How do foreigners think of America?

i think all of newschoolers should be tested if they are literate or not....becasue it seems as though the majority of this site cannot contruct a sentence to save their life.
 
ive never heard of people using the term "bush" to ONLY refer to hairy vag's. ive always considered it to just mean vag in general.
 
but if there's no hair, there's no bush right?

americans = arrogant, loud and full of themselves. insist on telling everybody about how things are done 'back home'
 
i don't know this for sure but.... people think of us as fat, arrogant, all that shit it's because thats all they hear about on news and shit...

as for being dumb it's because the president is supposed to represent the people and unfortunatly we elected a retard twice... so other countrys see him and think that is waht all of us are like
 
Yeah... I hate our food. You'll never find me in a mcdonalds, and I can honestly say I havent been there in 9 years. We do have some crazy weather though, pretty much every kind of weather you can think of... from tropical to polar (hawaii/Florida to alaska? yeah)

I must agree with you on schools though... the typical school in america is built around the same aristotlian style of teaching, which isnt always good, however, there are thousands of private alternatives, and there are plenty of very prestigious universities that offer alternative teaching...

nevertheless.. k-12 is the same no matter where you go in U.S. public schools.

Britain has its ups though... You're NOT fat... for the most part, you have universal healthcare, You're surfing is just as good as it is in California (and the water is literally WARMER...) Skiing? not so good... Global warming killed that... but you have the alps that are just a ride on the train away.. trains that are ussually not TOO expensive...

You're money is also worth more, so you're quid goes a long way pretty much anywhere in the world... even here.

And lastly, you guys kick our ass at football(soccer to you North Americans and Aus/NZlanders)

With ALL OF THAT SAID, our cultures are very similar (Depending on which part of Britain/America we are talking about...)

Besides, America is a spawn of Britain is it not?
 
we picture u as pompous and arrogant, but the majority of americans are quite dumb, and can talk to great lengths on topics they no absolutely nothing about, u guys kinda have ur own little bubble, and dont know anything about the world around you (excuse any misspellings cause i am super tired and had way to many classes at university today)
 
the usual knee-jerk reactions in here, as i have read. it's easy to hate america.

so how about an alternative viewpoint?

america:

1. the most creative society on earth, everything from the assembly line to fast food to the ipod to jazz. so fucking what if the high schools suck and test scores are lousy, clearly something is being done right.

2. the greatest minds right now do their work in the states. man on the moon, moore's law, nobel prizes in science. . .

3. people complain about globalization, starbuck's, mcdonald's, microsoft, coca-cola, mtv, all those american things, but we're all still eating, drinking, and using that stuff. and you still hate the states for that? hypocritical.

on the negative side,

1. the politics, 'nuff said. don't forget that 50 % of voters did NOT vote for bush.

2. ignorance and a general unawareness of the world. but wait, americans are not the worst tourists in the world, they're actually pretty interested in the places they visit.

3. waste. my god, i've never seen a general disregard for recycling, running the a/c on max all day long, stuff like that. turn off the fucking light.

4. health care. terrible, it's a basic human right. get with the picture.

 
I'm with you there...

1. Both of the elections bush won, he barely won if he won at all. The 2000 election, he actually lost the national popular vote, but he won on a technicality, by barely winning the state that his brother governs... weird right?

and then he barely beat John Kerry.. he won by like 5000 votes in the popular vote. Thats still stupid close.

2. Most of the people from america that actually travel are very interested in where they go... that is, unless they are on a cruise to the carribean or something... then most of them are just fat and stupid...

3. Waste is a problem wherever you go, but at least the U.S. tries. There are recycling centres in every other town, there is the Adopt a highway program (which, I honestly dont understand, but I know its for highway cleanup... it must work SOMEWHERE..) There are littering laws, etc etc... Sure, it might not be working ALL THE TIME, but at least there is some effort there... I guess. (still, there needs to be MORE, and I understand that)

4. Universal healthcare is coming. I dont care how much conservatives are aganst it because of 'taxes omfgz!' its worth it... Would you rather pay over a long peroid of time and be POSITIVE you're going to get healthcare? orrrr... would you rather pay bank for stupid expensive insurance, over and over? and then potentially not even recieve healthcare when you need it? its a simple fact.
 
I lived in england for 3 years and i am now going to college here, and the most noticable difference is how damn patriotic people are here, and really it is kind of annoying. i think that people should think of themselves as citizens of the world. other people see us as obese, ignorant (which is sort of true), they think everyone owns a gun, among other things.
 
I never had anyone judge me as being stupid without knowing me until I went to Europe. Yes I can't speak another language very well, but who cares. That dutch chick thought she was smarter than me even though I told her I'm going for my PhD. She thought it didn't matter cause American universities suck. I thought that was interesting.
 
you dont see much rappers from the ghetto of canada or europe, but thats just one type of music.

and no one wants to hear music in a different language.

there are quite a few actors from canada and some from britain, butt most of the shows i see on tv have mostly actors from the u.s.
 
On this subject, I had an American guy come to my checkout at the supermarket today.

He was fat and dumb and looked at me like I was a piece of shit. Especially when he asked what credit card we accepted. I tried explaining the chip and pin system we have, but he didn't get it so I said I'd swipe his card instead. Then he said 'so do you guys pack the bags here or what?'. As a matter of fact we don't, because we encourage our customers to bring their own bags from home (saying 'save the snow')

The entire time he used the fact that he was american as an excuse for not understanding.
 
