Learn English with the Simpsons' Trip to England | British Stereotypes

Aw yeah! Today we're learning English  with The Simpsons in a hilarious episode  

where they head to the United Kingdom. Not only will you learn lots of vocabulary  

and pronunciation but you're going to learn  a lot about the culture and what they got  

right and wrong in this funny episode. But first let's see what Indu  

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So Tony Blair is talking about  this castle in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

And for us Americans when we come over to  Europe, because we come from a newer country,  

we don't have any castles, so we really  want to see all these really old buildings  

that people have here over in Europe. But I think for Brits it's probably  

something that's so commonplace, that you  don't find it very interesting, right? 

No, so I kind of understand  this one. I guess that's why  

they make the comment here that you Americans  love castles because it's more of a novelty  

for you. Exactly. 

Whereas for us it's not due  to the history of the country.

So this is just to show like  a huge contrast of where Homer  

Simpson comes from and Tony Blair comes from. So a gator farm would be an alligator farm. 

Gator is short for alligator and this is an animal  that we have in the South United States, mostly in  

Florida that is very similar to a crocodile. Tony Blair replies with "Smashing" which  

is another way of saying "Great." However in the UK we don't really  

use this word that much anymore. We would  probably use "brilliant" or "fantastic" instead. 

So in the USA we also have a lot of different  words that you can use to say "good"  

if you want your conversation to  be a little bit more interesting. 

Then you might want to watch this lesson,  so that you can add them to your vocabulary.  

You can find that link down in the description  below, but just to give you a few of them  

right now one that would say a lot is "awesome." I think Americans even overuse this and it's a  

huge stereotype, but it's one that you  will really fit in with if you use. 

And also we use "lovely" but I think this  is even more common in the UK, right? 

Yeah I think this is definitely  one that Brits would use a lot more  

and then we have words like "superb,"  "terrific" or "outstanding."

So "cheerio" is another way to say "goodbye,"  but most people in the UK don't really use this  

word anymore, it's more of an old-fashioned one. Yeah I think it's just that Americans think that  

Brits still used this word. Yeah.

So this is actually a stereotype that  we Americans have of British people,  

which we can see throughout the episode and  really it's just we think that they're more  

sophisticated than we are across the pond. I didn't actually know this so it's actually  

quite interesting watching this  episode and and knowing that. 

It's quite flattering, right? Yeah, yeah. I would say it is.

If you're enjoying this lesson then  I highly recommend you check out this  

lesson we made where The Simpsons Go To Australia. 

You can click up here or down in the  description box below to watch that lesson next.

So British humor is often described as being  dry, which means that you can't really tell  

whether or not we're being serious or  joking, because we tend to use a more  

serious face, so it's not so obvious. Yeah, that's so true. Definitely like  

a lot of Brits that I've met I never  knew if they were saying something  

seriously or if they were actually joking. Because we Americans when we're being sarcastic in  

this way we tend to actually use a different tone,  so it's very obvious and something that really  

contrasts very heavily between American humor  and British humor is that we have very common  

slapstick humor, which is actually like physical  humor of someone falling down or getting hurt or  

something like this that you'll see in a lot more  American shows like The Simpsons or Family Guy. 

Yeah and in the UK it tends to be the opposite,  it's a bit more serious and not as obvious.

So in the US football actually refers to American  Football, which is this sport and we'd call  

someone who plays this sport a football player,  and someone who plays Soccer a soccer player. 

Actually in the US it's quite common that we'll  play soccer when we're kids and we even have this  

term for a "soccer mom," which is basically a mom  who is always taking her kids to soccer practice,  

who probably has a minivan and things like this. But for adults we don't really tend to know the  

rules of soccer, maybe we'll watch the World  Cup or something like that but we're not so  

sure exactly what's going on, and this is  why it's quite funny that Homer says this,  

because it really would show someone  who knows a lot about Football when  

in fact he's American and he does not. That's really interesting because obviously  

in the UK, Soccer-- Well it sounds so strange  for me to play soccer, football is the biggest  

sport and I think in many countries in Europe  and maybe in others around the world as well. 

And for us to hear soccer just  sounds strange because it's a game  

that you play with a ball and your feet. Yeah I think it makes a lot more sense. 

Yeah, and also football actually started  out in the UK so it's the home of football,  

that's why we also describe Wembley Stadium  where lots of Cup Finals are played,  

we call that "The Home of Football," as well  because it's kind of where it all started. 

That makes sense.