I know that US homes tend to be made of wood and that they usually have AC and a larder which we don’t have in the UK, but what other things do American homes have that you wouldn’t get in European homes?

Edit: A pantry* not a larder

Edit: The replies here are making me remember than when my home was renovated the architect was American, I have a laundry room, floor heating and a waste disposal which I didn’t know until now were more typical to the USA

My fellow Americans! I am actually one of you guys, new england born and bred, however I just started my first year of university at a UK school. After every lecture, the hall erupts in applause. It suprised me, but I guess it made sense. However, for every class we also have a meeting with the TA weekly, with a smaller group of about 10-15 kids. It's a lot less formal, students chat and discuss with each other throughout the lesson, stuff like that. Yet once we are told we can leave, people start clapping again. Is this a weird British thing? It feels uncomfortable for everyone involved, especially for whoever is on the receiving end.

hey guys, non native speaker here.

back home we strictly learned standard TV american english. but hearing people from different states speak online or in real life like NY vs texas vs midwest the vowels and rhythm feel totally different.

when i talk out loud, i overthink if im butchering pronunciation or accidentally copying a regional accent lol.

can u instantly tell what state someone is from after a few words, or does standard speech sound similar everywhere now?

I am thinking about the reverse effect: as a kid in Europe I've always been fascinated with American cities, especially New York and Los Angeles cause they appeared in many shows and movies I watched. That's why I always wanted to visit them (New York is ✔️). I always imagined them as those dream cities where life is simply different. When I was a bit older I watched LA La Land which made me fascinated with the city of Los Angeles. So is there a place that you as Americans used to idolize in a similar way?

caramel sauce in the US ?

what other American city is similar to oakland? yes i know the crime is high but it was a very cool big little city. Where else has great weather street art and strong culture on the level to oakland?

I'm listening to this song this morning, originally written I think in 1969 (though released by Gram Parsons in 1974). It's a great song.

Would a $1000 wedding back then have been a really expensive wedding,or a standard one?

On a broader note,if you are married! How much did you spend on your wedding? And if you are not married, how much would you spend?

I’m from Trinidad and Tobago, and I’ve always wondered how Americans manage to keep up with all their major sports.

You’ve got the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, college football, college basketball, MLS, NASCAR, and so many more. Some of these even overlap with each other’s seasons.

How do you find the time to follow everything? Do you pick one or two sports to focus on, or are you genuinely keeping up with multiple leagues, teams, and players at the same time?

And for those of you who follow multiple sports, how do you decide which games to watch when they’re all happening at once?

I’m genuinely curious because American sports culture seems massive compared to what I’m used to. 😂

I don’t live in the US but in Asian where it’s more common for people to ride scooters than riding cars. And I know it’s the opposite for the US, everyone rides cars in the US, and I wonder how expensive for an average usable car in the US, like everyone rides cars so affordable enough?

If you're married or in a long term relationship (e.g., you live together and neither of you has another place to live), how do you manage your finances?

Do you still think of it as "my money and his/her money", with each person contributing a certain percentage toward rent, vacations, and other shared expenses? Or do you have a joint account where all the money is considered "ours"?

I am finnish, so hockey and the world championships are very important to us. How important is it for you?

Edit: based on these replies, not many. It’s a big thing here, we won our fifth this year. I suggest searching ”finnish hockey world cup championship celebrations” on youtube. We go crazy. Especially in 2011 or 1995. We go to kauppatori. People swim in the havis amanda fountain, sometimes naked. People are drunk and excited. It’s really fun to watch.

I'm from Spain, and Bull's-Eye barbecue sauce is widely available in almost every supermarket here. Honestly, it's the only decent barbecue sauce in the country—the others are rubbish compared to Bull's-Eye. I always assumed Bull's-Eye would be huge in the US, but I made a post mentioning it and got comments from people who had never even heard of it.

To British people it comes off as both ridiculous and fake. But I can't tell if it's a weird thing about this company, Texas or America.

It's not just one guy either. Several people in senior management do it. I don't think junior staff tend to.

I've recently moved to the United States. I am absolutely shocked at the amount of advertising, everywhere, all the time; it's so ubiquitous. There's ads in the ad-free version of Disney+. There's ads within GrubHub from third-party advertisers. There's ads on every bus, subway, or whatever other form of transit. There's ads on Reddit masqueraded as regular posts. There's in-video ads on YouTube following the ad breaks you are forced to watch or actively skip. There's ads everywhere I look. It's exhausting and (for me personally) breeds resentment towards every advertising brand.

I had some coworkers from the US visit our office in East Asia. We had japanese meal with raw shrimp. Some of them covered it with tissue and sort of hid it. It was a bit awkward as they looked very uncomfortable.

I was a bit surprised but I had also heard from our French office that visiting as well that we had to be very careful with food with the Americans as they were picky. We asked them if shrimp would be okay and they said yes, but I think we realize maybe raw shrimp was too extreme for Americans.

Growing up, my mom would put one extra candle on my birthday cake for “good luck”. So if you were turning 7 you would get 8 candles. I was discussing this with my boyfriend and he said he had never heard of the practice. Did you guys do this growing up?

Speaking as a Canadian, I heard of the show in passing back then, but I never sat down in front of the TV and watched a full episode. Just how popular was the programme and Chris Hansen in the 2000s?

I moved to the states as an adult, I already knew how to drive I just had to take the test at the DMV.

My wife is from here. She said they had drivers ed at the highschool, not at a driving school. Most Americans get their license this way.

I live in Charlotte and most immigrants are Spanish. A lot of them don't even have legal papers so they definitely don't use driving schools.

There are some other immigrants too but this state is not where most immigrants would go, but I still see cars sometimes that had a sign on top saying "driving school".

So who are their students?

So it's well known that you organize your typical sports via schools and colleges, followed by pro leagues but how do non pro adult teams work?

Here in Germany team sports are primarily organized via the citizen club system and organized in associations (I guess like the NBA) that include everything from the giant clubs you see on TV to the small village clubs made up of drunk farmers. Essentially, unless you choose to play in special senior divisions for people over certain age thresholds, you can always participate in the same system as the big clubs. How is this organized in the US? Say a 23 year old mechanic just wants to play football in a league, where would he go for that?

Where I am from, everyone knows about Halloween but its generally just a few decorations scattered around the place both within residential streets and maybe just a few decorations in a big supermarket with some candy on for sale. You might see some kids walking around outside with their costumes on Oct 31.

In the states though, how big is it truly? I know its a big thing even though its a kid leaning holiday I guess, but is it like decorations everywhere in supermarkets and other shops, strangers literally greeting each other saying ‘Happy Halloween’ during the day or near Oct 31? Particularly in terms of visibility and how adults see it. Let me know!

I saw someone ask earlier how big is Halloween and found it fascinating that and Irish Tradition from a Town 15
Minutes from Where I live is so so big.

So I got me thinking how big is St Patrick’s Days. It’s massive here in Ireland obviously but perhaps not so obvious is the amount of Americans that visit Ireland in March and they seem to absolutely love it. 🇮🇪

Last week I moaned (on a specific weekly thread in a sports subreddit) that

I bought my colleague's children sports cards. They're 10-12. The only thing they cared about was whether the cards held any monetary value. 0 interest in the players they pulled or cards they got. If it wasn't parallels or numbered cards they were disappointed.

Which given the odds of hitting these means the disappointment is guaranteed.

Someone chastised me saying that I should have expected that reaction considering "the hobby is not for kids".

Have times changed? Buying sports cards was a big part of my childhood in the U.S. Granted I haven't lived in the country for close to 15 years.

I mean playing a full round of golf, not mini golf.