The whole "rescued them in ww11" thing offends most Europeans. That's just how egotisstic the Americans are.

The best one is when two people were talking in a foreign language in a store and a Karen said SPEAK ENGLISH this is America. The person replied were speaking Navajo if you want to speak English go to England.

Years ago, on my first visit to the States, the first people we spoke to asked where we were from. I said Manchester, England. They said they were from Manchester, New Hampshire. As they walked away I heard the woman say, "why do the English copy our place names?" I couldn't be arsed running up to her and putting her straight!

I seriously had it out with a woman on Twitter who was pissed that I told her the rest of the world laughs when they hear Americans call the president "the leader of the free world". She was insistent that they do and demanded to know if I've ever actually been to any other countries. "Ummm, yeah Karen, a lot of them."

When you're abroad and someone asks you where you're from, it's usually implied that they are asking about the country. If I, an Italian, responded to an American asking that question with "I'm from Friuli Venezia Giulia/Basilicata/Marche" or any of the 20 regions that make up Italy instead of just saying "I'm from Italy" I would sound pretentious and they would probably have no clue about what I said anyway. So for Americans to expect everyone else in the world to know all of their states, when many of those same Americans can't even locate Europe or Africa on a world map, it just looks like you think you're more important than others. This is not meant as criticism by the way, just trying to explain how it looks like to someone from outside the US

“When we rescued them in WWII” Good…..fucking……grief.

I lived in the US for a while, my eldest son attended school over there... He hated it, he was well ahead of every one and was bored, until it came to English. His English teacher kept downgrading him for his spelling. (He was previously schooled in England). I went in and she gave me such attitude, the American way of spelling is proper English, I told her to go to England and try that... His history lessons he started to have trouble with as in the USA school he was taught a completely different version of the history books he previously had. In the end I gave him the option, US or England, we left back to England, never been back and never want to. I just found living there myself was hard, there wasn't the friendliness, caring and be good to each other attitude. So much discrimination, so much racism and the health care insurance scam is shocking...

|I once started a massive melt down on the chat in a online game, because an American told some one they needed to "go back to school and learn to spell, there is no U in armor" . I said that the British authorities were getting pretty sick and tired of the American abuse of our language, and the way they thought they could remove letters from words, like armour and colour and worse yet make letters silent that had no business being silent like the H in herb. After I allowed them to rant about that (joined by other Americans) I dropped in that the British were seriously considering revoking the Americans license to use English. It was incredible how many people thought I was serious!

Back in 2018 I had an American 'internet friend' come and stop over for a visit where I live in England, prior to commencing an around Europe trip. Whilst showing her around my home city of Lincoln she was amazed to see so many George Cross' (the flag of England for those that might not know) flying everywhere during what was the then World Cup. After seemingly pondering this for some minutes whilst we were walking about she turned to me and said.. ''I'm surprised, there are all these flags flying here and not one of them is the stars and stripes, that's not right, you see them all the time back home''. The next stop for us was the pub, because I very much needed a drink.

We heard an American lady in a shop in Cologne Germany say to her husband - there are so many foreigners around here, she was shocked when my wife pointed out that she was the foreigner - much to the amusement of a few other nationals near by...

We’re from Scotland. My teenage daughter was in Alabama she went into a school. The kids asked her so many dumb questions but one of the dumbest was - have you got TV in Scotland. Imagine their reaction when she said “Scotland invented television “ 😂

When an American asked a Syrian friend who was Christian if they converted when they came to America. And my friend said no they were always Christian. Oh, your parents converted. The American asked "No" my friend replied "My family was always Christian" "Really, for how long?" he was asked "Two thousand years" he replied My friend asked me later if Americans didn't know what region Christianity originated. I could only reply "I think many of them assume it was in America"

If you don't think it's odd for Americans to say, "I'm from Indiana" and expect everyone to know it's in the United States, imagine meeting someone who says, "I'm from Maniema" and expects you to know what country it's in.

I can't help thinking that the guy who was confused by European history continuing after the establishment of the US, hadn't quite grasped that history. In saying, 'when we rescued them in WW2' he clearly has a prejudice view of his own countries history, and such a phrase suggests he still has something of the same mindset as when he was ten years old.

I’m British. Visiting America I was asked “Do you have a 4th of July in England?” The only answer I could give was “No. we skip from the third of July to the fifth.”

