Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Hi and welcome back to Joel & Lia this week we've got ten questions that Brits have for Americans or America in general so let's kick it off with the first question cheese this is a big thing because in the UK cheese is massive we love cheese and so do Americans but Americans seem to have what we would call fake cheese orange plasticy stuff in a can, cheese in a can, cheese in plastic wrappers that you just like put on a burger and hope that it melts somehow but when we look at cheese it's like an actual block of cheese and you get your knife into it and it's cheese or you get a slice and you like slice the cheese up into bits, oh I love that! So nice we love cheese but I'm just like why don't you have it because you would like it more than that plastic fake stuff you would! yeah it's only really fake cheese you ever see in America yeah contactless contactless is huge over here everywhere you go just use your debit card and it's like *beep beep beep* and you've paid for stuff and it's like a thirty pound limit on what you can purchase yeah contactless everywhere Why haven't you got that? it's crazy when I last went to America you only just had chip and pin isn't that insane when you put your card into the Machine and type in your PIN number you were still having to sign for things that's us like ten years ago and then when chip and pin came it's like okay this is a little bit more convenient but still irritating like you have to put your card in, you have to wait yeah and you got to put your number in then you have to wait, whereas now it's just it's amazing and Apple pay on your phone so America must have it because Apple is an American brand yeah but now I've registered my card with my phone so I could just hold my phone over the like, card machine, and it gets my fingerprint and goes you paid like keep up with the times America you invented lots of this technology anyway so... yeah so why don't you implement it I find it so bizarre I was doing some shopping yesterday and a girl was paying at like a self-service checkout next to me and she like swiped her card and I was like what on earth and then the shop assistant was like oh no is that an American card she was like yeah and there's a massive queue and everyone was just like eye rolling like you're just wasting everyones time, bloody hell! So yeah contactless life change life-changing so this is a hard one guns come on guys we still don't understand why guns are a thing like why is it so easy to buy a gun in America? It is ridiculous we have a law against guns in the UK and we have a lot less gun crime well they've worked out proportionally so it's not even like oh you're a smaller country than us that's why you have no gun crime because they've done it as in proportionally to our population yeah we just have virtually no gun crime whatsoever. this gun control works in the UK it works in Australia it works in loads of other countries so you can see that it works so why wouldn't you do it well I know it's to do with like laws and constitutions and all these things but I'm just like come on people's lives are more important yeah we love America but that's just one thing that's just like...that would be one thing that would be the reason why I couldn't live there yeah not that I'm allowed in if I was to move there for any reason I wouldn't, that would really like I'd live in fear yeah oh it's scary! It's insane. that's mental it's so hard to get hold of a gun in England yeah I've not tried I just know that it's hard but I think you can but yeah you have to have a licence and it has to be for like farming purposes and it has to be like locked away in a cabinet in your house you cannot, you absolutely cannot carry it with you no way ridiculous yeah so the next one is to do with exercise and particularly walking so we love walking over here everyone walks you know I remember we used to walk to school and then yeah okay we've got a smaller country but there's always paths paths everywhere or sidewalks sounds weird in our accent 'sidewalk' why why doesn't... why don't people walk that much in America I think gas is really cheap over there for them so in terms of expense you're like "well why wouldn't I? petrols really cheap" yeah but again that's not taking into account the effects on the environment but again that probably more applies to slightly more rural areas I'm sure if we went to a big city there'd be more people walking yeah okay this one is something you've experienced yeah it's the toilets in America public toilets or public bathrooms or restrooms why is there such big gaps in between the doors and above and below the door as a short woman this sort of makes me uneasy but the gap oh I wouldn't be able to go to the loo. Well i couldn't, like, pfft. *lost for words* well I have no words because there's no privacy in public toilets you literally all you want to do is just take a peaceful poo and you can't because you're panicked because someone's waiting for the toilet and they can see you through the gap and you're sat there like oh my god when are they gonna leave oh my gosh, surely that's like really embarrassing has anyone had any embarrassing moments where they're just on the loo and they're just making eye contact with someone who's waiting yeah let us know in the comments because I know I've seen a video from an American being like ah your public toilets like private rooms and I'm like yeah because you're doing something private in there yeah let us know if that's a thing that you've noticed or you know if you're just used to it. If you're used to pooing infront of people if you're used to the performance of it! another heavy one is health care as you may or may not know in England in the UK we have the NHS and that means free health care for everyone who is a taxpayer here which is basically everyone if you need medical attention you'll get it yes you might have to wait a little bit of a while unless your case is urgent but you'll get seen to and you'll be looked after for free because it's included in the tax we pay to our government in America if you get ill if you're seriously ill that could cost you and your family your house, all your savings, thousands and thousands of dollars, I was about to say pounds, obviously dollars! and that is just devastating yeah well we made a video about it so if you're really interested click the card in the top right