Cultural Differences in Reverse

You never fully understand your own culture until you leave it and experience a different one. When US Americans (more about that term below) travel to Mexico or Europe for the first time, they immediately notice the differences in money, food and drink, driving, measurements (metric), and of course the language. But what about the reverse? What do Germans, other Europeans, and other foreigners find different or even weird when they first arrive in the United States of America? Here are five things that foreigners find odd in the USA.

1. Our Boring and Confusing Money (Bills and Coins)
One of the very first things anyone notices upon arrival in a different country is the money. Who hasn’t struggled with unfamiliar coins and bills in a foreign nation? But what Americans take for granted concerning their dollar banknotes and coinage comes as a shock to foreigners.

The Benjamin Franklin C-note finally got a splash of color in 2009. But US paper money remains far less colorful than euro banknotes, which also vary in size, according to their value. Compare this with the euro banknotes shown below. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

Unlike almost anywhere else in the Western world, US coins have no Arabic numerals (1, 5, 10, 25) on them! Even if you don’t know German, and you’re unfamiliar with euro coins, at least you can see the numbers on them. In the US, if you don’t know that a dime is worth ten cents, you’ll never learn that from the coin itself (“one dime”), even if you can read English. A nickel has no “5” on it anywhere, only the English words “five cents.” A quarter has no “25,” only the words “quarter dollar.” (And 25 is an odd amount most other coinages avoid, preferring to have coins worth 5, 10, and 20 units.) Not even the lowly penny has a “1” on it, simply the words “one cent.”

And the coin sizes don’t help either. Why is a 10-cent dime smaller than a penny? Why is a five-cent nickel bigger than a dime? In most countries, increasing coin size reflects increased value. Not in the USA.

It was a German friend who first made me aware of these US coin oddities some years ago. And I must confess that, despite having traveled a lot in Mexico and Europe, it had never occurred to me that US coins had no numerals on them (other than the mint year). Once you are familiar with the change in your pocket, you don’t need to examine the coins carefully. You know them by size and design. You don’t really “see” them anymore.

Okay, now we need to talk about US dollar paper money. (There are other dollars, you know.) Until very recently, the greenback was dull and monochrome green. Even the newer bill designs are fairly colorless. The new $100 bill, introduced in 2016, has some orange highlights, but is still mostly monochrome. And USD banknotes are still all the same size, no matter the denomination. A one-dollar bill is the same size as a 100-dollar bill. Not only do euro banknotes have varying sizes, each denomination has a certain color theme. And there is no paper currency under five euro. Most of the world’s paper money has varying sizes for each denomination, which is helpful for the visually impaired and is also an anti-counterfeiting measure. The US and Canada are among the few exceptions, with all bills being the same size. Same-size notes also make it easier to hand someone a ten-dollar note accidentally when you meant to give them only one dollar.

All of the Europa series euro banknotes in 2019, showing their varying sizes and colors from five to 200 euros. The 500-euro note was discontinued in 2016. The one-euro and two-euro units are coins. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

Foreigners are often amazed to see that we in the US still have a paper one-dollar bill. The euro has a one-euro and a two-euro coin. The highest euro bill denomination is the 200-euro note. (The 500-euro bill was discontinued in 2016 as an anti-money-laundering measure.) The US does have a one-dollar coin, but it’s as rare as the $2 bill. There is also a 50-cent coin, but when is the last time you saw one? (It says “half dollar” by the way.) I can only agree with foreigners who think we’re crazy not to have ditched the one-dollar and two-dollar bills for coins long ago.

2. “America”
As is often the case, the German language makes some distinctions that English either ignores or glosses over. In journalistic German, “Americans” are referred to as US-Amerikaner to distinguish them from the Americans in Central and South America, in other words, in the Americas. Although the Anglophone world tends to equate “American” with a citizen of the USA, much of the world finds this odd. Argentinians, Mexicans, Panamanians, and Brazilians can rightly claim to be Americans as well. (So can Canadians, but I doubt that they want to, especially these days.) Of course this all goes back to the German mapmaker, Martin Waldseemüller, who decided to name a new continent after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci – by feminizing Amerigo to America. (Europe is named for the Greek goddess Europa, thus feminine.)

Besides Norteamericano, Spanish has the term Estadounidense, meaning a United States citizen. There really is no simple one-word equivalent in English, similar to Mexican or Italian. “Unitedstatesian” doesn’t really roll off the tongue. So “American” it is, whether the other Americans – north, central or south – like it or not.

3. Language: Gas or Gas, Indian or Indian
Are you talking about gas or gas? This weirdness is unique to North American English. The British and their commonwealth members make a distinction between petrol (gasoline) and gas (natural gas). The American tendency to shorten gasoline to gas often leads to confusion. This is not a problem in most other languages, including German or French: das Benzin (gasoline, petrol) and das Gas/Erdgas (natural gas); essence (gasoline, petrol) and gaz (naturel) ([natural] gas).

Are we talking about an Indian or an Indian? Neither British nor American English makes the important distinction that German does: der Inder versus der Indianer (an Indian from India versus an American Indian). We have the term “Indian” because Columbus had no clue as to where he was after he crossed that ocean blue. Not even after several crossings. But at some point German managed to have two distinct words for two distinct ethnic groups. While we do have “Native American,” a commonly used term, that still doesn’t help anyone trying to talk about an “Indian” from India.

