Comments by "Christian Baune" (@programaths) on "The DUMBEST questions I’ve been asked by Americans! #askagerman Series Pt. 5 | Feli from Germany" video.

@ninjaphobos We had an American working in the same office and he was far from movies. He mostly spoke in slang and that was funny, because I understood a lot of it while colleagues were quite puzzled. When I did not understood, I just asked him and he "translated". My colleagues were shy to ask ^^ Those were really great days. Obviously, this quickly broke all preconceptions I had. Another funny thing with America, is that this is a country, but for us, a country is roughly what you call a state. So, I often see people puzzled by American diversity when they are faced with it. Another funny thing is just the sheer scale. New-York is roughly Belgium population 😅 Or there are the thing that are much less known, like how cold it can be between building towers. What makes it extra confusing is that you have some unity that EU does not have in your culture due to the language itself. It's like you've a culture at federal level then at state level. Another one are people mocking Americans who can't locate France or Germany. But they can't locate Florida or Texas in USA ^^ Then there is the confusion with calling American citizen of USA, since America is the continent. And often, America is used in lieu of USA. So that fosters a lot of confusion ^^ It will not change, because that's not easy to grasp ^^
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2:56 That's a polite way to ask you to speak German for show. It can bee seen as rude to ask someone to speak his native language, because that can be taken as asking them to do a trick. It's in the same vein as "It is for me ?" when you are giving food/drink to someone who didn't solicit it. It's to highlight your gesture before thanking you. Those manners kind of got lost in EU, so now it looks weird and dumb ^^ In Belgium, we say "s'il vous plait" (the English "please") when asking something. Even when it''s an order, we use id: "S'il vou plait, prenez un siège" (please take a seat). In france, that expression translate "If you want" or "if it's your desire". So, French people used to make fun of us with that. And we even say stuff like "Tu veux bien te taire s'il te plait ?" and there, the "'il te plait" is not the polite one (and the "tu" is the informal "you"), but a way to stress that you are annoyed. Pretty sure Americans also get a lot of stupid questions too.
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@ninjaphobos The Usainian...Well Sadam would not be happy 🤣 《United States of America》is really crystal clear. "Ustamarians" seems to works
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