New zealanders like americans, especially their accent. But they do think everyone there is extremely obese. The only people here that hate america are my parents, and they tell me never to tell people I'm american or have anything that shows i'm one because "I could become a terrorist target"
 
Oh yeah, but they needn't go to that much effort. Much easier to just walk out the door with it in your hand. Its not like we'd notice, and even if we did, none of us could be bothered to tell anyone because only 2 people in the store actually have legal rights to stop a shoplifter, and neither are in very often.

Its only chavs stealing vodka that we notice.
 
When I went to Switzerland, I was treated like shit.

One of the first days I was there my friends and I were riding up a gondola and these other people were laughing and pointing at us. Then this guy kept saying "George Bush" over and over while he was laughing.

The worst was at restaurants. My friends and I went to a restaurant at about 6 pm. We waited near the door for about 10 minutes and nobody came to seat us so we sat down thinking that it was a seat yourself place. Then 15 minutes later a waiter walks up and says "We aren't serving food anymore tonight" so we left. About 3 hours later we walked by the restaurant and there were still people sitting there eating. A different night at another restaurant we were told there was a 3 hour wait to be seated even though there were multiple open tables throughout the restaurant. These experiences really soured my opinion of people in Europe.

Probably part of the problem was the fact that I couldn't speak german and sort of assumed that everyone knew english. I always asked if they spoke english first though and I think I was pretty polite about it so I don't really know what their problem was.

Also I ended up eating most of my meals at McDonalds because everyone there was young and spoke really good english. Plus I knew what all the food was and it wasn't 20 dollars a meal.
 
Damn dude, that really sucks... like that's just shitty. And for them to call us ignorant and all that shit... goes to show that no matter the country or leader, people can still be stupid ass holes. Fucking pricks.
 
wow that sucks. that just soured my opinion about people from switzerland too. if i were you i would have wanted to kick those peoples asses so bad.
 
i think the problem with america is that

the government lies to the people, that is why we are ignorant

and anybody who pays money expects the person he is paying to act like a slave.
 
That sucks. Yeah, there seems to be this open hostility towards Americans in parts of Europe. For whatever reason some folks have forgotten to distinguish Americans from America.

I'd add that to me, there's a pretty serious streak of xenophobia throughout Europe in general.

I've been to the Middle East a few times and the people there are very conscious about such a distinction between people and governments, which is better than I can say about a lot of places around the world.

 
Ive been working at a museum for the past two years and really, the people that are most interested and ask most questions have been American cruise tourists. Most of the tourists in Norway are Germans, I have never ever experienced getting questions etc by Germans. Ive never been in the US so in my experience most Americans are nice and polite people, ofcours they speak loud and all that but i guess thats how the culture is ^^.

Though i got other thoughts about Americans by watching tv(everyone being fat and religious) and the politics.
 
in my experiences in europe, it always helps to at least try and speak the language of the country that you are in to show them that you don't expect that they know english and that you are trying to sort of embrace their culture- i mean why do we always assume everybody else speaks english. You know it's sort of like if a german person came to america and asked people if they spoke german. Might not seem like a big deal, but I think that makes a difference.

 
I have heard that many americans will wear a Canadian flag rather than an american flag when travelling to other countries...now this is just what i have heard...
 
Everyone in switzerland was super nice to me, and I don't recall actually telling anyone that I was Canadian rather than American, so I'm not sure how they would've known. Although I was with a Swiss chick for part of it at least. Italy had some cunts, the middle-aged-woman-with-sense-of-entitlement and bitterness-'cause-she's-not-hot-anymore thing is rampant there. Still most people in service there are as polite as they are here in Canuckistan in my experience.
 
we actually americanize all the foreign food we serve. I can guarantee at least 90% of Americans have never ate real chinese food in their life, and if they had, they would have found it absolutely disgusting. None of the mexican food is legit either, except in a mexican part of town where even the Servers don't speak english.
 
i think it really depends on where you go. Obviously i know taco bell isn't mexican, thats why i dont really eat there very often. Its EASY to find a real foreign restaurant. For example i was in arizona last spring and went to a vietnamese restaurant. When i walked in, there were 3 white people out of about 45 people in the whole place. One being me, another my friend, and then some random dude. The food america is known for sucks, such as mcd's and all the fast food, but what im saying is its really easy to find good ethnic food. Especially if you live in an urban area. I live near NYC and there are probably close to 100,000 restaurants there.
 
that is pretty much it.

so self centred it is a joke, have no idea about what is best for other places, just what is best for america

and im english
 
because the fact is that most europeans do speak english especially in northern/western europe. English is the language of business. Whatever country is the most dominating economically, people will speak their language to do business. Americans never actually needed to know another language so few of us do. Although that is changing, as I think spanish will become increasingly present in U.S. culture. It's already bilingual in many areas of the country.

What I find funny is when a german guy gets pissed that I don't know german I just think, "what makes you think I'd pick German out of all the European languages to learn? If anything I would know Spanish" don't get too full of yourselves over there, euros, don't wanna end up like some fat pompous Americans. By the way, obesity is a growing problem in Europe too, especially in England so watch out.
 
Foreigners think we are so ignorant, but they ae the ignorant ones to assume that every american is the same gas guzzling texan who wastes resources for a hobby. i know its one of those sterotype things but still it pisses me off. foreigners arent so great anyway
 
Well, by proportion, there are more native German speakers in the EU than other languages, English included. The figure is around 90 million or so, and it's the official language in three EU countries, and a majority language in the northern tip of Italy (South Tyrol).

Spanish of course is the most useful language in the States outside of English.

And you're absolutely right about the obesity issue, it's getting fat over here. I blame it on McDonald's, haha.

 
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