A few years ago I was hired by an American guy (I'm in Australia) as a camera operator, to help him do a vlog" expose" about how rude Australians are. We tend to call it like we see it. I followed the guy around, filming. He would do things like hire a convertible, race through school zones (where the speed limit is 40km/hr when children are arriving or leaving) at 180km/hr, calling random people fat, stupid etc, cussing out homeless people, all sorts of things. He had no clue that when people called him a d*ckhead they were reacting to his bad attitude. He thought that since he came from America, the greatest country in the world, that the world owed him respect. Dear reader, he did not get any.

Well, for Europeans, the thing is, when you ask someone "where are you from?" you are generally expected to say the country, not the state! Not everyone knows the American states, if you said something like, I dunno "I'm from Virginia" a few years ago to me, I'd literally not know where that was? as in, where *that country* is and god forbid an American says "I'm from Georgia" to a European, considering the *actual country of Georgia*

I used to work at a big tourist place here in Germany. I'm a state-certified translator for English so I guess my command of English is pretty decent. An American couple (super friendly, really) asked me where I was from. I said "oh, I'm actually from around here, born and raised", the lady goes "But where did you learn to speak English so well?" I say "well they teach it at school here and later i studied at university" and she says "oh, i thought they'd teach German in schools here" And I've not figured out her thought process to this day. It's baffled me for 6 years so far.

Not an American, but when I studied in Japan(I’m Norwegian), my Russian friend came to me after 3 months of university and asked me to teach her world history because she noticed she had been taught a very bias worldview. I respect her to this day.

I had a summer job working in a hotel in Germany back in the 80's. An American guest complimented me on my English, I smiled and said that I was from the U.K. just working at the hotel for the summer. They replied that not withstanding, my English was very good, almost fluent!

While living in the US I was asked the question about what we (UK) did for Thanksgiving. I explained that while we didn’t celebrate it, we were nonetheless very grateful for the reasons behind it. The other memorable question I was asked was “In England, do you have black people?”. I explained that it was made illegal to be black in public in 1896 but that in these more enlightened times if you bought an annual licence you were allowed to be black. Saying these things deadpan produced thoughtful nods on both occasions.

When I was Turkey, we went to a local, traditional pottery craftsman and his shop. There were maybe ten of us, from multiple different countries, and the potter asked us where we came from. So everybody is answering, Canada, France, Germany, etc, until one american girl names her State. We all collectively rolled our eyes and the potter looked at her straight in the eyes and said ''American!'' I've travelled around the world, and Americans almost always answer with their States. Listen, I don't know your states and I don't care to learn them either, you are not the center of the world!

I once was in a group chat where some girl posted "Is there really such a place as Nigeria? That sounds racist." I replied, gee if only there was some way to find that out if it is a real place. Like some amazing system you could type in "Nigeria" and see what happens. That would be awesome. Why doesnt someone invent such a magical system. Silence after that.

Years ago, a friend of mine had the opportunity to go on a Student Teacher Exchange to America. She told me, on the wall of her classroom hung a huge map, showing America in all her glory. Above the map, in beautiful cursive writing it said ... Map of the World :)

I am born and bred English, I can trace my family back at least 400 years and when I have visited America I have often been asked where I am from. I of course said I was from England and I have been accused of lying on multiple occasions because I didn't sound English (many Americans seem to think we sound posh like Stephen Fry or have a thick cockney accent like Danny Dyer). I have showed my passport on many occasions and been told again I'm a liar because my passport says "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". I have even had several girls accuse me of putting on a bad English accent to pick them up! I must say this was mostly in the big cities, the more rural areas were polite and in my experience didn't live up to the stereotype of of being full of ignorant people. The south of the country was especially polite.

For the woman who thought it was selfish to be told Indiana and not the United States, I think what she means is it's selfish to assume by mentioning a state, people outside the US are automatically going to know the states of the US and therefore know the person who said Indiana, is from the US. Whereas how many people in the US would know the different states or provinces of other countries. For example, if someone said they were from Noord-Brabant instead of just saying, I'm from the Netherlands : D

I know someone who’s first job was guiding tourists around Lincoln Cathedral in England. She was asked by an American visitor if Lincoln Cathedral was named after Abraham Lincoln😂

When I moved over to America from Ireland a girl asked me if I came here to learn English because I had a Dublin accent 🙃 🇮🇪

From one American to all the Americans traveling abroad, stop looking for the American flag in other countries and stop carrying the attitude of American superiority with you everywhere you go. The rest of the world does not have to bend a knee to America or you. The secondhand embarrassment I've felt from hearing stories of other Americans acting up in other countries, behaving like entitled trash just makes me so disappointed in my fellow countrymen. Our education system is partly to blame for the ignorance, we only learn one way and it's the way our government approves of and social media like tik tok has only been making the population here dumber and more irrational than they were just ten short years ago.

I remember seeing an interview with a college student whose college was hosting the World Double Dutch championship . She was hugely excited and told the interviewer how proud they were and what an honour it was to be hosting this event !!. After all , she said , " These are the WORLD Championships and we have teams here today from as far away as Ohio " . I kid you not . I was SO dumbstruck it is still clear in my mind after almost 40 years .

I was sitting at a poker table in Vegas. To my left two guys where having a conversation. After a while an American across the table asked "What language are you guys speaking". "English?" they said. The American looked puzzled and asked "but what country are you from?". I really had to focus hard not to start laughing, the guys looked at him in total confusion before saying "err England".

This thing about Americans saying their state for the question "where are you from" is a real weird thing, and even though, Eclectic Beard, you are clearly a very smart guy, this is a normalized part of who you are because after all you're American. That's why you might not agree or empathize much with the criticism. The problem is everybody knows that when one is abroad and someone asks where they're from, they mean to ask the country. Everybody answers from which country they come from. Americans are the only ones who say their state. And that is exactly where the trick is. Americans are so used to the idea that they are the best country, that everybody knows their History and of its greatness, that they comand the world, and all this ideas make them feel comfortable about being more specif than only saying the country. it's like, "of course I'm an American, everybody knows that! Look at me! if someone asks where I'm from they must be asking where I'm from IN America", as if America was the world. I'm not saying that everybody who does that thinks like that. But many people end up internalizing these social cultural behaviors.

On my first trip to America, I was sitting with a group of friends from the UK in a conference. At the beginning of the session, everyone stood up, hand on heart and sang "oh say can you see... etc." We stopped speaking as a matter of respect, but stayed seated. After they finished singing, two ladies rounded on us and asked if we were some kind of communists for not pledging allegiance. We tried to explain that the USA was not our country and that we didn't even know the words. Eventually someone intervened and told them that they needed to start the session. They still didn't get it though.

The best one I have heard is when an American found out that Germany were 6 hours ahead of New York Time wise. The American said and I quote "Why didn't Germany tell us that 9/11 was gonna happen if they are 6 hours ahead of us. All I can say is WOW

When I go overseas, I don't go telling everyone I'm from New South Wales, unless I want them to get confused as to why I have an Aussie accent instead of a Welsh accent😅

I may have made this comment before, but your European style education has equipped you with a curiosity and desire to keep learning. Education should not be about testing and forgetting, rather learning how to learn (it should be regarded as a life skill). You are a credit to yourself, your parents and your country. Keep up the good work.

As a Brit (Scottish), something that really annoys me is websites that only offer the translation option "US English". If you don't want to offer 'UK' or 'British' English, fine but at least give us the option of 'Proper English' with the correct spelling and grammar. Just saying 🤣

My two favourite anecdotes were when my friend went to the states for the first time. A woman asked him if Australia has American dollars for currency. My most favourite one of all was when I was travelling in former Yugoslavia and a couple of people from the states behind me on the bus said “do you know why it’s so beautiful here? They’ve never had any wars here“ the funniest shit I’ve ever heard

It is actually really common for American to answer their states instead of their country when they are aboard. I live in Thailand and we do notice that a lot of American do not response that they are from the America or US but rather the state. It like people from Japan went to the US and said we are from Sendai.

Some years ago an American girl who was working in the company i was contracting at asked me - "Don't you think that you foreigners have been in Britain long enough?". To say that this was an AMAZINGLY stupid and racist question was an understatement, but, i played along. I replied - "What exactly do you mean, by long enough". Feeling confident she got into her stride - "Well, from what I've read you foreigners have be n here since the 1950s". I smiled as i was about to give her a 'wog' history lesson and it went thus - (1) Asians and Africans were trading with Britain many centuries before the Romans invaded Britain in 126AD. (2) Asians and Blacks settled in Britain long before the Romans invaded - Emperor Hadrians chronicler wrote - "There are Asiatic and African people who have settled in this land as traders". (3) In the Domesday Book the Mayor of Yorkshire is named Bhutt and his racial origin is stated as Indian and the Domesday Book was compiled in 1085. When you add Hadrians Chroniclers details and the Domesday Book then Asians and Blacks have been over here for over 2000 years. (4) You so-called Americans have only been in America for 350 years and you've accounted for the extermination of 25m Native Americans - the Asians and Blacks of Britain have been here for over 2000 years and in ALL that time we haven't exterminated ANYONE!!. We may have played a lot of cricket and opened many Curry Houses in the 2000 plus years we've been here, but, we DEFINITELY haven't exterminated ANYONE!!. For some strange reason she went quiet and got on with her work - it's nice to teach an idiot the facts.

