Hey guys! I'm exploring some of the things I don't miss living in France because let's face it, the US doesn't do everything perfectly even if we think we are THE BEST at everything 😂 Would love to hear about the things you don't miss living abroad or the things you wouldn't miss if you were to move! xx
Keep exploring and maybe you'll learn the reasons for some of the things American, that you admitted to or apparently don't know the underlying principles for. Most traits and customs occurred for a reason.
As a French person, I like to get a foreign perspective on this country, in order to find out what we do right, and what we could do better. Too often we oscillate between extremes of "We're perfect!" and "We're hopeless!" The truth is that we need to work on a number of things, but overall we aren't doing so bad by international standards.
There is so bad reputation of Middle West that I'sure as usual..)that it can not be true and I want to visit this part of the U.S before N.Y or L.A. I'm sure people are great there...
I'm French. If I moved, I wouldn't miss : people complaining for stupid reasons all the time ; employment rules that greatly favors unemployment ; the gap/ocean between mid classes and elite and hence, the hate for people who succeed even though they made it with hard work ; the disrespect for our own proud history.
Dutch. If I moved I wouldn't miss the language, the uncontrollable urge of people to always buy the cheapest alternative and disregard everything else, the overly trimmed and tightly controlled landscape that we call 'nature', how everything is built as small as possible, or how we think we're supposed to be a role model country and show everyone else how well we're playing by the rules - as long as we don't have to pay for it, or how we think that the best person to run our country is an accountant. Ugh.
some lucky people that live in States like Oregon don't have to pay sales tax at all. My French husband was there a few months ago for a conference, and he said it was so refreshing not having to calculate the sales tax compared to other times when he needed to go Stateside. But the tipping part still freaks him out a little.
@@aeolia80 So true that all states aren't alike for that! I think in Minnesota there is no sales tax for clothes. So shopping can be extra fun sometimes!
Why ? Because prices are lower without tax, then you take more and when you arrive at the cashier, you are usually not brave enough to say "Oh ... it's too expensive, finally I don't want this" and ... you buy !
@@wir6228 No it's because tax rates vary quite a bit from state to state, county to county. The store has a price for the item, at the checkout it adds the tax. The store doesn't add the tax to the price shown as you could in theory buy numerous items at a high tax store and refund the full price at a no tax store. By also not having the tax in the price it makes all stores equal and is your option to pay the higher tax if you live in a higher tax area or travel a distance and not pay a tax. Though granted to many, you'd think one country would have a single tax and it be factored into the price.
One good thing to live in France (and having french visa) is that you can travel in any European country without any border guard control, it's full opened between countries Which is very good during holidays, you can go to Germany or Italy or Spain in about 2 hours and enjoy another culture
Andromediens depends where you're coming from, cause not everyone can go in Spain, Italy or Germany etc in just 2h, even with "TGV" (when there is no strikes) But otherwise its true, travelling is quit easy from France, but same, not from everywhere
I live in the US again, now, but when I lived in France one thing that I really appreciated was the lack of religiosity. Coming from the south, there's so much religion in your face all the time. France was absolutely not like that and it was so refreshing.
Actually, as a Frenchman who grew up with Americans, I think in the US people are obsessed with the acquisition of money and material wealth. It is actually intertwined with religion. You have all these TV evangelicals calling for you to donate your seed money so that they can buy a bigger private jet and a bigger mansion. In France, religion is personal. It is like a penis, it is ok to have one, just don't go waving it around in public.
It will not last. In a few decades (let's say when the babies are old), there will be a lot of religiosity in France, but it will not be the same religion as before ... Ca ne va pas durer. D'ici quelques décennies, (disons quand les bébés seront âgés), il y aura beaucoup de religiosité en France, mais ce ne sera plus la même religion qu'avant ...
@@TheMorSkull01 The level of materialism is about the same, the difference is that the Americans have a bit more going for them than just that. It needn't be repeated that France has the highest number of millionaires in all of Europe (not counting Russia)..
France isn't really a "small" country it is actually one of the biggest european country😅 i m from luxzmbrug ( a really really small country near france and for me France is enormous!!!
arobrak 15 Well, I live in Canada, and France is really, really small to us. For example, from the most eastern Canadian “big” city (Saint-John, NL) to the most western one (Vancouver, Bc), it’s a 76 hours drive... 76 HOURS (for real)! 😂
To a North American, even France is small. Europe in general seems incredibly compact. The entire EU is less than half the size of either the US or Canada (each is about 60% the size of Russia). Most European countries are the size of North American subnational units (and even the big EU nations are in line with bigger states and smaller than most Canadian provinces). The sense of perspective on geographic size is just drastically different between people on each continent.
@@Svendar Yep! All the European francophone areas are about a third the size of Quebec, which itself is a little more than a third the size of the whole EU... And it's just our biggest province. Our notions of scale are different.
There s a joke a famous comedian used to tell about France : So, as god was creating earth, he realized that it wasn't fair that he d made France such a beautiful country. So in order to make it right he decided to put the french in it.
@Flo morteforet Nope. Texas is bigger. France is some 650,000 km², while Texas is almost 700. And Alaska is over 1.7M km². So even if you include the overseas territories, Alaska is VASTLY larger. Texas would be smaller though.
@@petervan1353 What continent is it a part of then? I'm not talking politics but geography. For instance Denmark is in North America because of Greenland.
Reading some comments, I am reminded that the americans are most upset about having to say "Bonjour", when entering in a shop... but actually, it's a set of mind : we take the "égalité" part of our motto very seriously. In France, any shopping is a commercial agreement between two equals. Customer is not a King...we spelt floods of blood to get rid of those in the last 200 years! So, saying "Bonjour" is not enought, you must do it with a (genuine) smile , while making eye contact ! If you can show a light sens of humor during the transaction, the better. And don't forget the "Thank you ! Have a nice day!" afterward... Yes, the customer says that ! Try it Guys ! you'll soon notice that customer service is heavenly and bureaucracy far more ...flexible !
I'm from Canada and as a client/customer, I say Bonjour or hi or sometimes both when I'm not sure of the language. Even "Thank you ! Have a nice day!" (or in French) after the transaction.
Louis XVI never killed his own people, the revolutionary did so. I dont understand your comment about blood spilled to remove french monarchy. But Im not a native, so i would like have your explanation
@@user-fb9sm7nn2x He speaks about a lot of things, the main one being when a monarchic coalition attacked Revoutionary France to restore the absolute monarchy (and then the monarchy itself). See : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_First_Coalition. It is what the national anthem, the "Marseillaise" is about. There were other moments, by instance the revolution of 1830, the revolution of 1848.
@@user-fb9sm7nn2x I wrote "We spelt floods of blood..."meaning, we (french people) ....I never said Louis XVI did so. And, BTW, I was not only thinking of the 1789 revolution, but also the several crisis (1848, la commune...) that happened since then....
@@bobbiusshadow6985 But, then, you are Canadian, citizen of one of the Nation on earth most praise for its politeness... My comment was more directed to your southern neighbours.
I'm pretty sure the complaint about people not being friendly/smiling enough in France is due to the fact that you live in Paris. Provincial cities are a lot less grumpy haha
I have been living in France for the past six years. Aside from learning French, it’s been a positive experience. I do miss the States. Particularly the beauty of certain areas and the people are more friendly, as you noted, almost like puppies compared to the French, who can be dour and negative until they get to know you. We are here because of the excellent health care, at minimal or no cost. We can’t afford to live in San Francisco anymore, which is where I’m from. It’s sad, really, but I also have a feeling that Americans are afraid all of the time. The fear factor has taken over their lives. Fear of getting sick and not being to afford health care, fear of losing their jobs (so they work two hours overtime to demonstrate that they’re a member of the “team”, fear of immigrants, fear of black people, fear of brown people, fear, fear, fear. It simply doesn’t exist in France. Thanks for the vlog. Nice job.
The Rule one is so true, but I've never heard it on other channels. I lived in both countries, and in the US ppl will follow rules, simply because it's a rule, and won't really question it. In France, if the rule doesn't make sens, people won't follow it.
On the other side, even if it makes sense, if it doesn't make instant value or if not following it gives you an advantage over other people, some won't follow it.
OMG, us loud Americans lol, but it is true. I travel to France as often as I can, and I love it there. I have to change into "French Brain" when I go (I'm American) and talk softer, keep my hands above the table when eating, and resist the urge to leave 20% at the resto like I do here at home. I swear, tipping is so ingrained in me that I feel like a cheat if I only leave 5% extra (which I often do - a small tip, in cash, is still appreciated in nicer places). I tend to dress a bit better too, to try and blend in. Chinos instead of jeans, dress shoes, collared shirts, a scarf, that sort of thing. I feel pretty much the same things as you do when I'm in France, excepting the health care of course because I don't live there. But last trip to Paris I had a very funny experience on the Mètro - I was standing near the end of a crowded car and there was a group of 4 schoolboys (maybe 13-14 years old) in the seats at the end. They were talking LOUD. In Paris-style-full-speed native French. This is not done by French people on trains. But these kids were definitely French, so I was a bit shocked at how loudly they were carrying on. And I'm a friggin' Yank! I think the other people on the train were too polite and reserved to say anything to them. Well, not to be outdone by a bunch of French kids, I summoned my own full American loud voice. I asked one of the boys - who I determined was sort of the alpha dog - in my lousy tourist French, where he was from. So I continued and asked if he was American... loudly... as he should have to an adult). So I told him in my obviously-foreign French, "Because *I'M* American, and you talk louder than I do!" Shock, silence, and looks of horror on the faces of the boys, and I swear, several of the usually-reserved proper French adults in the nearby rows of seats actually laughed out loud! My stop came up right then and I exited the train with a jaunty > mdr. Those kids must have thought I was nuts. I thought it was kind of funny lol. I wonder if they are quieter on the Métro now tho... I don't know why I got into that whole story, I guess your video just reminded me of it. Anyway, thanks for the vid!
I am French and I went to the US a few times to improve my English during my teenage years. This "superiority complex" really struck me !! People were nice but always "we are living in the best country, there is no other place on Earth where I'd rather be..."
Lol, landslide huh? How's that going? Trump sponsored a putsch to stay in power, so I doubt he thinks he won. Just a few more days until he loses presidential immunity...
I agree with you entirely! I've spent a lot of time in France and by and large their culture has many 'superior' aspects that Americans have no clue about. I think when you travel (and many Americans haven't left the country - so much for having a big country - it's harder to leave it! ) you begin to see the benefits of other cultures and what they have to offer. I am appalled by the American notion of being the best - it's really provincial and silly. It's embarrassing! I just came back from a visit to France and was married to a frenchman - their sense of how to live life is so rich and filled with pleasure. Well done you for living there! Best of luck with ton bébé!
Thanks Meg! Glad to hear you agree! Sometimes you don't know if your experience is the same as everyone's so it's nice to hear other people who have the same experience. And connecting with people who are/were married to Frenchmen!
I do not agree with this point, because everyone has their own idea of the rules, everyone does what they want, nobody respects anything anymore and it becomes a mess.
Not much of a comment if you want the buses to run on time, and shop owners not to spit in your face, or people not to mug you. People shitting on their own rules aint a plus.
I definitely understand the overly friendly thing. Even though where I live in US we aren’t like that. I have experienced it in other states. I still think there is this culture of kinda fake niceness in the US. Small talk is very important here too.
Unintentionally Frenchified I don’t like either honestly. I do love being from the US in many ways (I’m black American), but the fakeness I’m so over it lol.
I think the fakeness definitely depends on the city, state or region you are in. I live in the country and people are genuinely being nice most of the time. I can’t tell you how many people have told me their life stories just randomly in a store or park. People just seem to be more open and helpful in the rural/country areas of the south and Midwest in general(in my personal experience as I’ve traveled and lived in diff places). I grew up in a large city and can’t stand visiting there because like you said everyone is being fake polite and friendly.
@@lysan4878 I completely agree, definitely regional. I too can remember times of random people telling me all about their lives especially in the South. It still shocks me to this day because I am definitely more reserved and uncomfortable with sharing so much of my personal life. That being people were genuinely kind.
@@sweetiepie9411 another big difference with United State : in France, you will never present you as "i'm black french". There is a lot of good thing in North America that french people could learn but one of the worse is the deep consciousness to belong first to a religion, a race or any other community rather than to just feel a human among humans. The historical defeat of The Lumières...which is coming even in France now.
I could not agree more when it comes to rules and that people follow them really closely in the U.S. compared to France. I spent two years at uni in North Carolina and the first time my (also French) friends and I got on the campus bus (which is free and does not require any ticket or anything), we got in through the back door because there were plenty of free seats and there was no need to validate any ticket so we weren't screwing anyone. The driver then proceeded to call us out, saying we could only get in through the front door (which is fair), refusing to drive and holding everyone inside until we got out through the back door, got back in through the front and sat back in the seats we had just left. We could not believe it, just pure madness!!
I might have an answer to that. When I was in Latin America, some buses had person counters in the front doors of the bus. So the company would know exactly how many people would take some buses and how much money had been gathered. Maybe that's why you had to pass by the front door.
Ranaounawa My guess is the bus company is providing X service for X number of riders. More riders is heavier weight which is more fuel consumption which means, depending on your agreement with University, could mean you’re losing money-so then you need to renegotiate your contract with the university. Free isn’t ‘Carte Blanche’ free to use a French expression.
@@Ranaounawa Making you exit, out the back door and reenter, through the front door, seems like more of a grumpy bus driver thing, than a rule observance thing :)
I think in france we have this mentality who make us question all of our environnement so we have so many different thinking and different lifestyle that make France an ungovernable country but a beautiful country.
But at lest you are able to criticize your country . As an American I would get accused of being a communist (although with they way we suck up to Russia now maybe that’s not a bad thing)
@@shakya00 Just look : everything the governement say is targeted by critics or violent message, everything he do : HOP! STRIKES! If it's not ungovernable it's directed by incapable people since 1958 or before
I can't even imagine how much of a pain it'd be to go through US commercials, since french ads are already quite long depending on the channels you're watching.
@@gillianlandry283 oui! ✔💯 But I had to walk 20km every day in Paris because of no Métro. That was my Christmas. 😢 I lost all the chocolate kilos I ate and I need the extra kilos to stay warm in winter 😋😂 Plus de 20km chaque jour, I still feel it in my legs. 😭 And no trains back to my country either, I had to hitch a hike.
@@lauraveapi3840 Well, you lost the extra pounds, I would say that's a positive thing. Mais je sais que ça ne devait pas être facile pour vous d'avoir à marcher 20 km tous les jours!
On tipping : Studies have been conducted that indicated that quality of service is not correlated to tipping amount. Most people tip what they usually do regardless of service. On the metric system : The imperial system is actually entirely defined by the metric system because the latter has the most precise measurements.
Hi, you make a lot of good points but living in France now for 22 years, I would definitely add the short lunch times in the states. I love the two hour lunch breaks in France. I remember in HS in the states having basically 10-15 min to wolf down my lunch because the rest of the 30min break was spent rushing from class to my locker then rushing to the cafeteria to find a seat then rushing to eat to finish by rushing back to class... don’t miss that at all. I would also add for having children in France (aside from the health care advantages you described I agree wholeheartedly) the school programs for preschool and primary children are well thought out. The school day hours are better also for those parents who work! School for primary age doesn’t end at 3pm as in many US schools thanks to the long lunch break. So parents don’t’ have to find an after school program or worse leave the kids at home alone. One last point: when you have a sick child, with a medical certificate you can miss work without any hassle from your employer and without losing your pay. You don’t have to sacrifice your family for your job. Enjoy the baby care France offers! The midwives and baby nurses are like gold!
I have to agree with you, I am Mexican but I have my two boys that were born here and they have this superiority complex. But I think they teach them that in school. For whatever reason they think they’re superior to the rest of the kids in the world.I always have to bring them down from the cloud to teach them reality and how things truly are.
One more thing that is nice living in France, is that you can travel easily and quickly to other countries around it and experience other cultures. And maybe that's why the French are more relative to who's the best country and so on. Especially with the EU rules, student exchange is so easy, and living/working in another country in the EU is so easy, so cultural exchange is bigger than in the US that don't really know anything else than itself. That's why they are so sure they're the best in everything. They can't compare. Also, unlike the World series that you mentioned, France is really the World champion. In football (soccer) :-)
I'm not sure that french people are really relative about who they think is the best, and I'm talking by experience. That's chauvinism for you, and it's really annoying.
