority of the ones I have spent significant amounts of time with generally were. That's why they get a bad name, the dummies out-number the smart ones.
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
I was at EPCOT, in the Japanese department store. You were able to buy a pearl, taken directly out of an oyster. A whole room full of people watched a short ceremony. The employee opened the oyster and showed everyone watching the pearl inside. An American woman was totally shocked by this. She asked "if that it hurt the oyster?" The employee explained to her that this actually killed the oyster. The woman then demanded that they "restart its brain or something!?"
😂
I mean, at least she was emphatetic and not rude.
@@hungariangiraffe6361 At a risk of sounding incredibly racist, the Japanese department store was, immaculate, quiet and calm. The American woman, was not! She literally shouted her questions aggressively!!!
Do you take your name from the Giraffe's you can feed at Budapest Zoo? its been a while since I have been. Maybe 6 years?
@@Kirkland-rv5jf oh, so she wasn't that nice. I expected too much from someone who didn't know that this will kill the oyster and thought it has a brain.
Btw no, giraffe was pretty much the totem animal of our class in 7th and 8th grade and I'm Hungarian, that's why I've picked this name. Did you like Budapest?
@@hungariangiraffe6361 I love Budapest! I have visited it 8 times from England! My wife and I would visit the zoo and then go to the baths!!
It doesn't get better than that! :-)
Jamaican here. I go to America and people say they like my accent. I had one who complimented me on speaking English so well. I told him English is our language in Jamaica. He got mad/confused, tried to tell me no it's not. I asked him what language he thinks Jamaicans speak... He couldn't answer, like a record scratch on his brain 😂
And no, he wasn't just confusing standard English with creole/patois.
I had a yank try to celebrate the 4th of July with me in a pub in Southern England. That turned out to be "popular" with the locals in the pub, considering just what and who he was trying to celebrate independance from. Sometimes, it is not just the lack of education - sometimes it is the complete arrogance that gets under people's skin. I might do him a favour and go to his hometown and suggest in his local bar that we celebrate the victory in Vietnam or something. Whilst i don't begrudge the USA it's identity and national pride - it would be nice if US citizens recognised other people's as well.
I believe a lot of them think they are recognizing other people's identity and national pride, because they think it is the same. Their identity is the identity of everyone. Their holidays are celebrated everywhere... It isn't true, of course, but they think it is. They live in that kind of bubble.
Whilst living in the US, my oldest children were attending schools inside the Beltway from Mon to Fri. The first weekend home at our house in VA, my son told me some younger bugs at his school were surprised he spoke English so well. Did he speak any other languages in addition to English and British? When he told them he also spoke Kiswahili and Kibukusu, they insisted he'd made up those words! He was 9 at the time, which suggests the bugs (first years) were probably eight.
in the U.S. 8 year olds are usually in grade 3.
@@myopicautisticmetal9035 When I referred to the 8 yr olds being first years, it was because the school he attended only accepted pupils from the age of 8 in junior prep boarding. At 9, my son was enrolled in grade 5, as schools in our home country begin at 5.
Just shows how dumb they are
I’m a Canadian and back in the early 70s, I was attending university for a semester in Poitiers, France with a fellow Canadian student. We met students from Oregon State University who were astounded and refused to believe that our currency was the Canadian dollar. They insisted that dollars were only the currency of the United States and that no other country could have the dollar as its currency as well. They were positively annoyed when we showed them Canadian currency and even more so when we told them that Australia has the Australian dollar and New Zealand has the NZ dollar. They insisted we were fabricating a whole story just to embarrass them. Oy! We couldn’t get over the level of ignorance. 🤦🏼♀️
and what they would do if they told that there are Singapore dollar and Hong Kong dollar???
I’m Australian and have had wonderful online American friends for many years who have never asked me one dumb question. We ask for translation for different terminology or different objects etc and usually crack up laughing in friendship. I’ve made friends with her family and friends, all lovely people and they’ve made friends with my family and friends. I told her to swim on over for a cuppa the other day lol, she lol’d and said, “on my way” lol. We’ve spoken on the phone but now use messenger to send voice msgs. I love hearing her accent, she likes mine. I keep telling her, I don’t have an accent, you do lol. We are still learning things about each other’s countries only when they come up in conversation. We’ve watched each other’s children grow up. My daughter went to USA re work many times over the years, I have about 15 or so key rings from many states in USA. My daughter missed her every time she went as both not being free re weddings, holidays and work. Will we ever meet - who knows, hopefully 😊
In really, really hope you do.
