I Lived in New York for 6 Months! Here Are 8 Weird Facts About Americans I Learned

- How are you?

It's so nice to meet you.

Thank you for inviting me here.

I have 10 different credit cards,

because this way I can travel for free.

Oh, my God.

Can you imagine I waited forever

for them to deliver my order.

I can only drink ice cold water.

I'm gonna go to a pharmacy to buy a new book,

some cool toys for my niece,

and maybe even some groceries.

I just ran 10 miles and I think I've already lost a pound.

Yeah, I don't like this present.

I think I'm gonna return it.

So I just went to a restaurant and I had to leave a tip

and also I called a cab back home

and I also had to leave a tip.

Tips everywhere.

Hello, guys, and welcome back to my YouTube channel.

Today, I wanted to tell you eight interesting facts

and stereotypes about Americans.

Two years ago, I lived in New York for six months,

and I got to experience a lot of weird things.

And I feel like in this video,

the things I'll be mentioning are more like facts

and less like stereotypes.

But before we start, I just wanted to say

a huge thank you to our sponsor, the ELSA Speak app,

but more about them later.

Let's talk about the first weird fact about Americans,

the fact that everyone is so polite,

everyone likes to smile, everyone is so friendly,

but actually it has a really good explanation.

So the reason why lot of Americans are so polite

and friendly and they smile so much,

is because America is a very diverse country,

and I read an article somewhere

and it said that many, many years ago,

when a lot of different people were coming

to America from different countries,

they couldn't really understand each other

because of this language barrier,

and since they couldn't communicate with language,

they decided to start communicating with smiling, right?

With being polite and just smiling all the time.

But here I gotta mention one thing,

when I was in New York, sometimes it was really strange

to me when Americans would ask me, how are you?

but then, you know, they didn't really care how I was.

It's just the way for them to say hello, right?

They're not looking for an answer,

so for example if you're going grocery shopping

and like a person might ask you, "How are you?"

You can just say, how are you back, and that's it.

You don't need to give them an extensive reply

about your day, about who you are and where you're from.

You can just say "How are you" back?

It's just a way of saying hello, of greeting a person.

Let's talk about the second fact or the second stereotype,

is that a lot of Americans travel for free.

The reason why a lot of Americans travel for free

is because they have a very good credit card system

that gives them rewards,

and it is true that a lot of Americans

who know about all those benefits and perks,

they use those airline miles to travel for free,

and that's why at the very beginning of the video

I said that, you know, I have 12 credit cards.

This is something that people

in America call credit card churning.

When they use different credit cards

just for bonuses, just for points,

to travel for free, to experience something for free,

and that's it.

But obviously to do this successfully,

you need to be really smart with your money,

and you need to know which credit card to apply for.

Sometimes, banks will not even issue you

certain credit cards, but a lot of Americans

are usually pretty smart,

and they know which credit cards to apply for,

and right now we have YouTube,

and there are so many cool videos

where you can learn about credit cards in America.

Stereotype number three is that Americans

like exaggerating things.

Again, maybe it's a stereotype,

maybe it's more like a fact,

obviously it's all very individual,

but even in the language, right, in the English language,

a lot of Americans would just use

like exaggerations all the time.

Even from the word awesome, for example.

Awesome is like a very American word.

It means that something is truly great, truly amazing,

but Americans would just use it all the time.

"That's awesome."

"Thank you for helping me, awesome."

For example, when Americans meet up with a friend

they haven't seen for a while,

they might say, "I haven't seen you for ages."

This expression, for ages, is a very good one.

Or for example, when a girl meets a cute boy,

she might say, "He's drop-dead gorgeous."

Again, we're exaggerating things.

And guys, if you wanna sound more American,

even for example when you use those exaggerations,

if you wanna have a more American accent,

you should give ELSA a try.

Elsa Speak is a unique app that pinpoints

your pronunciation mistakes by using

cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology,

and when you use their app to study,

you also learn a lot of new vocabulary

for daily communication, and eventually,

this will help you increase your English speaking skills.

Let me show you some of the things

I love about the ELSA Speak app

when I practice my pronunciation.

First, I love improving my pronunciation

with the help of all the different skills they have there.

For example, have you noticed that Americans

pronounce the word water as "water" and not water,

and the reason is that they change this T sound

to a flap T sound and this app can help you

master the sound.

Let's start with the word city.

As you can see, this T sound is a flap sound.

So we have to say, city not city.

City.

Yep, this is how you do it.

And the app rates your pronunciation

and helps you if you have any mistakes.

Another problem that a lot

of non-native speakers have is distinguishing

between the E and EA sounds,

for example in the words set and seat,

and again the ELSA Speak app can help you here as well.