My dad was American, mum was British. After retiring they moved to England. Once when visiting the Potteries my parents were mixed in with a group of Americans going through the Wedgwood factory tour. My dad was so appalled at their behaviour that he wouldn't speak in their presence! He didn't want to be associated with them!

I'm English and have visited the US. I found it hilarious when my American friend was irritated one day by Mexicans speaking Spanish. She said "why can't they speak American instead of Mexican?" Lol. I just smiled.

I’m English and was with an English friend in Vegas. We were in an elevator talking and a girl asked us what language we were just talking to each other. We just looked at each other and started laughing. We have strong accents and when we talk at a regular speed to each other, Americans find it difficult to understand us so I do kind of understand why she asked.

As an African, it often amazes me that most Americans think that Africa is one country. Africa is a huge continent with over 50 countries! That level of ignorance is appalling, which makes me wonder what they actually teach in American schools because by age 7, I already knew all the countries in the world along with their capital cities. Then the most annoying one is most of the time when you speak to Americans the first thing they say is, "Oh your English is so good" Then I tell them, "But, we also speak english in our country." I think the average American mind can't fathom the fact that English is spoken in other countries outside America or the fact that the average African speaks more than 2 or 3 languages fluently.

Back in the 80s, my wife and I from Australia visited Hawaii and met a lovely US couple from one of the southern states. We were gobsmacked when they said that we spoke "real good American" as they thought Australians spoke French!

"I want to make sure that I am not around foreigners" My answer: "Don't worry Sir, I can assure you, that there will be only locals" 😉

During the Costa Rica one, I was thinking, "You don't have to worry about being around foreigners, because when you're in Costa Rica, you'll be the foreigner." Also I loved taking AP European History in high school. That's where I learned my favorite word in the English language: defenestration.

When you ask someone where they are from, in an international setting, they answer with the country, because that's what the question is referring to. The only people who don't say which country they are from (and this is from personal experience, having lived in over 5 different countries and having met so many different people from all over) are: 1. People that were born in capital cities. 2. People from the USA, who will usually say "city, State". Not everyone in the world knows the states of another completely different country, from the other side of the world. People tend to know because they are educated, but people from the USA aren't able to do the same for them... Once, a guy from the USA answered this question with Georgia. We literally didn't bat an eye. We thought he was from Georgia, the country. After all, everybody HAD ANSWERED with their countries. In most international working spaces people can have very good English, so his accent wasn't even considered odd. It was only after he called a Polish person a Scandinavian that we heard alarm bells ringing in our heads and asked him "Wait, you're not Georgian, you're from the US?" to which the guy insisted he was from Georgia... The state.

I was on a Mediterranean cruise and the first stop was in Italy. We were having a meal in a restaurant when an argument broke out. It was an American couple complaining to the owners that they didn't take Dollars in payment!! It was funny watching everyone in the restaurant pissing themselves laughing apart from the two Americans.

It was a bit arrogant for them to assume that someone would know they were American just from talking to them. Most Americans can't tell the difference between a US and a Canadian accent. They usually can't even tell the difference between a British and Australian accent, which is far easier - or recognise anything other than RP as being British at all. What makes you think that someone who doesn't even have English as a first language (and that girl, whilst able to make herself understood, clearly did not speak English fluently - let alone as a first language) would be able to identify accents? Your American arrogance was showing there. If a foreigner, whist in a foreign country, asks where you're from they mean WHAT COUNTRY. If they already know you're American then they'll say 'where in America are you from'.

The problem with just giving your state, is that they may NOT realize you're from the United States. It would be the equivalent of someone from the UK saying they were from Essex. Say Indiana, USA and they for certain won't be confused. People also get confused because America names places things like Columbia, which is another country's name or famous cities like Athens, Rome and Paris, so it's not unreasonable for them to ask us to say we're from America, because we would prefer for them to name their Country.

I was in the British army and based at a joint site with US marines I won a ten pound bet (10 dollars) that England had once controlled over 50% of the world. I showed him the small islands in the pacific with little Union Jacks flags next to them. It was only a officer from West Point in the officers mess pointed out I was telling the truth. Made my day 😂😂

There're two videos here that I want to touch on: 1) "I'm educated now" and then proceeds to claim that "we rescued Europe in WW2" (the he.. you did!) 2) The couple who was asked where they're from and answering with the state rather than country. That's like me, a European, going to Australia, answering that I'm from Jutland and expecting them to know in which specific country this is a region. 🤦‍♀️ The common thread in these two statements is arrogance. The suggestion of the US as the almighty savior and the assumption that everyone knows the location of different parts of a country that isn't theirs, that's what is giving *US citizens* the reputation of being arrogant (and the use of "America" and "American" about a specific nationality when that litterally applies to every other country in the American continents as well). Through my work with Red Cross Youth I've met people from India, Nepal, Zambia, South Africa, Iran, USA, Mexico, Brazil and many more and I can honestly say that only the ones from the US displayed this kind of "superiority" so I'm saying this based on personal experience as opposed to just prejudice. 🤷‍♀️

Years ago I was playing world of warcraft with friends, also english, we needed an extra player for a raid. The guy who we invited turned out to be American, he joined our chat server and was asking where we are from, naturally we all answered England, what followed was this guy ranting about how much he hates England because we stole all of our cities names from America and gave the example of new york. At that point we gave him a history lesson, informing him that most cities in England are older than America. He wasn't very happy about that and ended up rage quitting. On another note, even in primary school between ages of 4-11 I was learning about the ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks. It baffles me that the US don't teach much apart from American history.

I had an American ask me if we could play some baseball or basketball instead of "soccer" in the bar I was working in. This was in France, during Euro 2016, the nerves on that guy haha, the Irish lads watching the match gave him a lot of shit for it.

I've worked in a Call Center and I grew up in a City located right by the border we are basically separated by a Bridge so I have a lot of stories. The things I've heard Americans say about Mexicans or the rest of the world it astonishes me. For example, I answered a call in English and this person automatically said "I don't speak taco", once in a US Website I was trying to locate México on their map and it was under SOUTH AMERICA! , also one guy once asked me if we had Google/KZfaq or AC over here. And when trying to arrange a meeting this pero said "I don't want to get in trouble with the Police if you cross the border" I asked what does that mean? And answered "well, do you have papers?" 😒🙄.... Hahaha the idea that we are all after the green card and we are undocumented hahaha

English is definitely the most spoken language in the world. It does not have the most native speakers, but that is a different question - it is still the most widely spoken. Around 1.13 billion with Mandarin very close at around 1.11 billion. Spanish is 0.53 billion.

I love the story about the one who did not want to be among foreigners when traveling outside the US, and the young lady's "advice" back to go to Florida. As for the immigration thing... when I was younger I spent a month in California and Arizona. I loved the trip, but I had one embarrassing moment, when I realized that an otherwise nice couple from LA, had in their mind (I don't know why) the idea that I was interested in staying there, even offered to help me find a job, and I had to make it clear that I was in the US as a tourist only, and that I didn't have the slightest intention to immigrate. Sorry, we Euuropeans usually are perfectly happy on our side of the ocean, even if we like visiting other parts of the world.

Shout out to the US woman who recently complained to an Australian news channel that the Western Standard Time the host gave out was incorrect by a couple of hours.....because she thought only the US has a west coast and timezones 💀

I was in a coffee shop in Windsor UK, near the castle. Some American tourists were talking Bout the castle and saying how cute it was etc. Then one said out loud "cute castle but why did they build it so close to the airport".

I was in Salina Oklahoma visiting my Mum and a teenager in the store serving me heard our accents and asked "can you guys understand us?" I replied "yes, im from England and we invented English so I speak it just like you do." she didn't understand the point I was making hahaha. 😂

I was part of one of the biggest online worlds some years ago and we had several Americans in the group i was in. Often i had to listen to how USA invented everything. I had to one day tell a man in his 30´s, that Americans did not invent the car and the train and he literally broke down and had to take a few days break before he came back...When he did come back he told me he could not believe it at the time, and had to look it up to make sure i did not mess around with him. Points i guess for him to look it up afterwards..You should have seen/heard him later on when he also realized how young America is compared to the rest of the world....it was both kind of funny and sad at the same time and that´s usually how many conversations have gone...

The girl from Columbia didn't say that she knew that they were Americans - she mentioned that as the integral part of the telling of her story. Her native tongue isn't English ( though it is pretty articulate) so she naturally could conceive of the people in question being either American, Canadian, English, Australian. Plus many Europeans spoken English is exceptional in comparison to many native speakers. So yes she wanted to know the Country. One of the best lines that I heard when l lived in the US : A man say to a Japanese guy, ' You speak English good.' To which he received the reply ' No, l speak it well.' Kudos amigo 😆

I'm not an American but one of my closest friends is an American and I once dated someone American (two of the most intelligent people I have ever known) but..I can't say the same about the other Americans I have known. An American friend of mine (an amazing human being) genuinely thought that English was an American language, that people around the world celebrated Thanksgiving, the 4th of July and Halloween and that pizzas and sandwiches were made by Americans. I mean... 😐😐😐

I want to share a small story to this topic, which I found very funny (and sad): A met a guy a couple of years before, who lived in the US his whole life. His mother was german and he never got american citizenship. He married, got kids, got divorced and went bankrupt. He tried to rob a gas station, got caught and sentenced to 8 years in prison. After seven years he came out and the Obama- Administration set up a law during that time, that immigrants, which got criminal had to be deported to their home country. The day, he got out, he got deported to germany and his german mother in her late 80s followed him and he had to start a new life in Germany and is still here. Now the funny part: One day his kids visited him and were dumbstruck, when they realised that almost every church and many building were far older than the United States. He told afterwards that they couldnt wrap their head around this for whole time they were on visit and felt kind of intimidated of almost every piece of german history they learned during their time there. :)

I could not stop laughing when the 3rd person said, "When we rescued them in WW2!" If you check the actual real facts the British and it's Commonwealth allies had been fighting the Germans and other tyrants for years across the globe in Germany, France, Italy, Africa, Japan, you name it we were there! The Russians mighty army joined in too to fight Hitler! By the time Churchill persuaded your president to join in WW2 had been running for years in various campaigns with some success. The US eventually joined and with our combined might we all beat the enemy. Admittedly the US had been sending Britain ships and supplies which we were very grateful for. We fully paid back that debt and more many times over. There is another video documentary on You Tube which explains it all very well, about how much we paid you back and even helped you and others with military hardware, food, and other supplies. Most Americans 'think' to themselves "we saved the world" which in fact is not accurate at all. The US joined in after about 2 years! Because of the Spitfire we gave the US the know how and licence to build the Spitfire's Merlin engine in the US to put in your own planes! We also gave you our VTOL ( Vertical Take Off and Landing ) technology that we invented in the 1960's in our Harrier Jump Jet. That tech is now used in the American F-35 fighters! Luckily for you, you had a better education than the average American. The standard US education system is one of the worst in the world, and as you know it is currently falling apart even further! Just saying.

I was in Kazakhstan and there was a group of people from the USA they had a bunch of maps in Russian and asked me for info about nearbye countries. They asked about Uzbekistan first pointing out Ukraine or Poland I show them where Uzbekistan is and after few minutes I realize it is better for them if I just wrote the nearbye country names in English they said it will be great. I started writing all nearbye countries names on to the map they asked me if I can wrote down more including EU countries, far east countries and so on. They were surprised and asked me Where I learned Russian so well? I told I don't know Russian they were surprised and wanted to learn how I managed to translate country names. I told that it is simple knowledge to know about world map and that we learn world map at primary school that was a real shock for them. But the real shock for them was later when I started talking about Holland, France etc with French, Dutch people. That was a bit frustrating as you can imagine trying to explain why I know about other countries to a bunch of good hearted ill educated professors from USA. But my favorite encounter was an old man from England who happened to visit one of my businesses as a tourist in a nontouristic area and asked me why I speak good English and how did I learn English. He was trying to question me in my own country in my own business as a customer in a hostile way. I think it is not just Americans sometimes many Europeans can react to simple knowledge cause they are biased.

The Thanksgiving thing - I was asked by a lady from Mississippi how do Indians celebrate the 4th of July! When I told her that the vast majority of us do not even know the significance of the date and yeah none of us celebrate it, she was genuinely shocked!

I lived in Kentucky for nearly a year when I was a teenager, my first day at school and one of the teachers asked me where I was from, I said the UK...I shit you not the guy asked me "oh...would you like to tell everyone how to say hello in English". Also, with reference to the bit in the vid about being told the location inside the US when being asked where you are from. How confused would an American get when I told them I was from Norfolk rather than the UK? there are a lot of places in the US that are named after places in other countries so it could get a little confusing for you guys.

Yeah I used to work in a call center years ago. Ended up telling a customer to "Fuck right off, you absolute bellend". In my defense he was an absolute bellend. Surprisingly I didn't get fired but I left shortly afterwards because, as you can probably guess, I am not built for customer service.