To make you feel better, it's not just Americans! I was in Canada (Toronto) on holiday when I was 16, went to buy something and didn't hear what the lady on the stall said so said "Sorry, I didn't hear you, can you say that again please? (or words to that effect)". She then said "Oh, you don't speak English" and looked away from me. I am English. I know I'm from Newcastle so have a bit of a Geordie accent (mine is pretty mild compared to most from the area) so it's a bit harder to understand but it took me about a minute to convince her I spoke perfectly good English as I'm from there. She did look suitably horrified once she realised her mistake. It was pretty funny at the time as nobody else had had any problems with my accent.
I was once in a meeting with an American on the phone and many other nationalities in the room. The American could understand the Polish, Glaswegian, Dutch, Spanish and German. But she never got a single word I said. I'm Geordie but have quite a mild accent. When I kept speaking clearer and louder she still didn't get any of it, but all of my colleagues were just sitting in stunned silence.
The truth is she probably couldn't understand you and assumed that English was not your native language lol.
I am Canadian and over 60 years old I lived 2 km from the US border. So this happened a long time ago. I was stopped by an American on a July day when I was about 10 years old. Walking home barefoot from the swimming pool it was about 25°C ( 77°F ) asking me and my friends where the snow was. We just started laughing you should have seen the expression of his kids in back seat as to say our parents are idiots. I later thought it was funny that he had no snow tires and it was good that it wasn't snowing.
@Rick Hawkins. I am English, but came to Thunder Bay from US as spring started. The snow disappeared and within a week it was hot, like summer in UK. The strange thing was that you could kick away the topsoil and it was still like ice underneath, though it seemed too far south for permafrost.
On spotting a massive bear, we English jumped straight into the car. Our Canadian host was unconcerned, stating they had them regularly on the family farm as kids. She had previously visited us in UK at Christmas and could not believe just how far north we were, it being dark so early and not light until late.
My relatives used to live near Windsor and work in US. They moved to Vancouver, but when I arrived there, they had just moved up the coast. I found I only just missed them, on my tour of North America, when one later phoned to see how my parents were doing. That city is beautiful and I would not have moved from it, being from a city myself. My timing did seem right though, as I caught someone on roller blades, who was overwise heading for a long fall from a path in Stanley Park.
so many stories of Americans driving over the border with ski racks looking for the snow.
The most dumb thing an american said in front of me , was not having her passport with her on the border between switzerland and france and instead to apologise she actually shouted and said "im am american" well you can imagine where she ended
I' m French . so a few years ago I did an Amtrak tour of the United States . These journeys last several days, so of course you chat a lot with the other passengers, which is what makes travelling by train so interesting and charming, especially when you're travelling alone. I was chatting to a lovely middle-aged lady. I told her that my children were Franco-Brazilian. She asked me if my children also spoke Spanish. A bit surprised , I told her that Brazilians speak Portuguese. And she replied: "What do you mean? The Portuguese speak Spanish, don't they?
I had a hard time swallowing my laughter but she was too nice to take the risk of offending her ...
Oh dear Lord. As an American may I say that not all of us are that stupid. A great many of us do pay attention, know our geography, are thoughtful and polite. Sorry world, you've seen the worst of us.
Take comfort in the only reason it's allowed is because you're American you can take it. It's not considered punching down. So in a way it's a compliment, some of the nations out there you can't even mimic the accent.
You ain't seen nothing yet if a certain character gets back in office.
An American university student asked my friend where he’s from (he’s Spanish). When he said he was Spanish, the guy said ‘yeah, I know, but what country are you from’? My friend repeated he was Spanish a couple more times and the guy got really angry and asked if he was from Mexico. My friend then told him he was from Spain and the guy had no clue that Spain was a country or where it was.
My husband was in the US Army and we were in Germany. I learned to count to 10 and a courtesy phrases. I could point out and tell them how many. If it got too complicated they would switch to English. Some other Americans kept saying but they speak English! True but we are in THEIR country. Be polite!
Thank you for trying to learn our complicated ass language!
@Anthony ih I wish I was there
@@kariissmol9172 It IS a complicated ass language.
I happily (or stupidly) speak "German" despite having had only one lesson
(the French teacher was ill, so I went to German class instead).
