2 ms·

Did you not see American movies? I'm also from a different country, but this part of the American culture is very much front and center in its exports, IMO.

hintymad 2y ago
Not really. Our English education was so bad that I could barely understand spoken English and I knew fewer than 5000 words when graduating high school. Ironically, I did fabulously well in English exams, which said a lot about our English education back then.
- int_19h 2y ago
  Hm, in our market (where English is similarly poor - certainly not good enough on average to watch movies even with subtitles) they just dubbed them.
exe34 2y ago
I did watch American movies but somehow I also came away with the same conclusions as a child - I think I was influenced by documentaries that seemed to show such intelligence and hard work in the realm of the sciences and technology and assumed the whole culture supported it - films were supposed to be fiction after all. as an adult across the pond, I'm very disappointed by the US.
aleph_minus_one 2y ago
> Did you not see American movies? I'm also from a different country, but this part of the American culture is very much front and center in its exports, IMO. There exist quite a lot of US-American movies. I would claim that those who are less deeply centered around US-specific cultural traits are typically much more revered in other countries. There are, of course, exceptions from this rule (for example "The Simpsons", which excessively satirizes the USA's popular culture, but is nevertheless loved in many other countries), but I do think that the general rule of thumb does hold. In this sense: even if you watch US-American movies, it is rather easy to mostly ignore those who strongly show US-specific cultural traits and habits, in particular if these are considered to be annoying in the other country.

hintymad 2y ago

Not really. Our English education was so bad that I could barely understand spoken English and I knew fewer than 5000 words when graduating high school. Ironically, I did fabulously well in English exams, which said a lot about our English education back then.

int_19h 2y ago
Hm, in our market (where English is similarly poor - certainly not good enough on average to watch movies even with subtitles) they just dubbed them.

exe34 2y ago

I did watch American movies but somehow I also came away with the same conclusions as a child - I think I was influenced by documentaries that seemed to show such intelligence and hard work in the realm of the sciences and technology and assumed the whole culture supported it - films were supposed to be fiction after all. as an adult across the pond, I'm very disappointed by the US.

aleph_minus_one 2y ago

> Did you not see American movies? I'm also from a different country, but this part of the American culture is very much front and center in its exports, IMO. There exist quite a lot of US-American movies. I would claim that those who are less deeply centered around US-specific cultural traits are typically much more revered in other countries. There are, of course, exceptions from this rule (for example "The Simpsons", which excessively satirizes the USA's popular culture, but is nevertheless loved in many other countries), but I do think that the general rule of thumb does hold. In this sense: even if you watch US-American movies, it is rather easy to mostly ignore those who strongly show US-specific cultural traits and habits, in particular if these are considered to be annoying in the other country.