For those that have not spent much time in the US its challenging to understand the culture. The country is very very large and therefore it doesn’t really have a cohesive culture. Its a country of dozens of cultures. In particular big east coast cities and rural southern cities have tremendous culture clashes.
Avec mes parents qui se plaignent de l'invasion de plus en plus massive des pubs à la télé quand on daigne regarder quelque chose , je suis surpris aussi ^^ !
I'm French living in Australia, and I'm telling you, ads in France is nothing compare to what I have here. I don't know which one of the US and Australia is the worst, but it's insane. The other day I was watching a movie, it started at 9pm, with a duration of 2h20... it ended at 0:30am !!! It's almost a full hour of ads !! It's not annoying anymore it's just painful, and the break is not even super long, its like 3 or 4 ads (often the same), but ALL the time. Sometimes it's so often you are not even sure if it's part of the movie or if it's an ad. Because there are no screens breaks that tells you "ad moment" it just cut the movie in the middle of the conversation and show an ad. Just like that lol...
@@user-jl3id5is3x Il y en a beaucoup, surtout de plus en plus, ces dernières années. Mais une fois que tu vis ailleurs, tu fais ah bah finalement ça va ! C'est pas une raison pour en mettre encore plus en France. C'est assez comme ça.
Germany is the opposite to France when it comes to rules. In Germany people automatically assume that rules are in place for a good reason so nobody really questions them.
For the second point, about tips in France. You paid the right price (with taxes), but you can also give a tips to a waiter (we call it a 'pourboire' - "for drinking" litterally). It's not necessary, but it's always grateful to give more when you're satisfied with the service.
Liz Chatham In my experience I find that Southerners tend to be quite quiet as well, at least relative to the North, although I generally only have experience with the more urban parts. Probably rural folk talk louder to be heard over longer distances and/or over industrial machinery (most factories in the US South are rural).
@@eileensweeney2500 In France (and Europe as a whole), it's rather the opposite. Northerners are quieter, Southerners are louder. And it extend to people with North African origins, either Arabs, Kabyles, Sefarad Jews and "Pieds-Noirs" ex-colonists, who are the four loudest communities. The only ones able to vie for this tittle are English people, when they are drunk.
Interesting to hear it referred to as "The US Customary System" when the rest of the world (who all gave up using it) call it the British Imperial system (which is who the Americans inherited it from). Even the British gave it up in favour of the metric system.
The US Customary System and the British Imperial System are not the same thing. They are very similar but are slightly different. An Imperial quart is slightly more than a litre while a US quart is slightly less. In Canada, metric is legal but we also use Imperial. We share manufacturers with the US for many things which is why we have weird sizes for some things like a can of soda is 355 mls which is 10 US fl oz (or is it 10 Imperial oz....I don't even know....ha ha). We're completely into celsius for weather but if we're cooking we set our ovens in fahrenheit. When we buy gas for our car, it's litres. My height and weight is in feet and pounds and when I golf it's yards but when I drive to another city it's kilometres. Most things I can convert easily but the metric system is far better because it's easy to calculate but also because a litre of water weighs 1 kilogram so it's integrated from one measure to another
@@brianyoung3 Canada converted to the intenational measurement system aka metric system back in 1976. We have sodas are sold in 355 ml cans or 12 US fluid ounces while beers are sold in 341 ml bottles or 12 imperial fluid ounces. Go figure!
@@brianyoung3 And 1L = 1dm3 = 1000 cm3 = a 10cm edge cube. That way, you link weight, lenght and volume. The beautiful metric system : another French invention :P Actually 1m = an Earth meridian length / 10 000 000.
I'm a french guy and I'm so glad to understand you so well, even if you speak rather quickly. I don't have to activate subtitle, I don't have to make the video slower. and I don't need to go to goggle translate. Even if I'm more used to British accent, your's is just not a problem. Why are there so many Americans I cannot understand?
I find public transportation in the US to be somewhat lacking, and the trains are rather slow compared to Europe. On the other hand gas is cheaper in the US.
First, USA have the ressources on their soils, when France and other European countries have to import mostly from the Persic Gulf ;^) Then, the French taxes on the gas are MONSTRUOUS ! (that's why we talk about us being "Vaches à lait": "Milk cow" of our gouvernment, and this is one of the reasons of the "gilets jaunes" movement).
The overly friendliness is also nice to play with though. When a stranger comments on something just pull the conversation in their personal space as quickly as possible. So like inviting yourself to their home because you would love to see /eat what they are talking about. When it is about music say it just gets you and your partner in the mood and ask what gets them in the mood. Get them out of balance. It is really funny to see how all of a sudden the conversation stops or they try to make polite excuses :-) .
As a French just returning home after 5 years in NZ and 1 year in the UK, I really struggle with the 'no filter talking' which I surprisingly missed a lot when I was overseas. People here can be very judgmental too. Did you notice how the French like to judge people based on their spelling? ☺️ I currently find it difficult to interact with my friends who are questioning my career choices while in NZ and UK people would just encourage me. We do not really have a work career culture in France (is it bad though if we don't need/want it?). My personal opinion is that politeness standards are different in France. In France being frank and direct is very much valued but in Anglo-Saxon countries being too direct/negative can be extremely rude. I did struggle during my first years as I found people very hypocrite overseas until I realised we just have different politeness standards (and to be fair they probably found me rude for being very direct) . However I'm glad to be back in a country where food is a religion, where we take a lunchbreak at work, where we have one of the highest level of social security in the world, where most people can afford to rent a place without having to share their home with strangers, where we have a decent state pension, where ladies don't go shopping in pj's, where ladies are always pretty, sophisticated and elegant when they go out rather than looking like cheap TV reality stars with fake tan and shit loads of make up (paint?).
@chill out ambient I am back in France after living 20 years abroad. i am having the same struggle to adjust to life in France. I am contemplating going abroad again.
"where ladies don't go shopping in pj's, where ladies are always pretty, sophisticated and elegant when they go out rather than looking like cheap TV reality stars with fake tan and shit loads of make up" 🤣🤣🤣 - I'm guessing here but I think you're talking about the UK🤔. If NZ is also like this then I don't want to visit it anymore!
I’m from the Faroe Islands and moved to Denmark 12 years ago. Even though the Faroe Islands are a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, it still very different culturally and linguistically. I don’t miss the gossip culture, in your face religiosity, weather, rules and expectations, expensive prices, nepotism and isolation (both access to goods and with regards to rest of the world). I do miss the nature, friendly people, lack of bureaucracy (in some areas) and slow pace of life, and being able to speak my native language again. What I like about Denmark is the lack of religiosity, weather, okay prices, access to a large economic market (EU market), lack of isolation, free spiritedness. What I dislike about Denmark is that the people are really high strung and because of that they snap at you for the most minute things, even though they don’t necessarily mean it. They are starting to become really suspicious of strangers, something that wasn’t really that much of a big deal “back in the day”. People drink too much and it’s really hard to make friends. They are really bureaucratic, it’s absolutely ridiculous and because of that a lot of mistakes happen in the system. If you’ve seen Little Britain’s “computer says no” sketch - it’s like that. No flexibility what so ever - sometimes like taking to a robot. Also the language. It’s an absolute nightmare. I understood Danish perfectly before moving to Denmark, but it’s really difficult to speak. I still have an accent after 12 years of almost only speaking Danish. Other than that I really like living in Denmark. It’s nice in general and I don’t suspect I’ll be leaving anytime soon. :)
hate to tell you but none of the baseball teams France could field could ever qualify to play in the world series. French athletes are that good judging by the Olympics.
@@jimvacuum Well, the same is true of American "Football" and the reason is the same, nobody but americans really cares about it. There is no professional baseball league anywhere in europe. And while there used to be a european american "football" league, it has gotten quite around them. Rugby has a larger following and is played professionally around the world, but they are still a far shot from actual football or ice hockey. Baseball is to the US what Cricket is to the British. They used to dominate that sport internationally until a former colony learned to play it.
I live in Australia, and when we went metric, we had little stickers to place on the speedometer of your car; so many kilometres = so many miles per hour!. I must admit that I now think in the metric system for all things, except the size of a block of land. I still think in acres. Metric systems are great. We also changed our currency many years ago to dollars and cents. The old British system of "pounds, shillings and pence" would make your brain boil!!
I didn't realize that australia had gone metric so recently! It's a good example for the US. Just because we have been doing it a certain way for 200 plus years doesnt mean we cant change it up for something WAY better! 😂 I don't understand anything the english do either, don't get me started on a "stone" hahahah
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified Recently is relative. Australia went metric in 1970s. Australia went dollars and cents from pounds, shillings and pence in the late 1960's. There were 12 pennies to the shillings and twenty shillings to the pound. A pound was worth about two dollars. The British went to from pounds, shillings and pence to pounds and pence. That is 100 pennies to the pound. I am not sure about miles to kilometres in Britain.
@@paulhowlett8151 Well its not as recent as I thought but it's still not that far away! The US passed a metrics act in 1975 that made all companies working in international trade adopt the metric system but apparently decided it wasn't neccessary for the rest of the country? Bummer!
We had that kind of change when 11 countries in Europe switched their national currencies to Euro. Excepting it concerned more than 320 millions people at that time.
@@paulhowlett8151 In the U.K. distance and speed limits are in miles but we also have kilometre markers on motorways. We use metric and imperial depending on what is being measured. Food and drink tend to be metric, bar milk which can be metric, imperial or marked as both. Height is in imperial, temperature is in metric, etc...
Wouldn't it be possible for each state? There would be inequalities, but the US would change the game, literally, the pharmaceutical companies would have to bend to the White House and the Senate's decisions!
American are so loud ! When I was in California this summer I went to a small restaurant to eat with my family, there was only us and another group in the restaurant and it seemed it was full.
So when I lived in France I didn’t miss the everybody should be normalness of Sweden, in France I could be cool and eccentric and speak with My hands and argue if merchandise wasn’t ok and arguing and protesting is a sport it’s not taken Seriously or rather it is to be enjoyed ! Also miss real french bread and the sarrasin crepes ( buckwheat ? thin pancakes not sweet, swedish pancakes are mainly sweet) also the markets and that you could discuss Marie Curie or Victor Hugo with anybody because the schools even at basic level are that good when it comes to culture Swedes are very good at groupdynamics, it and communications but not great at individuality and artistry. Normal is Sweden is a compliment and has a very positive connotation, We are a bit german that way whereas normal in many cases is more in the feeling of basic in France though if you are in a small village in the countryside it’s a lot easier being the eccentric foreigner than just eccentric if in the wrong way!
I think you believe some of those things because you met up especially with students, nop? Cause has french, I'm pretty sure 1 ppl on 2 can't tell you anything about Victor Hugo or name one of is book (except if they live in a street,boulevard etc, or came out from a "college" or "lycée" named in VH honor) Otherwise, it's true that we aren't super dumb (even if I wonder of its true sometimes), but school system is on big problem here, especially with other languages, even if the new generations are far more open to English than the previous ones. Anyway, it was just to "tempered" your com', who is really French friendly (and thanks for that!), but not impartial enough (I think) Hope you won't take offense about anything I wrote, it's not meant to be offensive but like I said earlier : English isn't our strength (not mine for sure xD)
Think possibly I’ve had the chance as you say to both run into University students and ... possibly more nerdy french people who haven’t had the schooling above 9th grade but have had the interest but also really think culture is more valued in France and more easily accessible for it. Could also be that I’m more sensitive to class barriers ( glass ceilings etc) in Sweden ( likely) than in France. When it comes to languages your problem is really the dubbing on television so that you don’t hear the language melodies and also that your teachers weren’t possibly aren’t required to teach in the languages without speaking french which makes means you have great difficulty getting fluent unless going abroad. Think CZcams and gaming is helping a lot though for younger generations.
Well, if you live in California you can snowboard in the morning and surf in the afternoon and the next day go to the desert or to wine country, all within 1-2 hours from home (Los Angeles).
Ohh I travelled to the US a few times (California) and the overly friendly thing DEFINITELY surprised me a few times! A few times I was like "... why are you communicating with me? O.O" haha. Regarding the loudness, yeah, it's something a Texan colleague of mine had to adapt to. He was EXCEEDINGLY loud, his laugh could be heard two floors down (!). It's probably due to culture as you said, but also language. You could whisper French and the words would be the same. However, other languages like Spanish require some clearer pronunciation to be understandable. And if you want loud, go to China: the way you pronounce a word can COMPLETELY change the sense of your sentence, so as a result they're forced to speak very loud in order to be clear :p
OMG Number 7.... I am very Swiss and I HATE this when I travel to the USA. It's so intrusive. I really do not care about a strangers opinion when I am giving cero invitation to have a conversation... Everyone asks you where you're from too (ugh, can I please just pay for my coffee and get out?).... in Switzerland we mind our own business.
Tellement choux ^^ Je suis d'accord avec tout tes points, après heureusement qu'il y a des différences culturelles, ça permet de prendre du recul et d'évoluer. Aaaa voyager est tellement enrichissant !
Ha ha, found this amusing in some ways. I am a US expat living in the UK, for 15 years now. I can totally agree on #1 and #6. Something I do not miss. #2 is refreshing to not have to think about what extra is added. And #4, it is a huge relief! On the flip side, the thing I still can't get passed here is paying for parking EVERYWHERE whereas in LA it's mostly free, unless it's valet and there are tons of spaces everywhere. Have enjoyed finding your channel recently.
Hi Christine! Glad you found the channel and are enjoying the videos! I don't have a car in France so I have never noticed the parking thing, but i'm sure I wouldn't be surprised if parking is almost always paid in Paris too!
Your comment on parking interested me and so I did a little googling. The city of Los Angeles has around twice as many parking spaces as the entire UK. So that might help explain why they don't feel the need to charge! Los Angeles: 18.6m parking spaces (www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/12/parking-los-angeles-maps-study/418593/) UK: 8 - 11.3m parking spaces (www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/Library/Reports%20and%20research/BPA_UK_Parking_Sector_Report_AWweb.pdf) I couldn't find data for London specifically, but I imagine the density of spaces is much lower there than in the rest of the UK, given the size of the roads and the lack of space for car parks. This might explain why the average cost to purchase a standalone parking space there recently hit £219,000! (www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/cost-of-a-london-car-parking-space-hits-219000-a128576.html), and parking in a car park averages £42 per day.
Kate, I’m doing TAPIF and was asked to teach the students about differences between France and the US. I used this video and it was a hit! The students enjoyed it a lot and it was a great conversation starter. They were very opinionated! They mostly agreed with what you said.
Ha! My French boyfriend was nodding and rolling his eyes at pretty much ALL of these! 😂 Another thing I don't miss is the teeny tiny lunch breaks. I'm going to hate going back to those. Btw, the friendliness level in New England (where I'm from) might suit you more. It's a decent balance. People smile and are friendly but still know how to keep their distance where appropriate. (We also have fewer chain restaurants. ;) Although still a lot more than here.)
I'm from.New England too and yeah lol... I did also live in the midwest for a few years and there's a big difference in culture even though it's the same country
Haha your boyfriend would get along well with my husband. All these points are the things that totally throw him off too when we are back in the US! I actually used to vacation close to Boston every year and it's true that there are way less chain restaurants!
Yea, i'm sure culture and attitude is really different depending on where you grew up in the US. I try to make my references as specific to my midwest childhood as possible since i'm sure it's not the same for someone living on the west coast or east coast!
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified Ha, yes, just like if you're not careful and you say "In France they do X", you might get a ton of "France is not Paris!!!" comments! ;)
I get those comments all the time! What makes me laugh though is that Paris is a part of France guys. I don't tell people that New York isn't an American experience or it's not part of the US because it's so different from the midwest or from the west coast. You've still experience the US in my opinion! 😍
I never understood the tipping thing and the tax not being included in the price of things. Like, tipping is because I apprecciate the service that person gave me, therefore, I am giving you more money as a sign of apprecciation, but the fact that is mandatory and the fact it's gotta be at least 16% of the check is a mind bender. If I need to tip service that means the employees are not paying this person enough for him to live.
