Shadowing Practice: Intermediate English Conversation: American Culture — B1/B2 Level English - Learn English Speaking with Video

We are back for another video. I would say  this is a B level intermediate English video.

Hopefully a natural conversation  between myself Camille and oh Calvin. This is unscripted so, but whatever  let's get started you guys. This video is about American culture. So a lot of people are  interested in American culture and their idea of American culture comes probably from films  and series I would say, TV. Yeah. If you want to learn real life English dialogues be sure to  check out my 31-day workshop. And I think a lot of the films are filmed in like Los Angeles, New  York City, yeah maybe Chicago, yeah when people think about visiting the US, they think oh I want  go to those big cities. I want to visit New York, Miami, Las Vegas, LA, but America is huge and  has a lot of different cultures even within the country. Like if you went to Hawaii or Alaska  South Carolina, New York, like the Midwest, you would find different accents, foods, like  culture. So we don't know what's going to come out in this video, what we're going to say, but we'll  tell you from our experience. You were born in, Washington state, not Washington DC which is the  capital, they're very far from each other, yes and I was born in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,  but we both spent a lot of time in South Carolina, which is where we met. Yes at Dunkin Donuts.  true story. Dunkin Donuts, love you. So I think, what are some of the stereotypes of about the  US? Coming from Americans, like coming from us? Either, coming from us, or the things that  we've heard? Yeah oh America is very patriotic, which that's true. I pledge allegiance to the flag  flag of the United States... Yeah so basically everybody every student in school has to do the  Pledge of Allegiance, at least I think we still do it right? Maddox knows it. Yeah they still do  it in most schools. yeah so we do the Pledge of Allegiance. 4th of July is one of the biggest  holidays in America, fireworks, barbecue, pool party, pool party, you wear the stripes and stars,  red, white, and blue, and a lot of people hang the American flag on their porch, their front porch,  it's out on their lawn. You'll see a lot of flags, so America is pretty patriotic. Unless you're  in the south, you might see some rebel flags, but that's a whole other story. That's true.  I think as well I'm I'm looking at my notes, oh sports, so Americans love sports, and one  of our biggest sports is football, and I'm not talking about soccer, I'm talking about American  football. Yeah you can share more, I mean you went to Clemson University which was a pretty big  football school. Yeah I would say in some places even high school football is huge, like Texas.  You have just crowds going to these high school football games, and then you go to college and  it's almost on the level of professional football, yeah and then you go to the professional football,  and it's like huge massive stadiums with tons and tons of people. Yeah and yeah they're watching  the the old pig skin you know being thrown around.

Yeah even like Thanksgiving, I mean we have a  lot of holidays Thanksgiving is in November, and most people watch football, there's a big  game on Thanksgiving Day, so after you eat way too much food, you'll either go out and play  football in the yard, or you'll watch football on TV as a tradition. Yeah it's true I think uh  that always reminds me of the Friends episode, yes I'm sure if you've watched Friends uh you know  the episode where they're playing football. Yes that is actually a pretty accurate picture I think  of American culture. yeah yeah yeah uh people, a lot of people think about guns with America.  That's true, yeah I don't know if I should say, but yeah I come from a gun family. I have never  owned a gun, I mean you have to have a specific license even for hunting animals, like my dad  always hunted growing up, so he would shoot deer.

I am also a vegetarian, so I am like not really  on that page with guns and stuff. We've never owned guns, but a lot of people we know own guns.  They're very proud of it, they think it's one of our, well it is one of our rights I guess as an  American citizen. Yeah I think it's the second amendment, yeah the right to bear arms. I grew up  with guns as well, we have a lot of guns, we had a lot of guns, I guess, not here in Portugal, uh and  I actually even hunted animals and so yeah there's there's kind of a leisure gun culture in America,  where you go shoot cans, you go shoot targets, uh or you go shoot animals like deer, elk, squirrels,  birds yeah. So anyways yeah the the gun culture is pretty big there uh I think there's some uh  unspoken sort of advantages to it, uh because most of the talk about guns is always negative,  and there is definitely that reality too, the easy access to guns, and the sort of violent culture,  um so yeah but that's a whole another video that we won't go down today. Yeah we'll never make that  video probably. No. So also I think when you think about American culture, maybe you think about  university life, I don't know, maybe not because most people do go to college, and something that  is different about the US is that we leave our families when we're young. So I left home right  after high school when I was 17, and I married Calvin at 18, which that is not as common now,  but people do get married younger, have babies younger, and they become more independent younger.  Like you're on your own at 18. Yeah basically like we're kicking you out, you know go try and  live on your own and and create your own life essentially which kind of is you know the the  spirit of America. Kairo, you can't be in here playing with that stuff buddy, okay. We love you.  The reality of shooting with kids, yeah. So yeah America came out of like leaving countries, you  know everybody are or many people are immigrants, unless you're a Native American, and so there's  this kind of spirit of like, I can do this on my own, you know this independent spirit right? So  it kind of is yeah an extension of that going out, when you're 18 going to university, trying to  find out what you're going to do for the rest of your life. Is the American Dream still possible  Camille? oh the American dream, I mean what is the American dream? Because a lot of people are  shocked when they find out I'm American, but I'm not living in the US, they don't understand it. In  their mind, the American dream is still possible.