The Thanksgiving question confused me for a moment. Thanksgiving is celebrated in Europe. It's usually a minor church celebration at the end of autumn to offer thanks for the harvest. The churches are usually decorated with produce and flowers. Very different from the US holiday.

I graduated from a rural high school in Nebraska in 1983. I got an excellent education and I cringe at the ignorance and want to cry at the sad level of ignorance of our country.

I met a US marine in Helsinki a few years back, he was on shore leave. He told me in no uncertain terms that the US would crush Finland in a war. (Great to know buddy, you’re the best) No idea why he said it but there you go 😅😅😅 He proceeded to insult my Kenyan friend but that’s a separate story…

Lol as if someone from Spain would want a green card for the US… 😂😂😂

I'm South African and have lived and worked in ten different countries around the world. I have had many American colleagues over the years and I think that the problem with answering the question "where are you from" by saying the name of their state is that it can be really confusing to people not familiar with USA geography. I recognise that consciously this answer often comes more from how this person chooses to personally identify within the context of the USA, given how large the country is, but perhaps the woman in the video interpreted it as selfish because there seems to be an assumption by certain Americans that the whole world learns about USA geography and history. I see it as an unconscious systemic side effect related to the notion that the USA is the greatest country in the world.

I've just been working in the garden next door to a house built in 1643, and during work being done, ive been finding old bottles , odd coin ect. It's enjoyable to discover my past locally.

I went to school in Japan at a military base, public school in America, boarding school, and a Christian private school. The best education I received was boarding school. It had a self study program. I still had to learn the basics of what all American school requires, but I was able to go beyond that and choose what I learned. I learned American history, but I got to learn world history in depth. I loved it. When I went to private school, no one knew who Nelson Mendela was or what the apartheid was when I mentioned it in cards against humanity. It was a card I played. I was born in the 90's.

I've been asked what they do in England on the 4th July. They looked confused when I said "go to work." Same for Thanksgiving. Then it was "so do they celebrate Christmas in England?" Lol

the state one reminds me of a post i saw on tumblr from someone who runs their own online business and they said that when someone is changing their address, you can tell americans vs. anyone else because americans do not put the country. they just put the state and expect you to know that it's georgia the state, not georgia the country. in the replies were americans asking why they would have to put their country because obviously they're american so someone pointed out there are 194 other countries.

I am English born and raised and spent a few years living in America and often had issues with people not understanding what I was saying, even if I spoke as slowly and clearly as possible I was once even asked if I could speak English??! I laughed and said “yes I am the only English Person in this town and this is me speaking actual English ffs!” It felt like I had gone back in time while I was there most of the time, thankfully didn’t have to stay full time! Wow it truly shocked me!

The one that always makes me giggle is when US Tech people call imperial measurements 'Freedom Units'. I mean they’re literally a remnant from your former colonial history, that even your former Colonial rulers have abandoned 🤦

Cringed at the guy who called himself educated then said "we rescued them in WW2". YOU ARE NOT EDUCATED, YOU ARE AMERICAN. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE

The one about being "selfish" for saying the State instead of just US or America is 100% true. Making the assumption that everyone knows all the states of the US is in and of itself America-centric. Asking where someone is from usually means they are asking what Country

The number of times I have seen USA folk say they "thought Canada was a state" on TicTok is incredibly painful. I have seen at least 20-30 different people from various US states. Even if each video was only a 1/100 response... that's still an insane number of USA people that don't know Canada is a country. (For some of them they might have been staged... but not all of them. Some people were just so genuinely confused.)

I wish it was compulsory in schools that they had to watch David Attenborough. At least they'd see that there's not only a different world out there but amazing animals and birds and sea creatures too. It would, at least, be a start.

If not 'selfish' it's at least weird. Ask a Russian where he's from, he'll immediately say Russia. He won't give out city or town names like Ufa, Perm, Samara or Krasnodar and expect you to get from those that he's from Russia. Same thing with Germans, Czechs, Australians etc.