As a scientist who immigrated to the USA we only use the metric system at work. So I don't get why the other system exists! I mean data is generated in metric system so why communicate it otherwise.
Yes, and it's funny to know that they use the metric system in the US to verify their own system. And I remember the failure of a landing on mars because somehow they mixed up inches and centimeters.
In your everyday life it doesn't matter that we use gallons, pounds, miles, etc. It's actually more convenient to buy a gallon of milk than a liter of milk (I paid 2.30 today for a gallon of milk today). Temperature make more sense in fahrenheit, yes 100 is hot and 50 is not and 0 is really cold and if it's a minus temp then don't go outside. I can say the same for MPH as 15mph is slow and 60 mph is fast and 100mph will probably kill you.
@@fernarias 1kg is 1000Gr. So you can ask for half a Kg, 500gr, 250gr is a quarter of a Kg, 750gr... same for liters, half, a quarter, 3L...it feels easier even in everyday life than going from a pound to once 1:16..
@@fernarias I grew up with imperial units: 16 oz=1 lb, 20 fl.oz = 1 pint, and my country went metric. I still estimate walking distance in miles, wind speed in Beaufort numbers or knots, but will happily do my driving metric. But you Americans seem obsessed with using the wrong units: roadworks are quoted in feet (wtf: 1500'? oh, about 3/10 M) and weights in pounds (Miss America weighs 120lb (no, she weighs 8 stone 8 lb) or truck laden weight 53000lb (about 23.6 tons, the real ones, 2240 lb)
I love watching reaction/culture shock videos and you nailed it about the superiority complex bit, I don't want to sound like I'm hating on americans, but the sense of "patriotic arrogance" is a bit annoying, the belief that they think they're the only country to exist and it's the best is a bit offensive to say the least, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed France and the way things are done, VAT/tax incorporated into the price (what you see is what you pay), tipping is a funny topic all around the world, in Europe we pay our waiting staff a decent wage, tips are a bonus, not a supplement for low wages like in the US, tips should be earned imo, also it's 2019,not 1919 why hasn't the US adopted the metric system yet? As a Brit, I find over friendliness from americans very odd , it feels like obsequiousness, like what are you after/wanting? one question though, what did you think of the emphasis on recycling that Europe has? and how is it different compared to the US?
@moobs moomin I have another theory about this overt patriotism. The US behave in the world as an empire. Btw I love this county but their acts on the international scale are awful. In that view, they send their military worldwide to achieve their agenda. So they need an on-duty mode population.
@@MrOuazo USA, Liberia and Palaos are the only 3 countries who don't use the metric sytem out of 192 countries recognized by UN. So when 189 countries use the metric system you can't tell "nobody does". US isn't the center of the world ;)
@@shakya00 Britain is not entirely metric and since Brexit has reverted back to using many Imperial units. They have not gotten away from using miles, gallons or feet and really only use Celsius for temperature and metric for weights but again will use stone for weight and ounces for food. One stone is 14 pounds. Lots of other countries will also reference US standard/Imperial units for describing height. Metric has a short coming with scalability especially using temperatures and lengths. The human body can detect very small variances in temperature and also lengths. Whole degrees Celsius are much broader than Fahrenheit and SI users only use millimeters or meters. Feet and inches makes more sense in describing a persons height. You will notice that decimeters are never used yet they are a valid unit and more scalable.
Hello, i'm french, i had a great vision of USA when i was young, but now, i won't even dare come to live in USA, mostly because of -no health care, take care of yourself, if you don't have money, then die -when you get too old to work ? i suppose it is, no support from the state, you have to store money on some account or insurance. Otherwise, no money no support you die. Even if you worked your whole life paying taxes. +but at least, you are supposed to earn more money than in France (well, i suppose this is true for some jobs, but not others. Like the rich gets richer, the poors are poorer). -guns. Really, walking outside of home knowing that anybody can kill you with a gun for no (good) reason at all ? Ok they are armed killers in France too, but a lot less. -tornados, cyclones :) a bit more dangereous on this side -trump, who is crazy, and doesn't care about ecology. Capitalism & Money and me first, Earth last, others behind. Thank you for the children of the world. Otherwise, living in usa looks cool. But it's a bit too much "life threatening" to live in the US for me. It's like gambling, if you are lucky - american dream - stats are like drop rate of farming games, really low of course - you get rich, and all is almost ok - except than you can still be shot for your money. Otherwise, well, no money, easy house eviction, citizens are free, but not supported by the state. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my current point of view, i'm too scared to go live there. If i had to change country, i'd rather go to Quebec or Canada.
Mdr, peur des armes à feu alors qu'en France on a régulièrement des fusillades à l'arme de guerre en cité ou des attentats. Belle mentalité. Ton commentaire entier sent la mentalité d'un enfant gâté bien trop couvé.
@@NeoShameMan Bah non pas envie de me faire flinguer. Suffit d'habiter vers Paris ou Marseilles et régulièrement, dans la rubrique faits divers, y a des règlement de comptes entre racailles à l'arme de guerre, parfois même en pleine rue, à la brésilienne
John Doe tu peux pas comparer le dégât des armes aux États-Unis par rapport à celui en France, bon déjà les États Unis c’est plus grand mais la bas t’a des gros massacres, pas un coup de couteau. T’as un gars il rentre dans une école et il tue 15 personnes ! Ce n’est qu’un exemple parmis tant d’autres mais je t’invite à te renseigner un peu plus et pas juger par ta simple expérience de tout qui n’a pas l’air très tangible
@@wildspirit5328 Non mais il vit pas dans une cité, donc il dit des conneries, c'est des gars comme lui qui fait que le patron, quand il voit ton adresse tu trouve pas de job, et oh pas d'appart non plus ou alors caution exorbitant , tu peux pas nourrir ta famille, et on traite de feignasse après parce que tu touche les allocs au lieu du salaire qu'on te refuse ...et personne ne fait rien si un ptit con énervé de voir sa famille végété et se faire traité de tout les noms, met le feux a un bus, et que tout les bobo se disent, he ben dis donc, faudrait faire quelque chose, et nous envoie des miettes à la cons. Mais le petit cons il a plus mon respect que les grand con comme lui, au moins il fait avancer les choses à sa manière.
I like your channel, an I am an expert since I am following your equivalents on the German side ;D I like your style, it is honest and comes right to the point but you are funny at the same time. Refreshing.
More or less, yes. But not for winter: its temperatures, its length, its very short days. In Europe, it is the same thing only in the north: Scandinavia, etc.
I sometime talk to my neighbors when I take dog for a walk when I lived in a city they basically almost never talk to you. So depends on what part of country you are in how much people will talk to you.
Hi! I am French and I live in Germany. I loved your comment about rules. This is so true!!! Our values are first people and rules must serve the people not the other way around. Therefore we usually question the rules and need to understand them. if we see that the rule does not fit it's purpose or not applying the rules does not harm anyone or anything then we will tend not to apply it. This is the exact contrary in Germany. This country LOVES rules. On one hand this leads to people being more disciplined,which is good. For example I like that cars here stop at crosswalks when there is a pedestrian. In France crosswalks are simple decoration! I definitely don't miss that! But on the other hand Germans are really extreme regarding rules which makes them too rigid. So a good mix between the two mentalities would be good. I am the mother of a 2 month old baby and the other thing I don't miss in France is short maternity leave. In Germany it is normal to take at least a year off to be with your baby, while in France it is usually ca. 3 months after birth. A side note, I was surprised to see how different are the mentalities regarding child birth and child care between even neighbouring countries inside Europe. There must be also a great difference between France and the US. That could be a subject for one if your following videos :-)
Love all the info! People keep pointing out how following the rules becomes more important the more north you go in Europe and less important the more south. It's true that the Germans have a reputation for being hardcore rule followers and the area was mainly settled in by Germans, so the mentality isn't too surprising! I've heard maternity leave in Germany is amazing! Some of our French friends their actually complain about how long it is, but it's seems amazing to have so much flexibility to put family first for a bit before returning back to work if you want to/need to. I'm planning on some US vs French pregnancy/baby raising videos once the tiny tot makes her appearance!
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified I wish you good luck until your little one arrives... You'll see that is the hardest but also the most amazing, the greatest time in one's life! Wish you all the best :-) :-) :-)
That's right, but the French have their rules, too, where they can be quite rigid. For example with their personal formalities. Ask someone on the street for directions, to come to a bakery without saying Bonjour Madame/ Monsieur? Well, get ready for a lecture.
In Britain we have an old comedy TV series called "Yes Minister" which was jokingly talking about the different application of rules in Europe. It was a fake scenario with a new "EU Identity Card" being introduced: "The Germans will love it. The French will ignore it. The Spanish and Italians will be too chaotic to enforce it. No, it's only the English who will resent it." Supposedly in Germany the rules are followed happily. In France they're ignored at will. In the UK we follow them, and are annoyed about it.
@@severinepele9864 I'm a French male and never went to Germany so I don't have that experience, but I heard that german mother are quite looked down if they try to work again while having child contrary to french mother. The term is Raven mother. So maybe the maternity leave is better in germany in short term, but the social bias against working mother doesn't make it very attractive.
Love all of these things :-) I live in Europe as well. I don't miss cars :-) Public transit is free where I live, and long distance trains are less than 10 euro for a 2 hour trip.
The US is horrible when it comes to pricing for suburban commuter rail. In the SF Bay area, a one hour trip can cost around 14-20 dollars one way. No wonder people stick to their cars.
I'm an American and have been studying abroad in France for about 5 months now. I totally agree with you on the sales tax, I have enjoyed being able to calculate my groceries while going through the store or clothes in shops, and know exactly what my total will be. I will miss that when I go back home in a few days. But I will say, I definitely miss the small talk, open conversation with strangers, and the acceptance of smiling while out at home. Personally I just feel like being able to converse with the cashier, or person next to me in line is a way of connecting to all sorts of people from your own culture or other cultures who are visiting, even if they are strangers. Love your video! :)
French here. Moved to Indiana 7 years ago. And I have the exact same opinion about the differences between France and the US. No country is perfect obviously and to each its own. But yeah, you nailed it perfectly in my book. I am fine with sales tax until you travel to another state and it changes. 😂 But noise in restaurants, sometimes over friendly people and chain restaurants, yep, totally relatable.
Very interesting video. I have lived and worked in the U.S. and I really enjoyed it, especially working there because it is so much more fluid and more practical than in France. I totally agree with you than the metric system is so much easier to use than the imperial system (invented by Britons) because it is a decimal system whereas the imperial system is something else: 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1,760 yards in a mile. American are very friendly especially in rural areas, probably more than most Europeans. You have not mentionned that maternity leave is a must in France compared to the U.S. You will soon experience it.
wow. french person here. i had to stop at the health care thing, not because of what you say about the difference, though it's part of it, but because you felt you had to say "i'm not trying to start a debate, it's just my opinion…" - and then it's just perfectly reasonable things, like 'i'm glad i don't have to worry about ruining my family over health problems'. this is making me feel really really depressed for everyone in the US. every time i see something about healthcare there it hits me again.
Thank you for this great video! All the things you mentionned are the ones I missed the most when I was living in the US ( I am French). Same thing with your previous video about culture shock (what you missed about the USA was what I loved the most about the USA).
I would add public transportation!!! I was shocked in US by absence or low services in US regarding public transportation. Everybody has to have a car. You dont even get side walk. I were the only one walking or using bike 🤷♀️
Canada is very similar in all these respects...except instead of focusing on being the best country in the world, we often focus on how we are better/different than the US lol. We have a strange mix of imperial and metric. We weigh and measure ourselves with imperial for example, but measure speed of cars and gas prices in metric. It’s very confusing haha.
I've always felt like Canada is such a good middle ground between europe and the US. You get some of the positives of being in North America and parts of the culture I love, but without some of the negative sides of the American society like our healthcare system. hahah I agree that you focus on how not american you are, but it's normal because the similarities between the two countries get people confused sometimes!
Ellen Clea In Quebec, we learn with the metric system during primary and secondary school and once we get in cegep and University we learn with imperial system.
Ellen Clea: I was born and raised in Quebec, grew up in the imperial system; and I can tell you for a fact that everything in this country is now measured in metric. I've never heard of people being weighed and measured in imperial since 1975. Also, the only thing I've observed we think we have an advantage over the US in is healthcare. I've never heard anyone here say they thought they were better than the Americans. Different, yes, not better. Where are you living in Canada, Ellen?
@@karenburrows9184 very interesting. I live in Ontario where what I said is definitely true, at least for people of my generation. I think the great majority of people here only know their weight in pounds and height in feet and inches. I only learned my height/weight in metric once I lived in Europe for a bit and people had no idea about imperial. I don't think Canadians (or Ontarians) really think we're better personally than Americans, but rather that our country is generally better. But in reality we are really not very different at all and everyone has their own subjective ideals anyways
@@melonellen4 Hey, Ellen - greetings from Green Valley, Ontario. I've been living here for almost six years. In my recent checkup at my nurse-practitioner's office, I was once again weighed and my height taken in metric. I agree with your statement that we like our country better, for the most part, and I also agree that we are not very different overall. Nice talking to you!
If you are older, as I am, you can remember when chain restaurants were uncommon. I don't think I ever saw any chains other than fast food chains before I was an adult. I prefer restaurants are owned by the people you see.
I am an American in America, and you touched a hill I decided a long time ago that I will die on. The imperial system is not inferior to the metric system. What I will say is that there are a lot of compelling situations to use the metric system over the imperial system, such as cooking and scientific endeavors. With that said, if we take measurements of length, there are more factors that one can divide by evenly. A foot is 12 inches. That means you can divide a foot by 2, 3, 4, and 6. That also means you can divide a yard by the same factors and be left with a measurement of feet and inches. In the metric system, you have two factors: 2 and 5. The advantage to metric is that there is always a name for the more precise measurement (ex. meter -> decimeter). Now let's take Fahrenheit. The only advantage Celsius has to Fahrenheit in something like cooking is that you have to memorize the numbers 32 and 212. Given that I personally have mastered these two numbers, I am now unhindered to effectively use Fahrenheit to cook, and I can even leverage its advantage to protect myself. The advantage of Fahrenheit is that it has ended up being a great scale to determine what is too hot and what is too cold. If the temperature outside is 100F or more, you know it's too hot. You can't really shed anymore layers and expect not to get a heat stroke. If you're cooking and something is 100F or more, you know it's too hot to handle with bare hands. If you take your temperature and the thermometer reads 100F or more, you know you have a fever. What's too hot in Celsius? 38C. That's one number you need to memorize. Let's take too cold now. Once the temperature outside reaches 0F, there is no amount of layering you can do to stay warm. Liquids begin to freeze rapidly, and if you stay outside without some kind of active warming device, you will get hypothermia. What is too cold in Celsisu? -17C, another number to memorize. 100F and 0F are the extreme points at which there is no defending against the elements such that the temperature itself is harmful to human survival. The boiling point of water (waaaay too hot) doesn't really tell me anything at all about what to wear outside. In summary, the imperial system is a perfectly adequate standard unit of measurement, provided that we all agree that there are situations where another system is more appropriate.
Service at restaurants is rather different from the U.S. and Europe. In the U.S. it's common to go out often and the servers by 'overly attentive' constantly asking how it's going, is everything okay, etc... In Europe going to a restaurant is more of an experience and a good server should know how to read a table and not interrupt a conversation, approach the time if people are clearly having a good time and laughing, etc... in Europe it's a fine balance between attentive and stand offish. Many North Americans often see it as stand offish, rude, etc... In the U.S. a server is also trying to get a balance of, being attentive to get a good tip but also hurry you up and get the table filled with new customers who will hopefully leave a tip. I book a table for next month at a restaurant for nine seven persons, on the booking it said we have the table for 2.5hours. That doesn't mean we'll be moved if we haven't finished eating (though if we were just having drinks by that time, they usually reserve a bar table or easy chairs to relax in and ask kindly for us to move through to the other section) but is more a courtesy notification of, 'we'd like to reuse the table at *:** time.
Hi Sven! Totally agree its completely different the way we are served in restaurants and the tipping culture really drives a culture of getting people in and out of the restaurant as quickly as possible. But in the US we have a culture of eating much quicker than the French, so we don't see this as something negative. But i'm the first to say, ive gotten very used to long meals and I LOVE IT. :)
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My experience in the U.S. is that waitstaff will introduce themselves by name, as if I'm going to yell across the room to get their attention, and then squat down while taking the order, to try to maximize their tip. They/ll be overly friendly to maximize their tip. They won't actually observe the how the people are doing, but instead will keep coming by to ask how things are going (in order to maximize the tip). Alternatively, they'll vanish into thin air until they decide to bring the check. So then, the most annoying waitstaff get the best tip, even if they're not good at their jobs, but people of color are screwed, even if they do a great job. The U.S. is too racist for tipping. In fact, tipping in restaurants is one of the most idiotic traditions of the U.S., along with the complex schedule of various people who expect tips. Americans have enough trouble with math that it's too hard to calculate tips, so now the going rate in restaurants is 20%, because employers will pay only slave wages to waitstaff. It's the same cost in the end for the customer, but far more annoying with tipping. Why don't we pay separately for the cost of the restaurant's nighttime cleaners, electricity, and water? If we're going to itemize, why not go all the way?
I have lived 30 years in the USA and i still cannot stand being interrupted in a middle of a private conversation by a waiter/waitress asking me how i ma doing to ensure his/her tip at the end. As a French woman, I hate it!!!
@ I will wave at him/her and point my glass with a smile and he/she would quietly refill it. Or even better, he/she will take a look on who needs refill and will refill my glass quietly and quickly without me even having to ask for it. Now, that is good service. The waiter/waitress should be discreet and swift. I could be breaking up with someone or announcing someone's death or trying to seduce a new potential lover...never, ever plant yourself in front of a table and interrupt a conversation.
I really respect your opinion on taxes yet I disagree with you : I do believe that the fact that in the US and Canada, one pays federal and state (or provincial in Canada) taxes each time one pays for a product or service and that those values are there clearly stated on the receipts is actually a very good thing. In some countries (well, in a lot of countries) people don't know how much money they pay in taxes each time they pay for a product or service, and when there's price hikes, commerce blames the government for the amount of taxes attached to the final price while the government blames commerce for being greedy : nothing's done about it and the consumer ends up paying more for the same product or service. There's a transparency to the process that I think might prevent prices from going crazy.
If there is one thing as a French I feel I should correct you about is country size. A better comparison nowadays would be the European Union vs the Unites States of America or Individual European countries vs Individual American states. What I think France and Europe has for it, is the way the land is broken to give access to water, forests and mountains fairly well spread out making it accessible everywhere in reasonable travel time. USA is a huge chunk of land with little breaks making states a lot more homogenous and travel times to get mountains, ocean, and other natural features much higher.
Very good video ! I like the way you did comments :-) When I traveling abroad, leaving France, I really appreciate that people don't tell me each time about the weather ! It seems in France this is the only one thing people are worrying about !
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified I'm an American from the west, and I feel like all of my relatives from the midwest constantly talk about the weather. It's kind of funny the way they always bring it up.
The weather is one of the few things you can talk about w/strangers (for the French). It's real, (not contrived), bc everyone is affected by the weather. The French like to talk about meaningful things, like politics, philosophy, they love to debate. But you really can't do that w/ppl in the check-out line at the grocery. I mean, you could, but it would not be well received. And talking about what's in your cart would be totally invasive as far as the French are concerned. I must say I agree, even though I'm American and have done those things myself when I was younger. l think it's really a case of Americans not being comfortable with just standing there. We feel the need to fill the silence.
@@k.monteil...asalon9357 In the case that I evoke, it is not simply a subject to break the ice (as in the song "Le café des Trois Colombes" "The bar of the Three Doves" from Jo Dassin, an american ^_^ ) but it is a real subject, which exasperates me. Friends, relatives, colleagues, every one talk about weather and the forecasts are like divine words! "On TV, they said ..." it irritates me !! ^_^ But tonight I'm discovering that not only french feel so much concern ! Too funny ! ;-p I'm finally, maybe, the thorn in the foot of others :-D
Flase. All USA speaks english, has the same education system and same political systems, and a pretty unique food a part very local plates. Europe has many languages, many local uses, many foods and drinks, different cuisines and different philosophies of life. For example starting from Paris France to Copenhague Danemark justin 750 miles you'll find 2 different varieties of French, 2 varieties of Dutch, German and danish languages, 5 different cultures, 5 different political systems, and 4 different cuisines.
@@MrAluminox It's nothing to do with 'True or False'. In the case of distance I use states as countries in one way, For cultural diversity I use history. Don't underestimate the influence of time .You name every obvious differences that exist in Europe today, . Every diversity has been created over time. , sometimes by the most unexpected and unpredictable events,
For a quick and easy U S beach vacation, please visit the peasant Riviera that stretches from Biloxi, Mississippi to Panama City Beach, Florida. It's a nice stretch of coastline.
I'm in the opposite case, went from EU to US. Your top ten is pretty accurate. I've not yet looked a lot at your channel so I have no clue since how long you've been in France. Do you think your personal taste have changed, regarding food ? When we arrived here we were surprised to see that everything has a lot of sugar or a lot of salt. So I wonder, when you arrived did you had the feeling food was tasteless ? Now, when going back to the US, do you notice that difference in salt/sugar ?
I so wish sales tax would be included on the price of items! The metric system is much easier, I actually learned it during the Carter Administration back in Elem. & Jr. High School. I hate ads, too; I rarely watch live TV...
OECD Better Life Index 2021: 1 Switzerland 2 Denmark 3 Netherlands 4 Finland 5 Austria 6 Australia 7 Iceland 8 Germany 9 New Zealand 10 Norway 11 Estonia 12 Oman 13 Sweden 14 Slovenia 15 United States
I'm a Brit who has lived most of my life in France. One major difference between the countries is civility between people. When I'm walking down the street, people I have never met will say "bonjour". If I said "hello" to strangers in the UK, they would look at me as though I were mad or even attack me. I'm incredibly lucky in that I am Scottish and the French love the Scots and hate the English.
Ah ! Ah ! Ah ! La Vieille Alliance ! Je l'avoue, je n'ai guère séjourné en Angleterre, mais mes quelques séjours en Ecosse ont duré de 16 jours à 5 semaines. Mes séjours ont eu comme objectif prioritaire la faune sauvage, mais j'ai aussi beaucoup lu sur l'histoire d'Ecosse. Mon dernier séjour : invité, avec ma fille et mon plus jeune fils, chez Paul Ramsay, très impliqué dans la réintroduction du Castor en Ecosse (see : www.bamff.co.uk/beaver-project/). Quelques années auparavant, chez moi, j'avais montré à Paul et à son épouse Louise bien des sites habités par les Castors (Bièvre en vieux français), au cours de deux séjours qu'ils ont fait. Quoique habitant les Alpes, j'ai été réellement impressionné par les paysages d'Ecosse.
Well, as an ancient french student in mathematics, I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one.. Not that we are bad at it, far from it, but more like compared to other countries, we're not exatly "novateurs" (sorry forgot the english word) and don't exactly stand comparison.. Literature on the other hand, here I completely agree with you ! French is a complex and beautiful language (la langue de Molière, des métaphores filées, des fables et contes...) and really should be more appreciated ! Personally, cooking and baking is still one of my favorite art (with literature) through ^^ I love to economise enough for a good restaurant, not something I can do often but my "péché mignon". I'm sad to admit, as a French person, that I'm kind of a disaster in the kitchen, but savoring a masterfully put together meal, with strange and uncommon ingredients, new combinations, and the culturally importance of the "family dinner", dedicated to pass time together savouring and delecting your father special salad, your late grand-mother version of boeuf bourguignon, the little slice of cheese du jour and (on hollydays) une meringue/macarron or another pâtisserie ! I know not every one is as food-enthusiastic as I am (it is something learn, to develop your palate, and even in my family where we all ate the same, my sister is very less food appreciative than the rest of the siblings, I gess like every hobby/art every one as different tates) but I know that almost every one I know who stayed for an extended period of time in other countries had a hard time acclimating to the varyings difficulties to make a meal from scratch and the less large spectrum of tastes that is in common french cooking (not saying that it always taste the same in another country ! But that France is particularly known for a very large one easily accessible, so it can be difficult to acclimate) and I think we should be proud of that art, which is actually slowly disappearing 😊
@@doumeec5757 "Mauvaise pioche" I am a mathematician, and with all due respect you do not know your subject AT ALL. France revolutionized Mathematics several times in the last centuries and it is at the very origin of many fields in the past (integration, topology, projective geometry, optimization, dynamical systems...) and in the present (analysis, PDE, probability, AI with Deep learning). We are the second nation in terms of Fields Medal behind the US who spent tons of million of dollars on the subject and has a population 6 times bigger (not to speak of the Fields medalist they "bought"). The first Mathematician in history that was awarded both the Field Medal and in the Abel Prize is J.-P. Serre, he is still alive. France, with Greece and to a lesser extent Russia, Germany, USA is one of the most important nation in the history of Mathematics.
I enjoyed your observations and as a 'Brexpat Brit' now living in the USA I recognized many of them. However I was a bit surprised to notice that you saw France as a 'smaller' country than America because France is but a member state of the European Union, which amounts to a larger number of people. Yes the USA is formally federalized whereas the EU has yet to manage that (although I suspect it will have done so inside the next thirty years). But in fairness to compare France with an American state would be one thing, whereas to compare it to the entire United States of America is another. Certainly all the European member states have their own, deeply engrained cultures and customs, and enjoy a huge degree of autonomy. My experience is that so do all the America states, including the autonomy (each state has its own legislature, makes many of its own laws and raises its own taxes). And the differences are not just 'north/south/east/west'. 'Yankee' Boston has a distinctly different culture from 'Knickerbocker' New York and yet they are but a few hundred miles apart. Philadelphia is just a little further south east down the road and yet it too has its own unique culture. More widely California is regarded by some on the east coast as 'la la land' and Texas is 'Goddamn Independent' in the mind of many Texans. And on it goes. I enjoy this about America and as a newcomer to the 'new world' I find it fascinating to discover the richness of its various cultures. But it should be said there are plenty of Europeans living in Eastern Europe who would need to drive for many hours to see the sea, whereas if you live in Massachusetts then Cape Cod is never very far away. America comprises a large, diverse union. So does Europe.
RULES: thing I noticed in the US are the signs everywhere saying that this and that is punishable by law or something similar..even the most mundane things. It seems strange at first but after reading 128th sign like that I started to feel really uneasy. Like..I will be arrested any moment because I missed one sign :)
The tips included are in fact, a no tips deal for hôtels and restaurants most your waiters are on the minimal salary rate, it is just a "it is ok to not tip your waiter" convention between H&R owners and customers.
Minimum pay for most waiters is less than for other jobs so they make most of their money in tips at most restaurants a few pay at the other rate so don't have tipping such as McDonalds and Burger King, etc. I think most fast food places don't have tipping and just pay employees a higher rate.
oh man!!! My husband just told me the other day about when he had a conference in Gainesville Florida a few years ago, it was his first time in the US. He had gone shopping in a grocery then went to go check out the University library where his conference was, and the students working at the front desk were like "there's no eating in the library" blah blah blah, and he said he knew, he wasn't planning on eating, just wanted to see what the library looks like. And they asked him how he was doing, and it through him off, especially when he realized that they didn't care, I hadn't warned him about certain US customs, and he told them how he was a little lost and it was his first time him the US, and instead of saying something like "good luck" or "have fun", they told him "congratulations", hahahahahahahahahahahaa, and he was soooooo weirded out by it, like it's not that big of deal, I think it was his first time experiencing in person the US "patriotism" hahahahhahahhaha, and he wanted to tell them that he was just visiting and had no intention whatsoever to move there, hahaha. 6 months later we went together to visit my hometown in California, and I was able to help him navigate things a bit. And he also got to see how different the cultures are in the US, that we're not all the same.
ahah no eating in the library man! You never know what could happen 😂 I think the culture shocks between the US and France aren't always so in your face obvious. Which maybe makes it even more surprising when you're like "wait what? say again?" 😅
Hey guys! I'm exploring some of the things I don't miss living in France because let's face it, the US doesn't do everything perfectly even if we think we are THE BEST at everything 😂 Would love to hear about the things you don't miss living abroad or the things you wouldn't miss if you were to move! xx
Keep exploring and maybe you'll learn the reasons for some of the things American, that you admitted to or apparently don't know the underlying principles for. Most traits and customs occurred for a reason.
As a French person, I like to get a foreign perspective on this country, in order to find out what we do right, and what we could do better. Too often we oscillate between extremes of "We're perfect!" and "We're hopeless!" The truth is that we need to work on a number of things, but overall we aren't doing so bad by international standards.
There is so bad reputation of Middle West that I'sure as usual..)that it can not be true and I want to visit this part of the U.S before N.Y or L.A. I'm sure people are great there...
I'm French. If I moved, I wouldn't miss : people complaining for stupid reasons all the time ; employment rules that greatly favors unemployment ; the gap/ocean between mid classes and elite and hence, the hate for people who succeed even though they made it with hard work ; the disrespect for our own proud history.
Dutch. If I moved I wouldn't miss the language, the uncontrollable urge of people to always buy the cheapest alternative and disregard everything else, the overly trimmed and tightly controlled landscape that we call 'nature', how everything is built as small as possible, or how we think we're supposed to be a role model country and show everyone else how well we're playing by the rules - as long as we don't have to pay for it, or how we think that the best person to run our country is an accountant. Ugh.
I’ve never understand why some country don’t show price with tax ...
I feel ya Haley. It's whack and really frustrating on larger purchases when the difference is insane!
some lucky people that live in States like Oregon don't have to pay sales tax at all. My French husband was there a few months ago for a conference, and he said it was so refreshing not having to calculate the sales tax compared to other times when he needed to go Stateside. But the tipping part still freaks him out a little.
@@aeolia80 So true that all states aren't alike for that! I think in Minnesota there is no sales tax for clothes. So shopping can be extra fun sometimes!
Why ? Because prices are lower without tax, then you take more and when you arrive at the cashier, you are usually not brave enough to say "Oh ... it's too expensive, finally I don't want this" and ... you buy !
@@wir6228 No it's because tax rates vary quite a bit from state to state, county to county. The store has a price for the item, at the checkout it adds the tax. The store doesn't add the tax to the price shown as you could in theory buy numerous items at a high tax store and refund the full price at a no tax store. By also not having the tax in the price it makes all stores equal and is your option to pay the higher tax if you live in a higher tax area or travel a distance and not pay a tax.
Though granted to many, you'd think one country would have a single tax and it be factored into the price.
One good thing to live in France (and having french visa) is that you can travel in any European country without any border guard control, it's full opened between countries
Which is very good during holidays, you can go to Germany or Italy or Spain in about 2 hours and enjoy another culture
Andromediens depends where you're coming from, cause not everyone can go in Spain, Italy or Germany etc in just 2h, even with "TGV" (when there is no strikes)
But otherwise its true, travelling is quit easy from France, but same, not from everywhere
Have you heard about the Schengen Area? There are border stops and controls in certain countries.
Citizen Z quel rapport ?
@@GemPotagueule l'espace Shengen est justement *la* raison pour laquelle il n'y a pas de frontières entre les pays européen
@@citizenz4640 ? not true
I live in the US again, now, but when I lived in France one thing that I really appreciated was the lack of religiosity. Coming from the south, there's so much religion in your face all the time. France was absolutely not like that and it was so refreshing.
I'm sure the asshole materialism in Europe is a great replacement. That's why everyone is so happy here
@@gurufabbes1 yeah, sure, American are not materialists..
Actually, as a Frenchman who grew up with Americans, I think in the US people are obsessed with the acquisition of money and material wealth. It is actually intertwined with religion. You have all these TV evangelicals calling for you to donate your seed money so that they can buy a bigger private jet and a bigger mansion. In France, religion is personal. It is like a penis, it is ok to have one, just don't go waving it around in public.
It will not last. In a few decades (let's say when the babies are old), there will be a lot of religiosity in France, but it will not be the same religion as before ...
Ca ne va pas durer. D'ici quelques décennies, (disons quand les bébés seront âgés), il y aura beaucoup de religiosité en France, mais ce ne sera plus la même religion qu'avant ...
@@TheMorSkull01 The level of materialism is about the same, the difference is that the Americans have a bit more going for them than just that. It needn't be repeated that France has the highest number of millionaires in all of Europe (not counting Russia)..
Aaah, I do love hearing people saying nice stuff about France.
La même
Ouai mais bon qu'est ce que vous voulez, est ce qu'on peut vraiment leur en vouloir😎
France isn't really a "small" country it is actually one of the biggest european country😅 i m from luxzmbrug ( a really really small country near france and for me France is enormous!!!
I guess it's true but the USA are like 15 times bigger than France so yes for her it's small. ^^
I love Luxembourg for fill up the gas tank
arobrak 15 Well, I live in Canada, and France is really, really small to us. For example, from the most eastern Canadian “big” city (Saint-John, NL) to the most western one (Vancouver, Bc), it’s a 76 hours drive... 76 HOURS (for real)! 😂
To a North American, even France is small. Europe in general seems incredibly compact. The entire EU is less than half the size of either the US or Canada (each is about 60% the size of Russia). Most European countries are the size of North American subnational units (and even the big EU nations are in line with bigger states and smaller than most Canadian provinces). The sense of perspective on geographic size is just drastically different between people on each continent.
@@Svendar Yep! All the European francophone areas are about a third the size of Quebec, which itself is a little more than a third the size of the whole EU... And it's just our biggest province. Our notions of scale are different.
There are two levels of customer service in France, impeccable et épouvantable.
100% agree
There s a joke a famous comedian used to tell about France : So, as god was creating earth, he realized that it wasn't fair that he d made France such a beautiful country. So in order to make it right he decided to put the french in it.
Très drôle
LOL!!! Another joke is: French people live in paradise but think they live in hell.
Étant français, elle me fait encore plus rire ! :))
That made me laugh, and I'm French and that's true
Lionel Camara - in order to make it right he made the English their neighbour!
OK compared to the US France is 'small' but damn in Europe France is one of the biggest countries!
@Flo morteforet Nope. Texas is bigger. France is some 650,000 km², while Texas is almost 700. And Alaska is over 1.7M km². So even if you include the overseas territories, Alaska is VASTLY larger. Texas would be smaller though.
Ukraine's the biggest for continental Europe.🙂
@Flo morteforet For most people , Russia is in Eurasia, it mean between europe and asia
Maxandre Martelli sorry but Ukraine isn’t part of Europe even though they join the EU song contest
@@petervan1353 What continent is it a part of then? I'm not talking politics but geography. For instance Denmark is in North America because of Greenland.
Reading some comments, I am reminded that the americans are most upset about having to say "Bonjour", when entering in a shop... but actually, it's a set of mind : we take the "égalité" part of our motto very seriously. In France, any shopping is a commercial agreement between two equals. Customer is not a King...we spelt floods of blood to get rid of those in the last 200 years!
So, saying "Bonjour" is not enought, you must do it with a (genuine) smile , while making eye contact ! If you can show a light sens of humor during the transaction, the better. And don't forget the "Thank you ! Have a nice day!" afterward... Yes, the customer says that ! Try it Guys ! you'll soon notice that customer service is heavenly and bureaucracy far more ...flexible !
I'm from Canada and as a client/customer, I say Bonjour or hi or sometimes both when I'm not sure of the language. Even "Thank you ! Have a nice day!" (or in French) after the transaction.
Louis XVI never killed his own people, the revolutionary did so. I dont understand your comment about blood spilled to remove french monarchy. But Im not a native, so i would like have your explanation
@@user-fb9sm7nn2x He speaks about a lot of things, the main one being when a monarchic coalition attacked Revoutionary France to restore the absolute monarchy (and then the monarchy itself). See : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_First_Coalition. It is what the national anthem, the "Marseillaise" is about. There were other moments, by instance the revolution of 1830, the revolution of 1848.
@@user-fb9sm7nn2x I wrote "We spelt floods of blood..."meaning, we (french people) ....I never said Louis XVI did so. And, BTW, I was not only thinking of the 1789 revolution, but also the several crisis (1848, la commune...) that happened since then....
@@bobbiusshadow6985 But, then, you are Canadian, citizen of one of the Nation on earth most praise for its politeness... My comment was more directed to your southern neighbours.
Obviously you live in France so your focus is there, but you can honestly extend most of these points to Europe as a whole.
Yes, exactly my thought.
c'est vrai (True)
I'm pretty sure the complaint about people not being friendly/smiling enough in France is due to the fact that you live in Paris. Provincial cities are a lot less grumpy haha
And the funny thing is that you're right
I have been living in France for the past six years. Aside from learning French, it’s been a positive experience. I do miss the States. Particularly the beauty of certain areas and the people are more friendly, as you noted, almost like puppies compared to the French, who can be dour and negative until they get to know you. We are here because of the excellent health care, at minimal or no cost. We can’t afford to live in San Francisco anymore, which is where I’m from. It’s sad, really, but I also have a feeling that Americans are afraid all of the time. The fear factor has taken over their lives. Fear of getting sick and not being to afford health care, fear of losing their jobs (so they work two hours overtime to demonstrate that they’re a member of the “team”, fear of immigrants, fear of black people, fear of brown people, fear, fear, fear. It simply doesn’t exist in France. Thanks for the vlog. Nice job.
Looks like you fear the fear.
@@behemoth8399 there's a name for this, it's called phobophobia
The Rule one is so true, but I've never heard it on other channels.
I lived in both countries, and in the US ppl will follow rules, simply because it's a rule, and won't really question it.
In France, if the rule doesn't make sens, people won't follow it.
On the other side, even if it makes sense, if it doesn't make instant value or if not following it gives you an advantage over other people, some won't follow it.
same in Belgium by the way :)
@@JustBeingAwesome yeah we share more than fries ;)
@@WaddleQwacker hahah
I guess that's what happens when you have police who carry guns and regularly kill people without consequences.
OMG, us loud Americans lol, but it is true. I travel to France as often as I can, and I love it there. I have to change into "French Brain" when I go (I'm American) and talk softer, keep my hands above the table when eating, and resist the urge to leave 20% at the resto like I do here at home. I swear, tipping is so ingrained in me that I feel like a cheat if I only leave 5% extra (which I often do - a small tip, in cash, is still appreciated in nicer places). I tend to dress a bit better too, to try and blend in. Chinos instead of jeans, dress shoes, collared shirts, a scarf, that sort of thing. I feel pretty much the same things as you do when I'm in France, excepting the health care of course because I don't live there.
But last trip to Paris I had a very funny experience on the Mètro - I was standing near the end of a crowded car and there was a group of 4 schoolboys (maybe 13-14 years old) in the seats at the end. They were talking LOUD. In Paris-style-full-speed native French. This is not done by French people on trains. But these kids were definitely French, so I was a bit shocked at how loudly they were carrying on. And I'm a friggin' Yank! I think the other people on the train were too polite and reserved to say anything to them.
Well, not to be outdone by a bunch of French kids, I summoned my own full American loud voice. I asked one of the boys - who I determined was sort of the alpha dog - in my lousy tourist French, where he was from. So I continued and asked if he was American... loudly... as he should have to an adult).
So I told him in my obviously-foreign French, "Because *I'M* American, and you talk louder than I do!"
Shock, silence, and looks of horror on the faces of the boys, and I swear, several of the usually-reserved proper French adults in the nearby rows of seats actually laughed out loud! My stop came up right then and I exited the train with a jaunty > mdr. Those kids must have thought I was nuts. I thought it was kind of funny lol. I wonder if they are quieter on the Métro now tho...
I don't know why I got into that whole story, I guess your video just reminded me of it. Anyway, thanks for the vid!
The craziest thing about your story is that you used "mdr".
@@SamitchB ptdr
I am French and I went to the US a few times to improve my English during my teenage years. This "superiority complex" really struck me !! People were nice but always "we are living in the best country, there is no other place on Earth where I'd rather be..."
@Rita Roork No.
@Rita Roork yeah, one year later, trump is gone and it is a good thing.
@Rita Roork lol funny
Lol, landslide huh? How's that going? Trump sponsored a putsch to stay in power, so I doubt he thinks he won. Just a few more days until he loses presidential immunity...
@Rita Roork lol, how's that going?
I agree with you entirely! I've spent a lot of time in France and by and large their culture has many 'superior' aspects that Americans have no clue about. I think when you travel (and many Americans haven't left the country - so much for having a big country - it's harder to leave it! ) you begin to see the benefits of other cultures and what they have to offer. I am appalled by the American notion of being the best - it's really provincial and silly. It's embarrassing! I just came back from a visit to France and was married to a frenchman - their sense of how to live life is so rich and filled with pleasure. Well done you for living there! Best of luck with ton bébé!
Thanks Meg! Glad to hear you agree! Sometimes you don't know if your experience is the same as everyone's so it's nice to hear other people who have the same experience. And connecting with people who are/were married to Frenchmen!
“I just came back from a visit to France and was married to a Frenchman.”
That was quick work. I usually just buy some books and take pictures.
@@coffeemachtspass Ah oui, trop bon votre remarque, ha ha ha ....
@@taiqidong9841 Merci.
coffeemachtspass now you just cracked me up 🤣🤣🤣
Ever notice that the winner of the Miss UNIVERSE is always an earth girl?
Perfect reply!
Yeah !
This is alienphobia! Outrageous!! 😁😂🤣😇🤣
I love your comment about the French and the Rules. I take it as your best compliment ;-)
A french past time that took a while to get used to, but is so refreshing!
I love that too, about the French.
Dude, i got really proud of my culture, just by listenning to that comment haha
I do not agree with this point, because everyone has their own idea of the rules, everyone does what they want, nobody respects anything anymore and it becomes a mess.
Not much of a comment if you want the buses to run on time, and shop owners not to spit in your face, or people not to mug you. People shitting on their own rules aint a plus.
I definitely understand the overly friendly thing. Even though where I live in US we aren’t like that. I have experienced it in other states. I still think there is this culture of kinda fake niceness in the US. Small talk is very important here too.
I would totally agree with the fakness culture and I know it drives the French nuts.... which I do kind of understand!
Unintentionally Frenchified I don’t like either honestly. I do love being from the US in many ways (I’m black American), but the fakeness I’m so over it lol.
I think the fakeness definitely depends on the city, state or region you are in. I live in the country and people are genuinely being nice most of the time. I can’t tell you how many people have told me their life stories just randomly in a store or park. People just seem to be more open and helpful in the rural/country areas of the south and Midwest in general(in my personal experience as I’ve traveled and lived in diff places). I grew up in a large city and can’t stand visiting there because like you said everyone is being fake polite and friendly.
@@lysan4878 I completely agree, definitely regional. I too can remember times of random people telling me all about their lives especially in the South. It still shocks me to this day because I am definitely more reserved and uncomfortable with sharing so much of my personal life. That being people were genuinely kind.
@@sweetiepie9411 another big difference with United State : in France, you will never present you as "i'm black french". There is a lot of good thing in North America that french people could learn but one of the worse is the deep consciousness to belong first to a religion, a race or any other community rather than to just feel a human among humans. The historical defeat of The Lumières...which is coming even in France now.
I could not agree more when it comes to rules and that people follow them really closely in the U.S. compared to France.
I spent two years at uni in North Carolina and the first time my (also French) friends and I got on the campus bus (which is free and does not require any ticket or anything), we got in through the back door because there were plenty of free seats and there was no need to validate any ticket so we weren't screwing anyone. The driver then proceeded to call us out, saying we could only get in through the front door (which is fair), refusing to drive and holding everyone inside until we got out through the back door, got back in through the front and sat back in the seats we had just left.
We could not believe it, just pure madness!!
I might have an answer to that. When I was in Latin America, some buses had person counters in the front doors of the bus. So the company would know exactly how many people would take some buses and how much money had been gathered. Maybe that's why you had to pass by the front door.
@@Bastimars That could be it, in that case it would only be for statistics given it's a free bus but you never know
Ranaounawa My guess is the bus company is providing X service for X number of riders. More riders is heavier weight which is more fuel consumption which means, depending on your agreement with University, could mean you’re losing money-so then you need to renegotiate your contract with the university. Free isn’t ‘Carte Blanche’ free to use a French expression.
@@Ranaounawa Making you exit, out the back door and reenter, through the front door, seems like more of a grumpy bus driver thing, than a rule observance thing :)
Letting passengers get in the rear door is a safety violation and the driver could be punished.
I think in france we have this mentality who make us question all of our environnement so we have so many different thinking and different lifestyle that make France an ungovernable country but a beautiful country.
????
@@richardhimself Thats a good question i will respond u soon
But at lest you are able to criticize your country . As an American I would get accused of being a communist (although with they way we suck up to Russia now maybe that’s not a bad thing)
"Ungovernable" That's not like France is a millenial country. it"s make no sense what you say.
@@shakya00 Just look : everything the governement say is targeted by critics or violent message, everything he do : HOP! STRIKES! If it's not ungovernable it's directed by incapable people since 1958 or before
I can't even imagine how much of a pain it'd be to go through US commercials, since french ads are already quite long depending on the channels you're watching.
La désobéissance civile 🇫🇷🤣 We are pretty good at it 😉👍😁
Yasmina Derif. Oui, vous l'avez bien démontré durant le mouvement des gilets jaunes! 🤗
To the point of getting on our nerves 😂 (neighbour who loves France)
@@lauraveapi3840 Better to rebel than to follow like a bunch of 🐑!! 😊
@@gillianlandry283 oui! ✔💯 But I had to walk 20km every day in Paris because of no Métro. That was my Christmas. 😢 I lost all the chocolate kilos I ate and I need the extra kilos to stay warm in winter 😋😂
Plus de 20km chaque jour, I still feel it in my legs. 😭 And no trains back to my country either, I had to hitch a hike.
@@lauraveapi3840 Well, you lost the extra pounds, I would say that's a positive thing. Mais je sais que ça ne devait pas être facile pour vous d'avoir à marcher 20 km tous les jours!
On tipping :
Studies have been conducted that indicated that quality of service is not correlated to tipping amount. Most people tip what they usually do regardless of service.
On the metric system :
The imperial system is actually entirely defined by the metric system because the latter has the most precise measurements.
Hi, you make a lot of good points but living in France now for 22 years, I would definitely add the short lunch times in the states. I love the two hour lunch breaks in France. I remember in HS in the states having basically 10-15 min to wolf down my lunch because the rest of the 30min break was spent rushing from class to my locker then rushing to the cafeteria to find a seat then rushing to eat to finish by rushing back to class... don’t miss that at all.
I would also add for having children in France (aside from the health care advantages you described I agree wholeheartedly) the school programs for preschool and primary children are well thought out. The school day hours are better also for those parents who work! School for primary age doesn’t end at 3pm as in many US schools thanks to the long lunch break. So parents don’t’ have to find an after school program or worse leave the kids at home alone.
One last point: when you have a sick child, with a medical certificate you can miss work without any hassle from your employer and without losing your pay. You don’t have to sacrifice your family for your job.
Enjoy the baby care France offers! The midwives and baby nurses are like gold!
I have to agree with you, I am Mexican but I have my two boys that were born here and they have this superiority complex. But I think they teach them that in school. For whatever reason they think they’re superior to the rest of the kids in the world.I always have to bring them down from the cloud to teach them reality and how things truly are.
One more thing that is nice living in France, is that you can travel easily and quickly to other countries around it and experience other cultures. And maybe that's why the French are more relative to who's the best country and so on. Especially with the EU rules, student exchange is so easy, and living/working in another country in the EU is so easy, so cultural exchange is bigger than in the US that don't really know anything else than itself. That's why they are so sure they're the best in everything. They can't compare.
Also, unlike the World series that you mentioned, France is really the World champion. In football (soccer) :-)
You can do that elsewhere in Europe without all the drawbacks of living in France.
I'm not sure that french people are really relative about who they think is the best, and I'm talking by experience. That's chauvinism for you, and it's really annoying.
For those that have not spent much time in the US its challenging to understand the culture. The country is very very large and therefore it doesn’t really have a cohesive culture. Its a country of dozens of cultures. In particular big east coast cities and rural southern cities have tremendous culture clashes.
I've been to France thrice, knowing only 100 French words. I had a great time. I love it there.
I’m french and I can tell you that there is way too much ad and I find this funny that you think there is not that many
Avec mes parents qui se plaignent de l'invasion de plus en plus massive des pubs à la télé quand on daigne regarder quelque chose , je suis surpris aussi ^^ !
Simply because there's way more in US and UK... A film can be cut 5 times for the same time of break! Sometimes you can even have news and weather 🤨
I'm French living in Australia, and I'm telling you, ads in France is nothing compare to what I have here. I don't know which one of the US and Australia is the worst, but it's insane. The other day I was watching a movie, it started at 9pm, with a duration of 2h20... it ended at 0:30am !!! It's almost a full hour of ads !! It's not annoying anymore it's just painful, and the break is not even super long, its like 3 or 4 ads (often the same), but ALL the time. Sometimes it's so often you are not even sure if it's part of the movie or if it's an ad. Because there are no screens breaks that tells you "ad moment" it just cut the movie in the middle of the conversation and show an ad. Just like that lol...
Rosaka je pensais pas que il y en avait si peu en France ！
@@user-jl3id5is3x Il y en a beaucoup, surtout de plus en plus, ces dernières années. Mais une fois que tu vis ailleurs, tu fais ah bah finalement ça va ! C'est pas une raison pour en mettre encore plus en France. C'est assez comme ça.
Germany is the opposite to France when it comes to rules. In Germany people automatically assume that rules are in place for a good reason so nobody really questions them.
Much closer to the American way of doing things!
For the second point, about tips in France. You paid the right price (with taxes), but you can also give a tips to a waiter (we call it a 'pourboire' - "for drinking" litterally). It's not necessary, but it's always grateful to give more when you're satisfied with the service.
For French people only popular uneducated people tend to speak super loud. Educated people are discreet
Tyffantom kind of similar to US. There just happen to be a lot of uneducated folks here.
Liz Chatham In my experience I find that Southerners tend to be quite quiet as well, at least relative to the North, although I generally only have experience with the more urban parts. Probably rural folk talk louder to be heard over longer distances and/or over industrial machinery (most factories in the US South are rural).
Liz Chatham Lol
@@eileensweeney2500 In France (and Europe as a whole), it's rather the opposite. Northerners are quieter, Southerners are louder. And it extend to people with North African origins, either Arabs, Kabyles, Sefarad Jews and "Pieds-Noirs" ex-colonists, who are the four loudest communities. The only ones able to vie for this tittle are English people, when they are drunk.
Interesting to hear it referred to as "The US Customary System" when the rest of the world (who all gave up using it) call it the British Imperial system (which is who the Americans inherited it from). Even the British gave it up in favour of the metric system.
The US Customary System and the British Imperial System are not the same thing. They are very similar but are slightly different. An Imperial quart is slightly more than a litre while a US quart is slightly less. In Canada, metric is legal but we also use Imperial. We share manufacturers with the US for many things which is why we have weird sizes for some things like a can of soda is 355 mls which is 10 US fl oz (or is it 10 Imperial oz....I don't even know....ha ha). We're completely into celsius for weather but if we're cooking we set our ovens in fahrenheit. When we buy gas for our car, it's litres. My height and weight is in feet and pounds and when I golf it's yards but when I drive to another city it's kilometres. Most things I can convert easily but the metric system is far better because it's easy to calculate but also because a litre of water weighs 1 kilogram so it's integrated from one measure to another
@@brianyoung3 Canada converted to the intenational measurement system aka metric system back in 1976. We have sodas are sold in 355 ml cans or 12 US fluid ounces while beers are sold in 341 ml bottles or 12 imperial fluid ounces. Go figure!
"the rest of the world (who all gave up using it)"
Not entirely. Most of us never had to deal with either system, not the US, nor the Imps.
IN fact there is 2 other country that are still suing the imperial systeme.
@@brianyoung3 And 1L = 1dm3 = 1000 cm3 = a 10cm edge cube. That way, you link weight, lenght and volume.
The beautiful metric system : another French invention :P
Actually 1m = an Earth meridian length / 10 000 000.
I'm a french guy and I'm so glad to understand you so well, even if you speak rather quickly. I don't have to activate subtitle, I don't have to make the video slower. and I don't need to go to goggle translate. Even if I'm more used to British accent, your's is just not a problem. Why are there so many Americans I cannot understand?
I find public transportation in the US to be somewhat lacking, and the trains are rather slow compared to Europe. On the other hand gas is cheaper in the US.
First, USA have the ressources on their soils, when France and other European countries have to import mostly from the Persic Gulf ;^) Then, the French taxes on the gas are MONSTRUOUS ! (that's why we talk about us being "Vaches à lait": "Milk cow" of our gouvernment, and this is one of the reasons of the "gilets jaunes" movement).
The overly friendliness is also nice to play with though. When a stranger comments on something just pull the conversation in their personal space as quickly as possible. So like inviting yourself to their home because you would love to see /eat what they are talking about. When it is about music say it just gets you and your partner in the mood and ask what gets them in the mood. Get them out of balance.
It is really funny to see how all of a sudden the conversation stops or they try to make polite excuses :-) .
As a French just returning home after 5 years in NZ and 1 year in the UK, I really struggle with the 'no filter talking' which I surprisingly missed a lot when I was overseas. People here can be very judgmental too. Did you notice how the French like to judge people based on their spelling? ☺️
I currently find it difficult to interact with my friends who are questioning my career choices while in NZ and UK people would just encourage me. We do not really have a work career culture in France (is it bad though if we don't need/want it?).
My personal opinion is that politeness standards are different in France. In France being frank and direct is very much valued but in Anglo-Saxon countries being too direct/negative can be extremely rude. I did struggle during my first years as I found people very hypocrite overseas until I realised we just have different politeness standards (and to be fair they probably found me rude for being very direct) .
However I'm glad to be back in a country where food is a religion, where we take a lunchbreak at work, where we have one of the highest level of social security in the world, where most people can afford to rent a place without having to share their home with strangers, where we have a decent state pension, where ladies don't go shopping in pj's, where ladies are always pretty, sophisticated and elegant when they go out rather than looking like cheap TV reality stars with fake tan and shit loads of make up (paint?).
@chill out ambient I am back in France after living 20 years abroad. i am having the same struggle to adjust to life in France. I am contemplating going abroad again.
Beginning the comment with "oh, french are so jugdemental" and finishing with harsh judgement is so smooth
@@tendreverveine2553 couldn't help it. Proving my point nah?
@@chilloutambient1249 yeah! ^^ I'm just gonna judge you about your judgemental attitude
"where ladies don't go shopping in pj's, where ladies are always pretty, sophisticated and elegant when they go out rather than looking like cheap TV reality stars with fake tan and shit loads of make up" 🤣🤣🤣 - I'm guessing here but I think you're talking about the UK🤔. If NZ is also like this then I don't want to visit it anymore!
I’m from the Faroe Islands and moved to Denmark 12 years ago. Even though the Faroe Islands are a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, it still very different culturally and linguistically.
I don’t miss the gossip culture, in your face religiosity, weather, rules and expectations, expensive prices, nepotism and isolation (both access to goods and with regards to rest of the world).
I do miss the nature, friendly people, lack of bureaucracy (in some areas) and slow pace of life, and being able to speak my native language again.
What I like about Denmark is the lack of religiosity, weather, okay prices, access to a large economic market (EU market), lack of isolation, free spiritedness.
What I dislike about Denmark is that the people are really high strung and because of that they snap at you for the most minute things, even though they don’t necessarily mean it. They are starting to become really suspicious of strangers, something that wasn’t really that much of a big deal “back in the day”. People drink too much and it’s really hard to make friends. They are really bureaucratic, it’s absolutely ridiculous and because of that a lot of mistakes happen in the system. If you’ve seen Little Britain’s “computer says no” sketch - it’s like that. No flexibility what so ever - sometimes like taking to a robot.
Also the language. It’s an absolute nightmare. I understood Danish perfectly before moving to Denmark, but it’s really difficult to speak. I still have an accent after 12 years of almost only speaking Danish.
Other than that I really like living in Denmark. It’s nice in general and I don’t suspect I’ll be leaving anytime soon. :)
1:34 It's only called "The World Series", because the sponsor who used to finance the championship was a newspaper with the name "The World".
hate to tell you but none of the baseball teams France could field could ever qualify to play in the world series. French athletes are that good judging by the Olympics.
@@jimvacuum Well, the same is true of American "Football" and the reason is the same, nobody but americans really cares about it. There is no professional baseball league anywhere in europe. And while there used to be a european american "football" league, it has gotten quite around them. Rugby has a larger following and is played professionally around the world, but they are still a far shot from actual football or ice hockey. Baseball is to the US what Cricket is to the British. They used to dominate that sport internationally until a former colony learned to play it.
I live in Australia, and when we went metric, we had little stickers to place on the speedometer of your car; so many kilometres = so many miles per hour!. I must admit that I now think in the metric system for all things, except the size of a block of land. I still think in acres. Metric systems are great. We also changed our currency many years ago to dollars and cents. The old British system of "pounds, shillings and pence" would make your brain boil!!
I didn't realize that australia had gone metric so recently! It's a good example for the US. Just because we have been doing it a certain way for 200 plus years doesnt mean we cant change it up for something WAY better! 😂 I don't understand anything the english do either, don't get me started on a "stone" hahahah
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified Recently is relative. Australia went metric in 1970s. Australia went dollars and cents from pounds, shillings and pence in the late 1960's. There were 12 pennies to the shillings and twenty shillings to the pound. A pound was worth about two dollars. The British went to from pounds, shillings and pence to pounds and pence. That is 100 pennies to the pound. I am not sure about miles to kilometres in Britain.
@@paulhowlett8151 Well its not as recent as I thought but it's still not that far away! The US passed a metrics act in 1975 that made all companies working in international trade adopt the metric system but apparently decided it wasn't neccessary for the rest of the country? Bummer!
We had that kind of change when 11 countries in Europe switched their national currencies to Euro. Excepting it concerned more than 320 millions people at that time.
@@paulhowlett8151 In the U.K. distance and speed limits are in miles but we also have kilometre markers on motorways. We use metric and imperial depending on what is being measured. Food and drink tend to be metric, bar milk which can be metric, imperial or marked as both. Height is in imperial, temperature is in metric, etc...
The health care point is the least defensible point about the US.
Wouldn't it be possible for each state? There would be inequalities, but the US would change the game, literally, the pharmaceutical companies would have to bend to the White House and the Senate's decisions!
American are so loud ! When I was in California this summer I went to a small restaurant to eat with my family, there was only us and another group in the restaurant and it seemed it was full.
So when I lived in France I didn’t miss the everybody should be normalness of Sweden, in France I could be cool and eccentric and speak with My hands and argue if merchandise wasn’t ok and arguing and protesting is a sport it’s not taken Seriously or rather it is to be enjoyed ! Also miss real french bread and the sarrasin crepes ( buckwheat ? thin pancakes not sweet, swedish pancakes are mainly sweet) also the markets and that you could discuss Marie Curie or Victor Hugo with anybody because the schools even at basic level are that good when it comes to culture Swedes are very good at groupdynamics, it and communications but not great at individuality and artistry. Normal is Sweden is a compliment and has a very positive connotation, We are a bit german that way whereas normal in many cases is more in the feeling of basic in France though if you are in a small village in the countryside it’s a lot easier being the eccentric foreigner than just eccentric if in the wrong way!
I think you believe some of those things because you met up especially with students, nop? Cause has french, I'm pretty sure 1 ppl on 2 can't tell you anything about Victor Hugo or name one of is book (except if they live in a street,boulevard etc, or came out from a "college" or "lycée" named in VH honor)
Otherwise, it's true that we aren't super dumb (even if I wonder of its true sometimes), but school system is on big problem here, especially with other languages, even if the new generations are far more open to English than the previous ones.
Anyway, it was just to "tempered" your com', who is really French friendly (and thanks for that!), but not impartial enough (I think)
Hope you won't take offense about anything I wrote, it's not meant to be offensive but like I said earlier : English isn't our strength (not mine for sure xD)
Think possibly I’ve had the chance as you say to both run into University students and ... possibly more nerdy french people who haven’t had the schooling above 9th grade but have had the interest but also really think culture is more valued in France and more easily accessible for it. Could also be that I’m more sensitive to class barriers ( glass ceilings etc) in Sweden ( likely) than in France. When it comes to languages your problem is really the dubbing on television so that you don’t hear the language melodies and also that your teachers weren’t possibly aren’t required to teach in the languages without speaking french which makes means you have great difficulty getting fluent unless going abroad. Think CZcams and gaming is helping a lot though for younger generations.
Well, if you live in California you can snowboard in the morning and surf in the afternoon and the next day go to the desert or to wine country, all within 1-2 hours from home (Los Angeles).
Ohh I travelled to the US a few times (California) and the overly friendly thing DEFINITELY surprised me a few times! A few times I was like "... why are you communicating with me? O.O" haha.
Regarding the loudness, yeah, it's something a Texan colleague of mine had to adapt to. He was EXCEEDINGLY loud, his laugh could be heard two floors down (!). It's probably due to culture as you said, but also language. You could whisper French and the words would be the same. However, other languages like Spanish require some clearer pronunciation to be understandable. And if you want loud, go to China: the way you pronounce a word can COMPLETELY change the sense of your sentence, so as a result they're forced to speak very loud in order to be clear :p
OMG Number 7.... I am very Swiss and I HATE this when I travel to the USA. It's so intrusive. I really do not care about a strangers opinion when I am giving cero invitation to have a conversation... Everyone asks you where you're from too (ugh, can I please just pay for my coffee and get out?).... in Switzerland we mind our own business.
Tellement choux ^^ Je suis d'accord avec tout tes points, après heureusement qu'il y a des différences culturelles, ça permet de prendre du recul et d'évoluer. Aaaa voyager est tellement enrichissant !
100% d'accord!!
Ha ha, found this amusing in some ways. I am a US expat living in the UK, for 15 years now. I can totally agree on #1 and #6. Something I do not miss. #2 is refreshing to not have to think about what extra is added. And #4, it is a huge relief! On the flip side, the thing I still can't get passed here is paying for parking EVERYWHERE whereas in LA it's mostly free, unless it's valet and there are tons of spaces everywhere. Have enjoyed finding your channel recently.
Hi Christine! Glad you found the channel and are enjoying the videos! I don't have a car in France so I have never noticed the parking thing, but i'm sure I wouldn't be surprised if parking is almost always paid in Paris too!
Your comment on parking interested me and so I did a little googling. The city of Los Angeles has around twice as many parking spaces as the entire UK. So that might help explain why they don't feel the need to charge!
Los Angeles: 18.6m parking spaces (www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/12/parking-los-angeles-maps-study/418593/)
UK: 8 - 11.3m parking spaces (www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/Library/Reports%20and%20research/BPA_UK_Parking_Sector_Report_AWweb.pdf)
I couldn't find data for London specifically, but I imagine the density of spaces is much lower there than in the rest of the UK, given the size of the roads and the lack of space for car parks. This might explain why the average cost to purchase a standalone parking space there recently hit £219,000! (www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/cost-of-a-london-car-parking-space-hits-219000-a128576.html), and parking in a car park averages £42 per day.
Kate, I’m doing TAPIF and was asked to teach the students about differences between France and the US. I used this video and it was a hit! The students enjoyed it a lot and it was a great conversation starter. They were very opinionated! They mostly agreed with what you said.
i HOPE YOUR BABY IS ALL WELL and HEALTHY.... and so is all of you. congratulation to the baby.
Ha! My French boyfriend was nodding and rolling his eyes at pretty much ALL of these! 😂
Another thing I don't miss is the teeny tiny lunch breaks. I'm going to hate going back to those.
Btw, the friendliness level in New England (where I'm from) might suit you more. It's a decent balance. People smile and are friendly but still know how to keep their distance where appropriate. (We also have fewer chain restaurants. ;) Although still a lot more than here.)
I'm from.New England too and yeah lol... I did also live in the midwest for a few years and there's a big difference in culture even though it's the same country
Haha your boyfriend would get along well with my husband. All these points are the things that totally throw him off too when we are back in the US! I actually used to vacation close to Boston every year and it's true that there are way less chain restaurants!
Yea, i'm sure culture and attitude is really different depending on where you grew up in the US. I try to make my references as specific to my midwest childhood as possible since i'm sure it's not the same for someone living on the west coast or east coast!
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified Ha, yes, just like if you're not careful and you say "In France they do X", you might get a ton of "France is not Paris!!!" comments! ;)
I get those comments all the time! What makes me laugh though is that Paris is a part of France guys. I don't tell people that New York isn't an American experience or it's not part of the US because it's so different from the midwest or from the west coast. You've still experience the US in my opinion! 😍
Kate you look fabulous. I wish for you a smooth delivery of a healthy little one...Felicitations !
I never understood the tipping thing and the tax not being included in the price of things. Like, tipping is because I apprecciate the service that person gave me, therefore, I am giving you more money as a sign of apprecciation, but the fact that is mandatory and the fact it's gotta be at least 16% of the check is a mind bender. If I need to tip service that means the employees are not paying this person enough for him to live.
As a scientist who immigrated to the USA we only use the metric system at work. So I don't get why the other system exists! I mean data is generated in metric system so why communicate it otherwise.
Agreeeeeedddddd ✌🏻🤪
Yes, and it's funny to know that they use the metric system in the US to verify their own system.
And I remember the failure of a landing on mars because somehow they mixed up inches and centimeters.
In your everyday life it doesn't matter that we use gallons, pounds, miles, etc. It's actually more convenient to buy a gallon of milk than a liter of milk (I paid 2.30 today for a gallon of milk today). Temperature make more sense in fahrenheit, yes 100 is hot and 50 is not and 0 is really cold and if it's a minus temp then don't go outside. I can say the same for MPH as 15mph is slow and 60 mph is fast and 100mph will probably kill you.
@@fernarias 1kg is 1000Gr. So you can ask for half a Kg, 500gr, 250gr is a quarter of a Kg, 750gr... same for liters, half, a quarter, 3L...it feels easier even in everyday life than going from a pound to once 1:16..
@@fernarias I grew up with imperial units: 16 oz=1 lb, 20 fl.oz = 1 pint, and my country went metric. I still estimate walking distance in miles, wind speed in Beaufort numbers or knots, but will happily do my driving metric. But you Americans seem obsessed with using the wrong units: roadworks are quoted in feet (wtf: 1500'? oh, about 3/10 M) and weights in pounds (Miss America weighs 120lb (no, she weighs 8 stone 8 lb) or truck laden weight 53000lb (about 23.6 tons, the real ones, 2240 lb)
I love watching reaction/culture shock videos and you nailed it about the superiority complex bit, I don't want to sound like I'm hating on americans, but the sense of "patriotic arrogance" is a bit annoying, the belief that they think they're the only country to exist and it's the best is a bit offensive to say the least, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed France and the way things are done, VAT/tax incorporated into the price (what you see is what you pay), tipping is a funny topic all around the world, in Europe we pay our waiting staff a decent wage, tips are a bonus, not a supplement for low wages like in the US, tips should be earned imo, also it's 2019,not 1919 why hasn't the US adopted the metric system yet?
As a Brit, I find over friendliness from americans very odd , it feels like obsequiousness, like what are you after/wanting? one question though, what did you think of the emphasis on recycling that Europe has? and how is it different compared to the US?
@moobs moomin I have another theory about this overt patriotism. The US behave in the world as an empire. Btw I love this county but their acts on the international scale are awful. In that view, they send their military worldwide to achieve their agenda. So they need an on-duty mode population.
I still don't get why the US don't follow the international metric system...^^'
Nobody does.
'Cause the metric system was not invented by americans (metric system was invented in France at 18th century).
because we for the most part are use to our system, and i refuse to use it. im too old to change
@@MrOuazo USA, Liberia and Palaos are the only 3 countries who don't use the metric sytem out of 192 countries recognized by UN. So when 189 countries use the metric system you can't tell "nobody does". US isn't the center of the world ;)
@@shakya00 Britain is not entirely metric and since Brexit has reverted back to using many Imperial units. They have not gotten away from using miles, gallons or feet and really only use Celsius for temperature and metric for weights but again will use stone for weight and ounces for food. One stone is 14 pounds. Lots of other countries will also reference US standard/Imperial units for describing height. Metric has a short coming with scalability especially using temperatures and lengths. The human body can detect very small variances in temperature and also lengths. Whole degrees Celsius are much broader than Fahrenheit and SI users only use millimeters or meters. Feet and inches makes more sense in describing a persons height. You will notice that decimeters are never used yet they are a valid unit and more scalable.
Free healtcare is something we Europeans can be proud of 😊👍
Absolutely!
Bienvenue en France, honoré de vous compter parmi nos invités. Ps : don’t forget to apply for french nationality it’s cool too !
Hello, i'm french, i had a great vision of USA when i was young, but now, i won't even dare come to live in USA, mostly because of
-no health care, take care of yourself, if you don't have money, then die
-when you get too old to work ? i suppose it is, no support from the state, you have to store money on some account or insurance. Otherwise, no money no support you die. Even if you worked your whole life paying taxes.
+but at least, you are supposed to earn more money than in France (well, i suppose this is true for some jobs, but not others. Like the rich gets richer, the poors are poorer).
-guns. Really, walking outside of home knowing that anybody can kill you with a gun for no (good) reason at all ? Ok they are armed killers in France too, but a lot less.
-tornados, cyclones :) a bit more dangereous on this side
-trump, who is crazy, and doesn't care about ecology. Capitalism & Money and me first, Earth last, others behind. Thank you for the children of the world.
Otherwise, living in usa looks cool. But it's a bit too much "life threatening" to live in the US for me. It's like gambling, if you are lucky - american dream - stats are like drop rate of farming games, really low of course - you get rich, and all is almost ok - except than you can still be shot for your money. Otherwise, well, no money, easy house eviction, citizens are free, but not supported by the state.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my current point of view, i'm too scared to go live there. If i had to change country, i'd rather go to Quebec or Canada.
Mdr, peur des armes à feu alors qu'en France on a régulièrement des fusillades à l'arme de guerre en cité ou des attentats. Belle mentalité. Ton commentaire entier sent la mentalité d'un enfant gâté bien trop couvé.
@@john0doesnt tu as mis le pied dans one cité mdr? Ou tu as vu ca dans un film?
@@NeoShameMan Bah non pas envie de me faire flinguer. Suffit d'habiter vers Paris ou Marseilles et régulièrement, dans la rubrique faits divers, y a des règlement de comptes entre racailles à l'arme de guerre, parfois même en pleine rue, à la brésilienne
John Doe tu peux pas comparer le dégât des armes aux États-Unis par rapport à celui en France, bon déjà les États Unis c’est plus grand mais la bas t’a des gros massacres, pas un coup de couteau. T’as un gars il rentre dans une école et il tue 15 personnes ! Ce n’est qu’un exemple parmis tant d’autres mais je t’invite à te renseigner un peu plus et pas juger par ta simple expérience de tout qui n’a pas l’air très tangible
@@wildspirit5328 Non mais il vit pas dans une cité, donc il dit des conneries, c'est des gars comme lui qui fait que le patron, quand il voit ton adresse tu trouve pas de job, et oh pas d'appart non plus ou alors caution exorbitant , tu peux pas nourrir ta famille, et on traite de feignasse après parce que tu touche les allocs au lieu du salaire qu'on te refuse ...et personne ne fait rien si un ptit con énervé de voir sa famille végété et se faire traité de tout les noms, met le feux a un bus, et que tout les bobo se disent, he ben dis donc, faudrait faire quelque chose, et nous envoie des miettes à la cons. Mais le petit cons il a plus mon respect que les grand con comme lui, au moins il fait avancer les choses à sa manière.
I like your channel, an I am an expert since I am following your equivalents on the German side ;D I like your style, it is honest and comes right to the point but you are funny at the same time. Refreshing.
Come to Canada , you will have the best of both side .
More or less, yes. But not for winter: its temperatures, its length, its very short days. In Europe, it is the same thing only in the north: Scandinavia, etc.
I sometime talk to my neighbors when I take dog for a walk when I lived in a city they basically almost never talk to you. So depends on what part of country you are in how much people will talk to you.
hydrolito
Maybe it’s the enormous pitbull you are walking with.
Hi! I am French and I live in Germany. I loved your comment about rules. This is so true!!! Our values are first people and rules must serve the people not the other way around. Therefore we usually question the rules and need to understand them. if we see that the rule does not fit it's purpose or not applying the rules does not harm anyone or anything then we will tend not to apply it. This is the exact contrary in Germany. This country LOVES rules. On one hand this leads to people being more disciplined,which is good. For example I like that cars here stop at crosswalks when there is a pedestrian. In France crosswalks are simple decoration! I definitely don't miss that! But on the other hand Germans are really extreme regarding rules which makes them too rigid. So a good mix between the two mentalities would be good.
I am the mother of a 2 month old baby and the other thing I don't miss in France is short maternity leave. In Germany it is normal to take at least a year off to be with your baby, while in France it is usually ca. 3 months after birth.
A side note, I was surprised to see how different are the mentalities regarding child birth and child care between even neighbouring countries inside Europe. There must be also a great difference between France and the US. That could be a subject for one if your following videos :-)
Love all the info! People keep pointing out how following the rules becomes more important the more north you go in Europe and less important the more south. It's true that the Germans have a reputation for being hardcore rule followers and the area was mainly settled in by Germans, so the mentality isn't too surprising!
I've heard maternity leave in Germany is amazing! Some of our French friends their actually complain about how long it is, but it's seems amazing to have so much flexibility to put family first for a bit before returning back to work if you want to/need to.
I'm planning on some US vs French pregnancy/baby raising videos once the tiny tot makes her appearance!
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified I wish you good luck until your little one arrives... You'll see that is the hardest but also the most amazing, the greatest time in one's life! Wish you all the best :-) :-) :-)
That's right, but the French have their rules, too, where they can be quite rigid. For example with their personal formalities. Ask someone on the street for directions, to come to a bakery without saying Bonjour Madame/ Monsieur? Well, get ready for a lecture.
In Britain we have an old comedy TV series called "Yes Minister" which was jokingly talking about the different application of rules in Europe. It was a fake scenario with a new "EU Identity Card" being introduced:
"The Germans will love it. The French will ignore it. The Spanish and Italians will be too chaotic to enforce it. No, it's only the English who will resent it."
Supposedly in Germany the rules are followed happily. In France they're ignored at will. In the UK we follow them, and are annoyed about it.
@@severinepele9864 I'm a French male and never went to Germany so I don't have that experience, but I heard that german mother are quite looked down if they try to work again while having child contrary to french mother. The term is Raven mother.
So maybe the maternity leave is better in germany in short term, but the social bias against working mother doesn't make it very attractive.
Love all of these things :-) I live in Europe as well. I don't miss cars :-) Public transit is free where I live, and long distance trains are less than 10 euro for a 2 hour trip.
The US is horrible when it comes to pricing for suburban commuter rail. In the SF Bay area, a one hour trip can cost around 14-20 dollars one way. No wonder people stick to their cars.
What?! Where do you live?
Estonia 😎
No free lunch. you or someone pays for the pubic transportation. In taxes or fees somewhere.
Yes. We have 20% flat tax. It pays for everything. Even tourists on busses in my town :-)
I'm an American and have been studying abroad in France for about 5 months now. I totally agree with you on the sales tax, I have enjoyed being able to calculate my groceries while going through the store or clothes in shops, and know exactly what my total will be. I will miss that when I go back home in a few days. But I will say, I definitely miss the small talk, open conversation with strangers, and the acceptance of smiling while out at home. Personally I just feel like being able to converse with the cashier, or person next to me in line is a way of connecting to all sorts of people from your own culture or other cultures who are visiting, even if they are strangers. Love your video! :)
French here. Moved to Indiana 7 years ago. And I have the exact same opinion about the differences between France and the US.
No country is perfect obviously and to each its own. But yeah, you nailed it perfectly in my book.
I am fine with sales tax until you travel to another state and it changes. 😂
But noise in restaurants, sometimes over friendly people and chain restaurants, yep, totally relatable.
Very interesting video. I have lived and worked in the U.S. and I really enjoyed it, especially working there because it is so much more fluid and more practical than in France. I totally agree with you than the metric system is so much easier to use than the imperial system (invented by Britons) because it is a decimal system whereas the imperial system is something else: 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1,760 yards in a mile. American are very friendly especially in rural areas, probably more than most Europeans. You have not mentionned that maternity leave is a must in France compared to the U.S. You will soon experience it.
wow. french person here. i had to stop at the health care thing, not because of what you say about the difference, though it's part of it, but because you felt you had to say "i'm not trying to start a debate, it's just my opinion…" - and then it's just perfectly reasonable things, like 'i'm glad i don't have to worry about ruining my family over health problems'. this is making me feel really really depressed for everyone in the US. every time i see something about healthcare there it hits me again.
Thank you for this great video! All the things you mentionned are the ones I missed the most when I was living in the US ( I am French). Same thing with your previous video about culture shock (what you missed about the USA was what I loved the most about the USA).
I would add public transportation!!! I was shocked in US by absence or low services in US regarding public transportation. Everybody has to have a car. You dont even get side walk. I were the only one walking or using bike 🤷♀️
So I recently moved to America, and I was so surprised how Americans always think they are number one
Canada is very similar in all these respects...except instead of focusing on being the best country in the world, we often focus on how we are better/different than the US lol. We have a strange mix of imperial and metric. We weigh and measure ourselves with imperial for example, but measure speed of cars and gas prices in metric. It’s very confusing haha.
I've always felt like Canada is such a good middle ground between europe and the US. You get some of the positives of being in North America and parts of the culture I love, but without some of the negative sides of the American society like our healthcare system. hahah I agree that you focus on how not american you are, but it's normal because the similarities between the two countries get people confused sometimes!
Ellen Clea In Quebec, we learn with the metric system during primary and secondary school and once we get in cegep and University we learn with imperial system.
Ellen Clea: I was born and raised in Quebec, grew up in the imperial system; and I can tell you for a fact that everything in this country is now measured in metric. I've never heard of people being weighed and measured in imperial since 1975. Also, the only thing I've observed we think we have an advantage over the US in is healthcare. I've never heard anyone here say they thought they were better than the Americans. Different, yes, not better. Where are you living in Canada, Ellen?
@@karenburrows9184 very interesting. I live in Ontario where what I said is definitely true, at least for people of my generation. I think the great majority of people here only know their weight in pounds and height in feet and inches. I only learned my height/weight in metric once I lived in Europe for a bit and people had no idea about imperial. I don't think Canadians (or Ontarians) really think we're better personally than Americans, but rather that our country is generally better. But in reality we are really not very different at all and everyone has their own subjective ideals anyways
@@melonellen4 Hey, Ellen - greetings from Green Valley, Ontario. I've been living here for almost six years. In my recent checkup at my nurse-practitioner's office, I was once again weighed and my height taken in metric. I agree with your statement that we like our country better, for the most part, and I also agree that we are not very different overall. Nice talking to you!
If you are older, as I am, you can remember when chain restaurants were uncommon. I don't think I ever saw any chains other than fast food chains before I was an adult. I prefer restaurants are owned by the people you see.
I am an American in America, and you touched a hill I decided a long time ago that I will die on. The imperial system is not inferior to the metric system. What I will say is that there are a lot of compelling situations to use the metric system over the imperial system, such as cooking and scientific endeavors. With that said, if we take measurements of length, there are more factors that one can divide by evenly. A foot is 12 inches. That means you can divide a foot by 2, 3, 4, and 6. That also means you can divide a yard by the same factors and be left with a measurement of feet and inches. In the metric system, you have two factors: 2 and 5. The advantage to metric is that there is always a name for the more precise measurement (ex. meter -> decimeter). Now let's take Fahrenheit. The only advantage Celsius has to Fahrenheit in something like cooking is that you have to memorize the numbers 32 and 212. Given that I personally have mastered these two numbers, I am now unhindered to effectively use Fahrenheit to cook, and I can even leverage its advantage to protect myself. The advantage of Fahrenheit is that it has ended up being a great scale to determine what is too hot and what is too cold. If the temperature outside is 100F or more, you know it's too hot. You can't really shed anymore layers and expect not to get a heat stroke. If you're cooking and something is 100F or more, you know it's too hot to handle with bare hands. If you take your temperature and the thermometer reads 100F or more, you know you have a fever. What's too hot in Celsius? 38C. That's one number you need to memorize. Let's take too cold now. Once the temperature outside reaches 0F, there is no amount of layering you can do to stay warm. Liquids begin to freeze rapidly, and if you stay outside without some kind of active warming device, you will get hypothermia. What is too cold in Celsisu? -17C, another number to memorize. 100F and 0F are the extreme points at which there is no defending against the elements such that the temperature itself is harmful to human survival. The boiling point of water (waaaay too hot) doesn't really tell me anything at all about what to wear outside. In summary, the imperial system is a perfectly adequate standard unit of measurement, provided that we all agree that there are situations where another system is more appropriate.
How wonderful it is to be able to travel!
Totally agree Tim! Such a luxury and a great eye opener! :)
Service at restaurants is rather different from the U.S. and Europe. In the U.S. it's common to go out often and the servers by 'overly attentive' constantly asking how it's going, is everything okay, etc...
In Europe going to a restaurant is more of an experience and a good server should know how to read a table and not interrupt a conversation, approach the time if people are clearly having a good time and laughing, etc... in Europe it's a fine balance between attentive and stand offish. Many North Americans often see it as stand offish, rude, etc...
In the U.S. a server is also trying to get a balance of, being attentive to get a good tip but also hurry you up and get the table filled with new customers who will hopefully leave a tip.
I book a table for next month at a restaurant for nine seven persons, on the booking it said we have the table for 2.5hours. That doesn't mean we'll be moved if we haven't finished eating (though if we were just having drinks by that time, they usually reserve a bar table or easy chairs to relax in and ask kindly for us to move through to the other section) but is more a courtesy notification of, 'we'd like to reuse the table at *:** time.
Hi Sven! Totally agree its completely different the way we are served in restaurants and the tipping culture really drives a culture of getting people in and out of the restaurant as quickly as possible. But in the US we have a culture of eating much quicker than the French, so we don't see this as something negative. But i'm the first to say, ive gotten very used to long meals and I LOVE IT. :)
My experience in the U.S. is that waitstaff will introduce themselves by name, as if I'm going to yell across the room to get their attention, and then squat down while taking the order, to try to maximize their tip. They/ll be overly friendly to maximize their tip. They won't actually observe the how the people are doing, but instead will keep coming by to ask how things are going (in order to maximize the tip). Alternatively, they'll vanish into thin air until they decide to bring the check. So then, the most annoying waitstaff get the best tip, even if they're not good at their jobs, but people of color are screwed, even if they do a great job. The U.S. is too racist for tipping. In fact, tipping in restaurants is one of the most idiotic traditions of the U.S., along with the complex schedule of various people who expect tips. Americans have enough trouble with math that it's too hard to calculate tips, so now the going rate in restaurants is 20%, because employers will pay only slave wages to waitstaff. It's the same cost in the end for the customer, but far more annoying with tipping. Why don't we pay separately for the cost of the restaurant's nighttime cleaners, electricity, and water? If we're going to itemize, why not go all the way?
I have lived 30 years in the USA and i still cannot stand being interrupted in a middle of a private conversation by a waiter/waitress asking me how i ma doing to ensure his/her tip at the end. As a French woman, I hate it!!!
@ I will wave at him/her and point my glass with a smile and he/she would quietly refill it. Or even better, he/she will take a look on who needs refill and will refill my glass quietly and quickly without me even having to ask for it. Now, that is good service. The waiter/waitress should be discreet and swift. I could be breaking up with someone or announcing someone's death or trying to seduce a new potential lover...never, ever plant yourself in front of a table and interrupt a conversation.
I really respect your opinion on taxes yet I disagree with you : I do believe that the fact that in the US and Canada, one pays federal and state (or provincial in Canada) taxes each time one pays for a product or service and that those values are there clearly stated on the receipts is actually a very good thing.
In some countries (well, in a lot of countries) people don't know how much money they pay in taxes each time they pay for a product or service, and when there's price hikes, commerce blames the government for the amount of taxes attached to the final price while the government blames commerce for being greedy : nothing's done about it and the consumer ends up paying more for the same product or service.
There's a transparency to the process that I think might prevent prices from going crazy.
If there is one thing as a French I feel I should correct you about is country size. A better comparison nowadays would be the European Union vs the Unites States of America or Individual European countries vs Individual American states. What I think France and Europe has for it, is the way the land is broken to give access to water, forests and mountains fairly well spread out making it accessible everywhere in reasonable travel time. USA is a huge chunk of land with little breaks making states a lot more homogenous and travel times to get mountains, ocean, and other natural features much higher.
Very good video ! I like the way you did comments :-) When I traveling abroad, leaving France, I really appreciate that people don't tell me each time about the weather ! It seems in France this is the only one thing people are worrying about !
Interesting! I've never noticed the point about the weather but ill keep my eye out of for that now!
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified I'm an American from the west, and I feel like all of my relatives from the midwest constantly talk about the weather. It's kind of funny the way they always bring it up.
The weather is one of the few things you can talk about w/strangers (for the French). It's real, (not contrived), bc everyone is affected by the weather. The French like to talk about meaningful things, like politics, philosophy, they love to debate. But you really can't do that w/ppl in the check-out line at the grocery. I mean, you could, but it would not be well received. And talking about what's in your cart would be totally invasive as far as the French are concerned. I must say I agree, even though I'm American and have done those things myself when I was younger. l think it's really a case of Americans not being comfortable with just standing there. We feel the need to fill the silence.
@@k.monteil...asalon9357 In the case that I evoke, it is not simply a subject to break the ice (as in the song "Le café des Trois Colombes" "The bar of the Three Doves" from Jo Dassin, an american ^_^ ) but it is a real subject, which exasperates me. Friends, relatives, colleagues, every one talk about weather and the forecasts are like divine words! "On TV, they said ..." it irritates me !! ^_^ But tonight I'm discovering that not only french feel so much concern ! Too funny ! ;-p I'm finally, maybe, the thorn in the foot of others :-D
Fair enough .The distant thing is relative. The U.S is almost as big as the whole of Europe, So I just compare U.S states with European countries.
Flase. All USA speaks english, has the same education system and same political systems, and a pretty unique food a part very local plates.
Europe has many languages, many local uses, many foods and drinks, different cuisines and different philosophies of life. For example starting from Paris France to Copenhague Danemark justin 750 miles you'll find 2 different varieties of French, 2 varieties of Dutch, German and danish languages, 5 different cultures, 5 different political systems, and 4 different cuisines.
@@MrAluminox It's nothing to do with 'True or False'. In the case of distance I use states as countries in one way, For cultural diversity I use history. Don't underestimate the influence of time .You name every obvious differences that exist in Europe today, . Every diversity has been created over time. , sometimes by the most unexpected and unpredictable events,
@@MrAluminox you forgot that Belgium has 4 different political systems :-D
Ilan the guy was talking about distances ... you know, size! What is wrong with you?
For a quick and easy U S beach vacation, please visit the peasant Riviera that stretches from Biloxi, Mississippi to Panama City Beach, Florida. It's a nice stretch of coastline.
I'm British and even I know the World Series was named for its sponsor the New York World newspaper
Great insight! Didn't know that!
My tunisian friend : omg France si soo large 😂
I'm in the opposite case, went from EU to US. Your top ten is pretty accurate.
I've not yet looked a lot at your channel so I have no clue since how long you've been in France. Do you think your personal taste have changed, regarding food ?
When we arrived here we were surprised to see that everything has a lot of sugar or a lot of salt.
So I wonder, when you arrived did you had the feeling food was tasteless ? Now, when going back to the US, do you notice that difference in salt/sugar ?
she said 10 years at some point
I so wish sales tax would be included on the price of items! The metric system is much easier, I actually learned it during the Carter Administration back in Elem. & Jr. High School. I hate ads, too; I rarely watch live TV...
OECD Better Life Index 2021: 1 Switzerland 2 Denmark 3 Netherlands
4 Finland 5 Austria 6 Australia 7 Iceland 8 Germany 9 New Zealand 10 Norway
11 Estonia 12 Oman 13 Sweden 14 Slovenia 15 United States
France, small country? It's one of the big countries in Europa.
Second bigest cuntry in europa
But the USA or Canada are almost the size of Europe, so...
@@boris6516 canada dont have dangerous cuntry next to
@Rita Roork Riiight... What kind of data are you Smoking? Texas is only about 20% bigger. And I'm willing to wager more than 20% of Texas is deserts.
@Rita Roork I call a troll
Except for a few people, I don't miss anything. Twelve years and counting on the Mediterranean.
I do find it funny that I'm watching commercials watching this CZcams channel. Hahaha
I'm a Brit who has lived most of my life in France. One major difference between the countries is civility between people. When I'm walking down the street, people I have never met will say "bonjour". If I said "hello" to strangers in the UK, they would look at me as though I were mad or even attack me.
I'm incredibly lucky in that I am Scottish and the French love the Scots and hate the English.
French don't hate the english 😂
@@fad9236 Most of the French people I know do.
Ah ! Ah ! Ah ! La Vieille Alliance ! Je l'avoue, je n'ai guère séjourné en Angleterre, mais mes quelques séjours en Ecosse ont duré de 16 jours à 5 semaines. Mes séjours ont eu comme objectif prioritaire la faune sauvage, mais j'ai aussi beaucoup lu sur l'histoire d'Ecosse. Mon dernier séjour : invité, avec ma fille et mon plus jeune fils, chez Paul Ramsay, très impliqué dans la réintroduction du Castor en Ecosse (see : www.bamff.co.uk/beaver-project/). Quelques années auparavant, chez moi, j'avais montré à Paul et à son épouse Louise bien des sites habités par les Castors (Bièvre en vieux français), au cours de deux séjours qu'ils ont fait. Quoique habitant les Alpes, j'ai été réellement impressionné par les paysages d'Ecosse.
A suggestion, you could consider quoting literature and mathematics as French specialties rather than fashion and cooking...
Well, as an ancient french student in mathematics, I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one.. Not that we are bad at it, far from it, but more like compared to other countries, we're not exatly "novateurs" (sorry forgot the english word) and don't exactly stand comparison..
Literature on the other hand, here I completely agree with you ! French is a complex and beautiful language (la langue de Molière, des métaphores filées, des fables et contes...) and really should be more appreciated !
Personally, cooking and baking is still one of my favorite art (with literature) through ^^
I love to economise enough for a good restaurant, not something I can do often but my "péché mignon". I'm sad to admit, as a French person, that I'm kind of a disaster in the kitchen, but savoring a masterfully put together meal, with strange and uncommon ingredients, new combinations, and the culturally importance of the "family dinner", dedicated to pass time together savouring and delecting your father special salad, your late grand-mother version of boeuf bourguignon, the little slice of cheese du jour and (on hollydays) une meringue/macarron or another pâtisserie ! I know not every one is as food-enthusiastic as I am (it is something learn, to develop your palate, and even in my family where we all ate the same, my sister is very less food appreciative than the rest of the siblings, I gess like every hobby/art every one as different tates) but I know that almost every one I know who stayed for an extended period of time in other countries had a hard time acclimating to the varyings difficulties to make a meal from scratch and the less large spectrum of tastes that is in common french cooking (not saying that it always taste the same in another country ! But that France is particularly known for a very large one easily accessible, so it can be difficult to acclimate) and I think we should be proud of that art, which is actually slowly disappearing 😊
@@doumeec5757 "Mauvaise pioche" I am a mathematician, and with all due respect you do not know your subject AT ALL. France revolutionized Mathematics several times in the last centuries and it is at the very origin of many fields in the past (integration, topology, projective geometry, optimization, dynamical systems...) and in the present (analysis, PDE, probability, AI with Deep learning). We are the second nation in terms of Fields Medal behind the US who spent tons of million of dollars on the subject and has a population 6 times bigger (not to speak of the Fields medalist they "bought"). The first Mathematician in history that was awarded both the Field Medal and in the Abel Prize is J.-P. Serre, he is still alive. France, with Greece and to a lesser extent Russia, Germany, USA is one of the most important nation in the history of Mathematics.
I enjoyed your observations and as a 'Brexpat Brit' now living in the USA I recognized many of them. However I was a bit surprised to notice that you saw France as a 'smaller' country than America because France is but a member state of the European Union, which amounts to a larger number of people. Yes the USA is formally federalized whereas the EU has yet to manage that (although I suspect it will have done so inside the next thirty years). But in fairness to compare France with an American state would be one thing, whereas to compare it to the entire United States of America is another. Certainly all the European member states have their own, deeply engrained cultures and customs, and enjoy a huge degree of autonomy. My experience is that so do all the America states, including the autonomy (each state has its own legislature, makes many of its own laws and raises its own taxes). And the differences are not just 'north/south/east/west'. 'Yankee' Boston has a distinctly different culture from 'Knickerbocker' New York and yet they are but a few hundred miles apart. Philadelphia is just a little further south east down the road and yet it too has its own unique culture. More widely California is regarded by some on the east coast as 'la la land' and Texas is 'Goddamn Independent' in the mind of many Texans. And on it goes. I enjoy this about America and as a newcomer to the 'new world' I find it fascinating to discover the richness of its various cultures. But it should be said there are plenty of Europeans living in Eastern Europe who would need to drive for many hours to see the sea, whereas if you live in Massachusetts then Cape Cod is never very far away. America comprises a large, diverse union. So does Europe.
If you going to compare European Union to USA at least make it fair European Union vs Continential North America.
RULES: thing I noticed in the US are the signs everywhere saying that this and that is punishable by law or something similar..even the most mundane things. It seems strange at first but after reading 128th sign like that I started to feel really uneasy. Like..I will be arrested any moment because I missed one sign :)
The tips included are in fact, a no tips deal for hôtels and restaurants most your waiters are on the minimal salary rate, it is just a "it is ok to not tip your waiter" convention between H&R owners and customers.
Minimum pay for most waiters is less than for other jobs so they make most of their money in tips at most restaurants a few pay at the other rate so don't have tipping such as McDonalds and Burger King, etc. I think most fast food places don't have tipping and just pay employees a higher rate.
I love the extreme friendliness of america.
Sounds like you are living in the perfect for you though!
If you think Spain's loud, just try Latin America!
China is the loudest place I've been too. Even ahead of India
Philippines is pretty loud also
guys, go to Malta. People down there are crazy loud
Or India!
Thank you for the "World Champions" bit, I always found it extremly funny and odd at the same time !
That's why the " French it up " came with all the support
oh man!!! My husband just told me the other day about when he had a conference in Gainesville Florida a few years ago, it was his first time in the US. He had gone shopping in a grocery then went to go check out the University library where his conference was, and the students working at the front desk were like "there's no eating in the library" blah blah blah, and he said he knew, he wasn't planning on eating, just wanted to see what the library looks like. And they asked him how he was doing, and it through him off, especially when he realized that they didn't care, I hadn't warned him about certain US customs, and he told them how he was a little lost and it was his first time him the US, and instead of saying something like "good luck" or "have fun", they told him "congratulations", hahahahahahahahahahahaa, and he was soooooo weirded out by it, like it's not that big of deal, I think it was his first time experiencing in person the US "patriotism" hahahahhahahhaha, and he wanted to tell them that he was just visiting and had no intention whatsoever to move there, hahaha. 6 months later we went together to visit my hometown in California, and I was able to help him navigate things a bit. And he also got to see how different the cultures are in the US, that we're not all the same.
ahah no eating in the library man! You never know what could happen 😂 I think the culture shocks between the US and France aren't always so in your face obvious. Which maybe makes it even more surprising when you're like "wait what? say again?" 😅
haha that's hilarious, as good as sketch material
"congratulations"....
*sigh*