I once tried to tell a story beginning with my mother
(who spoke German like a German and also Dutch,
and to whose chagrin I never learned German;
however, whenever I said something smart,
she said: "Das hat schon Goethe gesagt.")
standing outside her workplace waiting for the bus.
I have learned from reading German texts
(I am Swedish, so I actually get some of what I read)
that Betrieb can mean some kind of business,
so I said: Meine Mutter war ausser Betrieb.
(Hysterical laughter ensued.)
You can't blame a girl for trying!
Even at 4 years old I learned basic German phrases and my address and my Sergeant dad's contact number on base. Most of us did. Our parents did even more. They claimed it was basic decency. Although some families didn't bother, to their own loss and often urgent difficulties too.
Even now 59 years later I can tell when English subtitles say something subtly different on German movies and TV dramas.
@@mademoiselledusfonctionell1609In Bulgarian I tried to talk about a dog and kept mispronouncing the word, without realising that my constant referral, (in the crude vernacular), to prostitutes was causing the tears and hilarious head shaking going on around me.
But my attempts at pigeon Bulgarian always won me friends there.
I don't think they teach geography in the US. Period.
They might teach where the oil is
They think America IS the whole world and universe.
ESClad. I don't think they teach ANYTHING that is not U.S. based in the U.S, full stop!
True, but they don't study history either, and they study it poorly.
Some of us know about the outside world. However honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the typical person in North Korea actually knows more about the outside world then 1/2 of U.S. adults. Which of course is sad
My mom was a nurse when I was younger. At the time we lived in Colorado. She had one of her co-workers come to our house to drop off her dog so I could groom the dog. My parents started talking about vacation. She piped up and said she was has always wanted to drive to Hawaii. I gave my dad a very confused look, he just shook his head. I sat there thinking to myself, I can’t believe this lady is a nurse!
I once had an American asking me where I was from because my accent was cute. I told him that I'm from Sweden and he went:
"Oh! I know Sweden! I went to Berlin two years ago!" I
looked at him and went: "Berlin is in Germany."
He went: "Oh... so you're German?"
I just smiled at him and said: "Yeah... I'm German."
I like how you instantly gave up 😂😂😅, you knew it was a lost cause 😂
A Belgian coworker of mine helped an old lady carry her bags in the US; She asked him where he was from (he had an accent) and then said "Oh yes, my niece went to Belize last year!"
@@mgparis Well, in all fairness , THAT could have been a problem of hearing loss.
I got my American sister-in-law an expensive silk sari as a wedding gift. She liked it a lot and wore it for her after-wedding party, receiving many compliments from her family and friends. Only her eldest brother didn't look too happy. Later he came to me and asked if I or my family expected his sister to dress in traditional Indian dresses after the wedding. I was tempted to pull his leg; with a straight face I said it was up to her to decide. Mind you, this happened in St Louis, Missouri. What is funnier is that another brother and sister-in-law as well as a cousin were guests at the wedding and both the ladies were wearing very elegant and formal Western outfits.
Ah... I have hundreds of stories to share but one similar to that of Janine Adriana in the comments. I am a language teacher, I speak 7 languages fluently and I am studying another two, because I like languages, some like to compose music, others collect plants, well I like to learn languages, and believe it or not, it is common among Mexicans, especially from my city. The point is that this pleasure opened up a world for me and I started as a teacher, my native language is Spanish, I am from Mexico and I have very very white skin. I worked at Preply during 2020 (I do not recommend them, they steal your money, your biometric data, your personal information, they put spyware on your computer, and when you stop working with them you have to have it cleaned completely to prevent them from continuing to get involved in your life, not to mention that they let the students freely sexually harass the teachers, and do nothing, because they pay money to Preply, but since you as a teacher get paid, you are useless to them, they have to defend the one who pays)
The point is that I don't like to put my photo on social networks but in preply they force you as a teacher to upload a photograph of yourself (unfair because the student is never forced to do anything in preply, not even respect you, and you don't know what kind of person or pervert you are dealing with until you have them face to face) I had several American students and most of them gave pity, entitled ignorant and racist. They were supposed to learn from me, but they wanted to teach me my own language. The point is that a stupid recurring line when we finally got online for the first time was "Oh my gosh I can't believe that your are the one in the picture, I thought it was a sort of cat fishing, is that really you?" and me thinking "what? are you not seeing me?". The classic "You can’t be Mexican, Where are you really from?" "From Mexico" "You meant