In Ireland we learn a lot of geography in school ... I remember on a quiz show here somewhere in Europe there was a irishman and French and two Americans and up came 3 questions on American history the irish guy got two right the French got the other one I looked on amazed thinking WTF 😂

I love the way that Americans can ‘see’ Europe in a week on a visit. Reminds me of that film ‘If it’s Tuesday it must be Belgium’. 😄

I am a gamer in europe and I play a lot of games with people all over the world. It is. .so odd to me how often Americans gets shocked it is not "american time" in other places in the world. They happily want me to START to game with them 5 am my time. Tell them what time it would be for me they are always surprised! (they still somehow. .want me to do it at 5 am.. takes about 3 hours for them to forget it, like a slow goldfish!. And so it repeats. .lol. Ask them to start anything 5 am their time and they faint! It is like they don't really believe it is five am here.

I remember I was on holiday in Florida with my family and when on a boat trip the guide asked each person where they came from and every one before me were from the USA when I spoke I said from Jersey, his immediate reply was” you don’t sound like you come from Jersey” and dismissed anything else I had to say not giving me the opportunity to say Jersey in the Channel Islands UK.

I was living in Thailand for a while, and I loved it over there: wonderful, hospitable people, beautiful country and, of course, food. One day, I took a local ferry to get around the canal, and the ticket controller lady was saying " prepare your toll/tickets" in Thai language. There was one American boomer dude who looked very angry. When a lady approached him, he said :" why can't you learn fuc...ing English?!!! It is not hard, we bring money to your rookie economy!!" Bruh...some people should never travel further than their state line, I swear....

I lived in America for 22 years and have now returned to the UK the most common question I was asked.,. So how do the British celebrate independence Day? My response would be the same way you celebrate the withdrawal from Vietnam !

In the second clip, usually the opposite is true. Usually website translations have the USA flag for English. Brazilian flag for Portuguese, and Mexican flag for Spanish are also used but less common. Annoys the hell out of everyone in UK/Portugal/Spain.

When travelling overseas, if anyone is asked where they are from, you have to understand that every single person is going to say Australia, or France, or Italy, or Sweden. No one is going to say Broken Hill, or Bordeaux, or Stockholm etc. Only Americans skip over “America” and narrow it down to a state, or even a city. It’s the same in Facebook groups etc. Someone might post a “Where are we all from?” Question, and every single person is go*ng to name a country, or maybe a city “and” a country, but 90% os Americans will just put “IL”, or”AZ”, or “DE”, or “HI” etc. They have absolutely no understanding that nobody outside the US has a single clue what the US state abbreviations are. They just expect that everyone around the entire globe instinctively knows them all. The fact that you, as an American, don’t understand this just proves her point.

Loved the video it's insane how some things taught to me at a very young age have to be taught to people from the United States much later because their education system failed them. Also one correction world wide English is actually the most spoken language at around 1.132 billiion speakers this is due to it being recognised as "international language" its used in Aviation, Marine and business due to it's relative accessibility (English is flexible in pronunciation and shares a lot of characteristics with other languages) this makes English a very interesting case because it actually has more non-native speakers than native speakers. Mandarin (Chinese) is seccond to English having 1.117 speakers, however, unlike English, Most of the people who speak Mandarin are native speakers at around 918 billion native speakers compared to 199 billion non-native speakers.

My academic education began in the Soviet Union, then the 3rd grade and a bit of the 4th was the Russian education system (the rest of my education was out of the Russian system), yet the history we were taught was world history, starting from caveman onwards. I’m a bit shocked to know that the US education system doesn’t seem to teach much about the rest of the worlds history.

I live in England, Lancashire to be exact, and in my humble opinion the best county (better than those Yorkshire wankers anyway). I majorly digress, I used to travel every year (since 1987) to the US to visit my family. As I got older, into my teens, I realised how little my cousins knew or understood about the rest of the world. As in they knew next to nothing. They were ignorant about basic global geography, international history, geopolitics, different cultures and religions etc the basics just weren't there. It still boggles my mind that the focus of the US education system is just on the US, to the exclusion of the rest of the world. Hell, even when global history is covered, it's only about what the US did to "save" everyone; which is factually wrong and just pure self-serving propaganda.

During LiveAid the UK said "Feed the world" to which the US responded by saying "We are the world". Thanks for another great post.

Went to an Ivy League school, from Asia. Got asked "Oh you're from Hong Kong - do you speak Japanese"? Also, there was a kid who was attending the best undergrad finance program in the country, who asked my first-generation Russian-American college girlfriend "What would have happened if the Russians had won WWII?". The best lesson I learned at that college was that education does not denote intelligence or curiosity - it's a box-ticking exercise for the wealthy in America.

You are hilarious and a brilliant presenter! I've only discovered you today and I'm addicted. There are a lot of people who want to live in America, but there are definitely more who don't. Like THE WHOLE WORLD does not want to live in America.