corner or in the description below, we'll link it down there as well lots of the comments from Americans there were actually really sad like people were saying how much money it's cost them like if their child's been ill, that they've got insurance but they still have to pay like three thousand dollars up front before they can get treatment or claim any money back and it's like it's just really sad so if you are interested in hearing a bit more about the health care system we have over here just click the NHS video there. so the next one is vegetarianism why aren't many of you guys vegetarians? so veganism and vegetarianism is really taking off in England particularly in London and I think one thing that prompted this was Netflix documentaries such as What The Health, Cowspiracy all of those kind of things and these documentaries have really sort of opened everybody's eyes over here certainly to the dangers of meat and not just what it's doing to the planet but what it's doing to your body yeah and the dairy industry that agricultural industries what these companies are doing and how they're working with the government to sort of fund their like to fund their ideas and make us think that we need these products well our government do it as well like telling us that we need meat we need dairy yeah and all of this is actually false and fair enough if you want to eat meat got nothing against that we have meat occasionally yeah but I do think that everyone should be cutting down on the amount of meat that they have yeah you don't have to give it up but just everyone should be aware of the impact it's having if everyone ate less meat we would definitely live in a healthier world and it would be saving so many people's lives I don't know maybe maybe we're not seeing something let us know in the comments. the next one is why is your legal age for drinking alcohol 21 come on! Is it 21 for buying it as well oh yeah think so yeah so here you can drink alcohol with parental supervision from age five so funny I mean obviously I didn't get sort of drunk until I was say 17, 18 yeah but honestly all it meant was that I wasn't sort of gonna break any rules or try and go out or do anything silly to feel those things just like in a controlled environment a couple of drinks and some food coz I think it makes it a thing if your parents are like no you can't have alcohol yeah cuz my parents we'd have... I'd have like Shandy like beer with some lemonade from like 12, 13 it just made it not a thing! Like yeah you can have some alcohol if you want... but yeah I think my my dad caught me sort of drinking sambuca when I was like 11 and he's like you used to like dip your finger in and just get the sambuca so funny! obviously I wanted the booze, yeah, sambuca's great! Oh it's lovely! But anyway, give eighteen-year-olds a bit of fun lower the drinking age yeah that was nice it was lovely and it just meant that like you know we can sort of handle our alcohol a bit more yeah I mean we can't, I mean yeah after like 2 drinks we're like 'wasted'! We're a different breed, we're a different breed, we're a joke but the majority of Brits... the other day you had like 3 drinks and you woke up the next morning and you were like "I'm hungover" I was like you've had three drinks. Oh gosh, that was bad, I was mixing yeah I feel like when I've been to America the people that greet you as when you walk into a shop oh yeah I feel like they're a bit over animated and a little bit fake, oh the like "hey how's your day how's it going?" and sometimes you just don't want to be spoken to like it makes me feel like I should leave their shop it doesn't make me want to go into their shop and look around if someone's like "hey how's your day?" I'm like oh my god leave me alone, like just pretend I'm invisible don't look at me I don't want to be looked at I don't wanna be spoken to if I need your help I'll come and find you and I'll say can you help me with this. yeah, part of me doesn't know if it's because they want to deter shoplifters so they're like "I see you like as soon as you walk in I know you're in here" or if it's just like they think that we want to be spoken to to me it feels like autopilot like "Hi I'm getting paid to say this" yeah sorry if that's your job if you've been told to do that then you know you've gotta rock that but maybe try and be a bit more sincere "darling darling darling come on in oh you've got some stripes you love stripes, got the perfect thing for you" I know Americans don't like that about us cuz they're used to that other way around and they think we're a bit rude, yeah the service is quite rude in the UK but that's just because we like a bit of space and the final one is passports apparently something like 14% of Americans have passports so the rest of the country doesn't own passports yeah so what are the rest of you... I mean what the rest of you.... what are the rest of you doing?! I think it's because and I'm gonna answer this question anyway okay I feel like it's because America is such a big country that lots of people go on stay vacations, what's it called? Staycation what's a staycation? when you stay in the country. Aww sometimes that's nice but if I was forced to do all my holidays in the UK I'd just be like oh what a peasant life what a peasant life. Oh no that's so bad! But the UK is small and the weather is kind of the same anywhere you go but in America if you're from Arizona where it's really hot if you go on holiday to Minnesota it might be snowing and you feel like you're in a different country and vice versa maybe that's why! let us know in the comments I know we've answered a lot of our own questions here but we'd love to hear from legit Americans exactly we only know how much you guys tell us so do let us know the answers to your questions we're not trying to be you know judgmental or arrogant we're just saying these are literally questions that we think most Brits have for America and if you like our videos guys and you want to see more please click subscribe to our Channel and if you want to buy us a coffee because you Americans love coffee we've got a Ko-Fi page in the description and yeah buy us a coffee if you want why not, and we'll see you next time! Bye!
A2 UK cheese america card gun meat alcohol Questions For Americans! What Do British People Think About America? 29 1 Michael Cheung posted on 2019/05/25 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary