normal people: I am from Russia/Brazil/Italy/Australia/etc 🙂
Americans, assuming studying the specific geography of their country was ever relevant to me: Oh I was born in iower but went to school in Oregano (My parents come from East Carolina though):~)
Someone finally said it it’s so annoying!
One day I was eating at a restaurant in Peru with the 3 guys who were volunteering with me and someone asked us where we came from. So I said France, the German guy said Germany, the Maltese guy had to say Italy because almost no-one in Peru knows where Malta is, and then the American guy said Portland, like he didn’t even specify the state he just thought everyone knew where Portland is 😤
i can’t tell whether this is better or worse than
european: where are you from
american: i’m italian
european: omg same! da dove vieni?
american: wait what lol i don’t speak mexican i only speak english
and
european: where are you from?
american: (monolingual english speaker, white, never left Marietta, GA in 23 years of life) well i’m 1/5th irish, 1/7th german, 32% greek, 4/9ths native american, 1/12th swedish, a little bit filipino, my mother was a hamster and my father smelt of elderberries, but i just call myself african 🙂
I think my favorite experience with an American was when I said “I’m from Finland” and she said “Oh so do you speak Scandinavian?” and I swear to god nothing will ever surpass that moment
Actually I fucking lied I’m pretty sure to peak was when my mother was telling a cashier in a target that we couldn’t wait two weeks because we were on vacation and we lived in The Netherlands and she said “The Netherlands? you mean that peter pan place?”
i went to summer school in england when i was like 14 and there were some american people and when i said i was italian they started speaking spanish, and when i was like “hey i don’t know spanish can u pls speak english” they were like “but…. you’re from italy… do you not speak spanish in europe?” “No, we speak italian in italy” “oh, that’s a language?”
reminds me of the sheer number of times I’ve had to explain that the NS regime and the Berlin wall did not happen at the same time