New Mexico" "No, Mexico, the country." One of the stupidest things I ever heard about this was "Mexico is not a country, it's a cultural tale about the Aztecs of Peru, and the only real Mexico is New Mexico".... Another thing was "I can't believe that you're white and you're speaking English. I mean... it's not logical, it's just not... it's that..." They couldn't process it, their brain couldn't handle that information, literally like a failed computer. Regarding my skin one of the stupidest talks I had to endure was "Why do you wear so much makeup? Are you a gothic or something?" and when I told this girl, it's my skin "No way girl, listen I know you think Americans are stupid, but we are not, and I KNOW that all Mexicans are brown, some are black of course, but it's obvious that you're wearing makeup because white Mexicans can't exist, look at me, I am a real white person and I'm not even as white as you" Oh God, give me patience... and she continued "so don't feel ashamed of your skin color, if you cover it up because you are afraid that I'm racist and I'm not going to hire you, I'm telling you, I'm a civilized person who doesn't believe in racism"... "And I really love your makeup, I mean, I want one of these for me! it looks so natural, it looks like real skin, I can't believe that there are such high-quality products in Mexico, Mexico! I mean, well you understand me, it's crazy. And by the way, I loooove your contacts, those are American right? I can see it by the quality, they look extremely cool and real " And I noticed that in her tone of voice she was trying to be, according to her, friendly and kind. Wow really stupid… So I told her "You know what? In Mexico there are very good quality products in all areas, and Mexico is a leader in aerospace products. But even on Earth, nature, to begin with, the fruits have a higher quality than in your house, that's why we export them all over the world as many many other things. As for me… My eyes are real, I'm not gothic, my skin looks real because it's real, in fact you are being very racist but most of all brutally ignorant. To begin with, Mexico is a mega diverse country not only in its nature but in its people, There are Mexicans who look European but are the children of generations and generations of Mexicans born and raised in Mexico, I mean REAL MEXICANS, and the truth is, my friend, you sound pretty stupid with everything you just said." She said that I had no reason to offend her after how NICE she was being with me, ME! being that she was from such an advanced and top country, so I said "You really were excessively racist rude and ignorant and you made it very clear how "advanced" your country is. You know what sweety, I don't need a student like you, but thanks for participating, we’ll call you" and closed the chat. She obviously reported me for being, please read the list that Preply sent me: rude, racist, pedantic, ignorant, that I didn't even have basic education, and that I had also made her feel like an inferior person and they should fire me. I cleared things up with Preply and they just told me "Ignore that girl, it’s crazy". Since in Preply you have to put how many languages you can speak in your profile, another stupid thing I heard a lot was "But... why do you speak so many languages? Aren't you Mexican?" and I said "Yes I am, So what?" "Daaah you are Mexican.... I mean, you should only speak Spanish" one day one even dared to add "It is not possible that you speak so many languages Mexico is a poor country, barely developing, you don't have a computer, internet or good schools to study other language" and I replied "If we don't have internet or computers in Mexico... explain to me how we are connected on Skype? Or… how comes that we both are speaking in ENGLISH?" Her mind went blue as a screen, she had to be reset. In a nut shell, the gringos are the maximum exponent of human stupidity. I got to meet really valuable, kind and intelligent students from the United States, but... there were very very few.
While in the line for pirate of the Caribbean in Disney Florida.
My family were in the line shuffling through the dark passageway. We ended up chatting to the family in-front of us due to them hearing our accents. We explained that we live just outside Glasgow Scotland.
Now given the fact we were on holiday having shorts and T shirts on the next thing we were asked was “do you like were kilts all the time”!!!
They were so serious
After explaining to them that kilts are classed as formal clothing, something you were to a wedding, funeral, international rugby/football game ect it’s not a day to day form of clothing.
When I said that it’s heavy, I could not were it in the summer especially in Florida they got the message lol
To be fair that doesn't sound that dumb, i mean it was a pretty innocent question but they could phrase it better
I was in a petrol station somewhere in Illinois when I asked if I filled up then paid or paid before I filled up. There was a woman with a child in the queue who was still there when I came back in to pay. I heard the little girl say to her mum, "I think that lady is English but she doesn't speak like us" Her mother replied, "they don't speak proper English in England like we do!". I had to remind her that they spoke our language and not the other way round.
The little girl smart !
Bruuuuh 😂
Dont worry, you don't speak 'proper english' in Australia either.