If the American dream means opportunities, I think  yes, I think America has a lot of opportunities to offer. um what is the American dream though? I  think the American dream was that you could come to America, or if you are already in America and  move up into a a more higher class, more quality of life living, and in other countries this  wasn't necessarily possible. So if you were poor, you would always be poor, you know and so what  America offered and maybe still offers is this idea that we can with enough hard work, you can be  successful, you can improve your quality of life, and I mean personally I think it does still exist,  but uh you know as an immigrant, it can be hard.

It just depends on on so many factors, luck or  uh where you live, where you're coming from, all those things factor into it. But if you  want to take the risk, go for it. I guess you know you only have this one life, yeah you know  do it legally of course, yeah I mean for us our dream isn't to live in America, I don't think. Our  dream? No yeah we have a international dream. Yes okay um some funny things that I've heard people  comment on, like why do Americans wear shoes in the house? And it is true, I mean he has slippers  on, these floors are freezing. But we usually do wear shoes in the house, I mean not every single  American, but I think it's pretty common. We don't even think twice, we'll walk through our house  with our shoes on. Yes another funny thing about our culture is this happens even with Calvin's  parents, sometimes people say goodbye without even saying goodbye. They just leave. You know In  some cultures it takes forever to say goodbye. In Turkish culture you're like bye bye like you say  goodbye for like 5 minutes. In American culture we're just like, see you, see you like to a whole  group of people, we don't go individually kiss their cheeks or anything like that, we're just  like okay guys I'm leaving bye. Maybe a high five, maybe a hug, but that's it, yeah or like I  said some people leave without saying anything, and then you're like hey where'd they go? You just  hear the door slam and they yeah what happened?

It doesn't mean something's bad or they didn't  like their visit, it's just part of the culture, it's maybe different, but it is what it is. A lot  of people I've talked to, uh especially coming from uh Muslim backgrounds or Muslim countries,  they associate America with Christianity. Like everything that America produces because it's a  Christian Nation represents Christianity, and this is obviously not true but it's just kind of one of  those interesting things that happens, and I'm I'm constantly correcting people saying no America,  maybe there was some Christian values that were um that America was founded on, but it has  shifted so much over the 300 years of existence, to be much more of a secular country. uh you  can find a lot of Christians still in America, I would say it is the majority faith, but uh  culture-wise what's coming out of Hollywood, does not represent Christianity. So also, something  about American culture is I would say the majority of Americans don't maybe know geography so well,  or I feel bad saying that, or also like most, this obviously isn't everyone, but most people  don't learn other languages as well. So those are a couple things that are true probably, because  English is a universal language, they don't have to learn. It's not enforced in the the school  system, and so a lot of people don't know where a lot of countries are, or much about language  learning. If you look at America geographically, you have Canada to the north, which they speak  English and French, uh but mostly English and then you have like Mexico to the South, and you  know those countries. It's not like Americans are going there to to like get a better life or  to learn Spanish you know, in general. And so so yeah the need is not like Europe, where you're  by France, you're talking you know like Italian, you have Spanish you have Portuguese, English,  German, you know Dutch, all these different languages in in basically the size of half of  the United States. So it's a huge country and all of us speak English you know, so why do we  need to speak any other language I guess would be the sort of reasoning. However, we encourage  everyone to learn a language. Exactly, we love languages and we think geography is important,  language uh helps you connect with cultures, and helps you understand people. yeah and  honestly breaks down our own preconceived ideas, like you right now listening to us talk about  America, you're learning uh and maybe there's new things that will shift how you view America and  Americans because of it. mhm yeah and of course it's hard to think about culture and not talk  about food. I would say that in the south there's some specialties with food, you know shrimp and  grits and okra and sweet tea, and there's like a food culture that comes from the south. As far  as the rest of the nation, I don't know what the food culture is. Yeah I think there's certain  uh dishes or like sandwiches, certain things in different regions like Chicago's known for I  think like deep dish pizza. True and like isn't is it New York or is it the Philly cheese steaks, oh  Philadelphia, we don't know I'm just shooting off the top of my head. Philly cheese steaks, like a  sandwich with like beef I think, and cheese. Never tried it I don't eat meat. I've had it and it's  good. Okay um yeah so each region uh has their own specialties. I think barbecue, oh that's true you  know the American barbecue is very distinct like if you compare it with like Brazilian barbecue or  Argentinian barbecue, like it can be more simple in a way, but you know a lot more burgers and hot  dogs, but also you can do ribs or you know there's a number of things. And we're very thankful for  the other cultures that have come in and opened up restaurants and exposed us to different  types of food from all around the world like, we love Thai food, Indian food, Japanese food uh  we love so many different types of food because of restaurants that have come into the United States,  and given us the opportunity to experience them.

Yeah I would say that is one of the beauties  of America, is that it is a melting pot. You can find almost any culture there, any country  represented there and we get a try the foods which is our favorite thing. Yes we're foodies, we love  to eat. Thank you for your food people. I think even though there's more things that we could  cover, I think we covered a lot, I think this video could be getting a little long, so we're  going to go ahead and end this video. Let us know if you are still curious about things, maybe you  have a stereotype and you want to know and we'll try to answer in the comments. Thank you or a part  two video, that's true, we could do that as well.

Let us know what you guys want, if you want to  hear more about American culture, we always love to hear from you in the comments. Thank you so  much for watching and we'll see you next time.

Bye