So as you can see, we have the word eat here.

Let's just listen to find the correct presentation.

- [ELSA Speak App] Eat.

It.

- Yeah, so the correct pronunciation is eat, the first one.

So guys overall, I highly recommend using the ELSA Speak app

because a lot of my students are already using it

and they're absolutely loving it.

And I love the app too.

ELSA is just a great resource to improve your accent,

and receive detailed feedback.

And you can give it a try by using my link in a description.

Now let's move on to the fourth weird fact about Americans,

and talk about drinks.

At the very beginning,

I mentioned that Americans love drinking

ice cold drinks, and it is true.

And actually, it's very interesting to see how in a lot

of different restaurants, there are still free refills.

So you can get free refills almost everywhere you go,

and obviously you don't need to pay for them.

And what is also interesting is the drink sizes,

because guys they're gigantic,

you know a lot of different pictures online, memes online,

where a person gets a medium coffee and it's huge,

and for Americans, it's just a medium cup of coffee,

something they're used to drinking every single day.

And that other weird fact

about beverages is that in America

I think maybe not in every single state and city, obviously,

but in a lot of different places, you can drink tap water.

And a lot of people do.

Again, when I was living in New York,

I was drinking tap water.

Right now, I live in Russia in Moscow,

and in Moscow, no one drinks tap water.

It's not something you do,

in Russia generally I guess,

people just don't drink tap water.

But in New York, everyone is doing that.

Now let's talk about the American pharmacy.

So in America you can buy almost everything at a pharmacy.

In Russia, for example, in pharmacies

you usually only buy pills, medicine, that's it.

You can't buy toys, books, groceries, you can't,

but in America you can.

And a lot of people do because in America

pharmacies are just huge,

huge places where you can buy almost everything.

And guys let me know in the comments, if in your country

it's the same as in America.

So you can buy almost everything in a pharmacy

like medications and toys and food, or is it different?

Because again, in Russia, it's completely different.

I can only buy medications there.

Okay, guys, it's time to talk about the imperial system

and how in America people still use it.

And it's very confusing for other people

from other countries let's start with dates first

because there's even confusion when it comes to dates.

And we're not even talking about the imperial system.

So in most countries, people write day, month, year,

but in America, people write month, day, year.

And it's very, very confusing.

Especially, if you see the date like this,

you're like, is it a month?

Is it a day, like what's happening?

I don't understand.

So yeah, this is a cool fact about America,

the way they write their dates.

So now let's talk about the imperial system.

It's very confusing

if you're not born in a country where everything

is measured in miles, ounces and inches.

And that's why when I came to America,

everything was so complicated.

I didn't even know my own weight and height,

because obviously I only knew all those measurements

in kilograms and centimeter, not in feet and pounds.

Yeah, it was really hard.

Yeah, now let's talk about the give giving culture,

and actually the culture of returning things.

In America, it's very common to return a thing

like a present, a gift.

If you don't like it.

And even like, if you bought something online,

or at a store and later you don't like it anymore,

you're not gonna use it anymore.

You can return it.

It's very easy.

Obviously it depends on a company,

but usually most American companies,

they make it really easy for you to return stuff.

And when it comes to presents, again,

a lot of people are really chill about it.

If you don't like this present just return it.

It's totally fine.

But again, guys

I'm very curious what the situation like in your country.

Is it common for people to return gifts?

And if people do return gifts,

how do people who give them those gifts feel like,

what do they feel like,

do they feel, yeah, it's totally fine,

like I don't really care or do they get offended?

Let me know in the comments.

And now let's talk about the last fact

about Americans and about life in America,

is the fact that you need to tip everywhere.

You need to tip to everyone and everywhere,

where you go to a restaurant, obviously you need to tip.

Sometimes tip is even included

in your check and you know, you can't opt out.

And sometimes this amount consists of 25% percent

of the bill, which is a lot, which is substantial.

Because again, for example, in my country

some people don't tip like at all,

even when they go out to a restaurant,

but some people they only leave,

I don't know, maybe 10%, 15%, but never 25, 25 is a lot.

So guys, I think it's gonna be it for the today's video.

I just told you so many cool facts

and interesting stories about life in America,

about how I was so surprised when I was living

in New York for six months.

Again, if you have any questions,

if you have any cool stories from your country,

share them in the comments.

And if you wanna improve your accent,

if you wanna train your pronunciation,

to sound more like an American,

make sure to check out the ELSA Speak app

by using my link in a description.

If you like this video,

don't forget to give it a thumbs up

and subscribe to my channel.

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because there, I share my everyday life.

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Thank you guys.

And I'll see you next time.

Bye.

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