Do they speak English in the US?I don't think so!😂😂😂
Lol I'm from New Zealand and I met an American once who thought that the English language originated in the US and that missionaries had gone to the UK to teach them English!
Here are a couple (of so many) occasions of American dumbness I have encountered.
I was recently buying some items and talking to the cashier in a Walgreens in Chicago when she said “I love your accent, where are you from?” I said thanks and told her I’m English. She looked at me curiously then her eyes started looking up as though she was having serious difficulty understanding what I just said. I started putting the items I’d purchased into my bag when she said “I’m sorry, I have no idea where that is.” To save her some embarrassment I was telling her it was ok as England is a small country when I noticed a magazine on the counter which had Harry and Meghan on the front cover. I pointed to Harry and said “I’m from where he’s from” when her jaw dropped and her eyes opened so wide, she took a step back and started bowing at me and saying “Oh my gawd, you’re a Prince, oh thank you, thank you, thank you.” I knew there wasn’t much point in holding up the queue to educate this girl so I just smiled and said “shhhh” then walked out the shop as she carried on bowing.
I was once in a bar in New York when a customer seated next to me overheard me making an order when she asked where my accent was from. I told her I was from England and she said “Oh Europe right?” to which I agreed with a smile. She started telling me how she once went to Paris, Italy and London so I asked her if she enjoyed London and she said “Oh London is the most amazing city, I had such an awesome time but England, jeez I have to visit there some day. It’s on my bucket list.”
For a bit of fun I often ask Americans what’s closer… is England closer to Great Britain or is Great Britain closer to France. 95% of Americans say Great Britain is closer to France.
The fact that you told her to shh and didn't correct her 🤣 that really tickled me.
The fact that she, to this very day, thinks she met a Prince is making my day. :D
...well sort of.. Great Britain is closer to France, as the Channel Islands aren't technically England as they're independent or semi-independent entities under/as Crown Dependencies..
..but that I'm sure they didn't know that.
.....wow.....just wow
🤣🤣
Hello and thanks for the laugh!
One dumb thing I can speak about here was when I was studying in Ireland (I'm French), as most others were through work and that would take a few series just to itself (Such as my telling one we had to attend an event for the French-German Friendship, and every time being asked if it was American or upon being told I was a French national, being asked if I spoke French too). So here it is for one of the dumbest thing an American said to me.T here were very few cars and it was a long holiday weekend anyway, so the streets were pretty quiet in Dublin city centre but for one extra loud guy with an American accent, dressed in a Granny Smith apple green set of denim and Aran style sweater with neon green cowboy boots, cowboy belt and cowboy hat on Good Friday ((Easter weekend, in case you call it something different) and an American flag on his hat. He was loudly asking the oncoming traffic why everyone was looking at him, as if he was not perfectly fitting, although he had made certain his attire made him "inconspicuous for 100% Irish". When he zeroed in on me, I found it really difficult to know where to start!
An American friend once asked me what animal Haggis is made from. With my dry British sarcastic humour I told them "Haggis is like a sheep with left legs that are shorter then it's right legs so it can walk around the Scottish hills more easily." They believed me until they googled Haggis to see a picture of this strange creature that I made up. 😅
I love this fantasy sheep monster!
"do you have cows in the UK?"
While next to a field in England full of cows.
I just replied "no"
Mad cow disease got them all.
Should have replied, no, but we have these great short necked giraffes and pointed to the cows.
I'm Canadian, in Niagara Falls, Ontario-side, obviously. Ran into some American tourists, who stopped me to ask how long it would take them to drive to see the CN Tower (in Toronto), Science North (in Sudbury), and the Peggy's Cove lighthouse (in Nova Scotia on the Atlantic Ocean).
When I told them the drive from Niagara Falls to Toronto was an hour and a half drive away from where we were, Sudbury was four hours north of that, and from where we were to Peggy's Cove was 18hrs. They didn't believe me. And I told them that was the shortest route to drive, by going back through the United States.
Canada has a bigger landmass than the United States, but no one there seems to believe it!
I'm British, living in the UK and we've long had the term "stupid Americans" that we occasionally use to mock the US education system. Having said that, I know quite a lot of Americans and, on the whole, I don't find them to be dumb - most are pretty smart and well-informed, but when I do actually encounter a stupid one, I think it's fair to say that they take their stupidity to a completely new level. I'm sure that the fault lies with the education system over there, which seems to be constantly failing. That's not to say that ours doesn't have serious problems of course, but in general, our system is geared to teach kids in a way that inspires them to want to learn things for themselves. There's too many people (not just Americans) that have no willingness to learn anything after they leave school, yet learning is a lifelong endeavour - I'm 60 years old and I learn new things every single day because I've always been a curious person that wants to know things.
I was lucky that my parents taught me a ton of stuff - even before I went to school I could read and write and do basic maths...
Unfortunately, too many of today's kids are content to pass the time on social media rather than actually go outside and see what wonders the world can offer to those who are willing to find out about stuff. Add to that the proven fact that dumb people tend to have more kids than the well-educated ones, we're in serious danger of breeding intelligence out of the human species, and that holds true worldwide, not ust in America :(
Great comment, and amen ! (An old American.)
Exactly. I have just learned that Australia is in Texas or something. I do feel safer for no real reason.
oh the irony...
"...and then she calls me a terrorist!" is such a good line.
when I was 14 we went to the US for holiday and as expected, I was asked a lot whether I was australian when showing my austrian passport.
but what was weird after I explained that austria is in europe: I got asked whether we also had roads and refrigerators and whether we had fled the country to be able to have a holiday O_o
And you replied: "yes. we fled on the back of a kangaroo with playing Mozart's "magic flute" on the violin."
Officer: *overload*
Beethoven on a kangaroo
Vacation is on the top of your list when you flee.
Does your Austrian passport bear the word "Austria" in English (or perhaps Latin) ?
"To have a holiday" is exactly why I always am fleeing my country.....
Well here goes, I was trundling down the river in a punt owned by a friend in Cambridge in the UK, there were some Americans with us, one of the Americans said looking at the buildings around us “Is that pre war” my friend replied very quickly “No it’s pre America” 😂😂😂. Another for you when I was in the US, this chick asked me if I lived in a grass hut, think she may have been referring to a thatched cottage 😂😂😂.
I once went to America for a job thing (I am from Greece) and I rented a car to move around. So there was this "all American girl" co-worker who, I personally think, is straight up stupid. So this one time she sees me get out of my rented car and she comes up to me all happy and giggly and the conversation went something like this 👇
Her: OMG good morning
Me: hey, good morning
Her: how do you feel?
Me: emmmm... Fine?... You?
Her : aren't you excited you get to use a car?
Me: wdym?
Her: I bet it was the first time you get to use one!!!
Me: no, I have one of my own back home...
Her(IN SHOCK) : WHAT?
Me: Yeah...
Her: I thought you went around on donkeys.
I just laughed it of... And left... I couldn't do anything else other than laugh.
I would be more excited to get to ride a donkey.
Much more exotic. Besides, they seem charming.
I would have indirectly called her a moron by questioning her about the origin of cars, etc. until she hopefully realized how stupid she was.
I am not putting this one as ignorant. It's just stupid
Ha ha ha ha ha. This is good one.
Stupidity is not a crime, so you are free to go😂
I'd an Austrian friend living like 19yrs in
USA and unfortunately she couldn't even see a difference between Italians, Portuguese, French or Romanians. For her we were all Mexicans, Brazilians or Colombians... something like provinces but in a place named Europe (what…?!) I really felt that pain in my chest like something shattering. My fellow Austrian was Americanized and 7 years of friendship explaining her l'm Spanish and European, not Mexican, Colombian or
Brazilian
Not something said to me but a clip I saw on YT. A woman on the American version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
The first question for $100 was which is bigger, she used a 50/50 lifeline and ended up choosing between an elephant and the moon.
She said if you look at the moon it's small, and an elephant is huge, so the answer she gave was the elephant. Out on the first question and no prize money.
I live in Vancouver, a Canadian city on the west coast. An overweight, tracksuited family from Georgia came in and said they were heading to Alaska, and wanted to know what type of currency they used. Another time I met a man in LV who called my country Canadia.
I live in Israel. I'm so embarassed to say I came from the US I tried saying I was from Canada but then I met a Canadian. haha.
My favourite one was when I told someone I was from New Zealand and they responded confidently that they knew exactly where that was: It's a little island connected to Australia via the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 🙄
I had an American once ask how long is the bridge, thinking she meant the Harbour bridge. Nope, she wanted to know how long the bridge was between Australia and New Zealand!!
Shorter than the bridge between LA & Honolulu.