Corona or Covid?
During the ongoing pandemic two different common terms arose in Germany and North America when referring to Covid-19, the disease caused by the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus. In Germany the favored short word is Corona while in the US and Canada it’s Covid. The German media early on referred to “Sars-CoV-2,” the particular novel coronavirus (neuartiges Coronavirus) that causes Covid-19, so that could be why “Coronavirus” and the shortened version “Corona” took hold in German.

But a coronavirus also causes the common cold and influenza, the flu. It’s not a very precise term for the usually more precise Germans – and “Corona” is even less so. In the US, “Corona” is a popular Mexican beer brand, so that ruled out its use for the disease. So to this day North Americans say “Covid” and German-speakers say “Corona.” (If you’re interested in more German vocabulary related to the pandemic, see Coronavirus in Germany: Information.)

4. America’s Anti-Pedestrian, Pro-Car Culture
Europeans and other non-US-Americans find the American obsession with cars and driving odd. Our urban design and public policies in the US encourage driving over walking or cycling. The evidence is obvious and all around you: huge parking lots, wide highways and expressways, and – other than in some large cities – a lack of good, affordable, and dependable public transportation. There is even a drive-in/drive-thru auto culture: drive-in banking, drive-in coffee, drive-in dining, drive-in churches, and more.

Car Culture Versus Public Transport
Grocery stores, shopping malls, stadiums, and even high schools in the US all have huge parking lots. In Germany, by comparison, even sports stadiums have relatively small public parking lots. Sports fans are expected to use public transportation, not their own vehicles to travel to and from the stadium. It’s the same for shopping and schools. Some large-box stores such as Ikea and Costco-like membership stores do have parking, but it’s nothing on the scale of what is found in the US. When there is paid public parking in German city centers, even in smaller towns, it tends to be hidden away underground and out of sight.

Foreigners are shocked by the US culture of driving everywhere locally. Germans and other Europeans walk and ride bicycles much more frequently than Americans. Germans of all ages can be seen pedaling to work, school, or even shopping. Here’s a comparative example:

A Tale of Two Cities
Let’s look at two cities of comparable size, one in Germany, the other in the US. I have chosen these particular two because I have lived in both and know them well. They both have a river, a similar population, rail passenger service, and both are university towns.

Freiburg: A view of Kaiser-Joseph-Straße between Martinstor (Martin’s Gate) and the Bertoldsbrunnen. Do you see any cars? The streetcar on the right is part of the city’s excellent public transport system. PHOTO: Andreas Schwarzkopf (Wikimedia Commons)

Freiburg im Breisgau in Baden-Württemberg has a population of 230,940 (2020) and the Dreisam River flows through it. Freiburg is about 12 miles (20 km) east of the French-German border as the crow flies, or about 32 km (20 miles) by car. Reno, Nevada has a population of 264,165 (2020) and the Truckee River flows through it. Reno is about 12 miles (20 km) east of the California state line. Both cities are located on or near a main motorway, Freiburg on the A5 north-south autobahn, Reno on Interstate 80 that runs east-west. Both cities are home to a university: Reno’s University of Nevada has about 21,000 students; Freiburg’s Albert-Ludwigs-Universität has about 24,000 students. There are some other obvious differences related to climate, the economy, architecture, and other factors, but most are irrelevant for our car-culture comparison.

I have lived in Freiburg (and nearby Umkirch) both with a car and without. I would never try to live in Reno without a car. Although it can be done and people do, it is a far more difficult experience than living in Freiburg without a car. Getting around in Freiburg is fairly easy. There is a good network of buses and streetcars. Reno has buses only, but the schedule and routes are much more limited than in Freiburg. From my house/neighborhood the nearest bus stop is a two-mile walk. Reno’s downtown is saved only by recent efforts to develop the riverside with a river walk, but, like most US cities, Reno’s city center is no longer for shopping. Freiburg has a lively walkable city center that is mostly a pedestrian zone. (See the photo above.)

Besides local driving, Americans are much more likely to drive longer distances than Germans. There’s a popular saying related to this: “For Europeans, 100 years is a short time, but 100 miles is a long distance. For Americans, 100 years is a long time, but 100 miles is a short distance.” Let’s briefly compare our two cities:

Driving versus taking the train: The westbound Amtrak train that passes through Reno each day (once per day in each direction!) winds through the Sierra Nevada range on its way to California. It’s a scenic route, but the train is so slow that few people ever consider it as an option to get to Sacramento or Oakland and the Bay Area. Driving on I-80 takes almost half the time as the California Zephyr train. In most US cities and towns taking the train is not even an option at all.

The situation in Germany and Freiburg is exactly the opposite. If you want to travel from Freiburg to Frankfurt am Main (and its FRA international airport), a distance of 260 km (161 mi), only a little farther than Reno-Sacramento (212 km/132 mi), a German high-speed ICE train is faster than driving. And there are many trains per day.

The price of gasoline in the US comes as a pleasant shock to Europeans, who generally pay about twice as much per gallon (3.8 liters) as Americans do. The relatively low fuel cost is also one of the reasons American drivers are willing to drive farther and more often than Europeans.

5. Added Sales Tax
Germans and most other Europeans visiting the USA, and shopping for the first time, experience an unpleasant surprise at the checkout counter. The item or items they selected have a price tag. But the cashier rings up an amount that is more than what the price tag indicates. What just happened? Germans are used to a price tag that includes the VAT or sales tax. That amount is clearly shown on the receipt, but it is part of the total price, and not added on while paying for the item.

Not only that, but the sales tax amount varies by each US state (and even by county). In Germany the VAT is the same anywhere in the country (19 percent for most items, lower for groceries – Although the US has considered introducing a national VAT, that has not happened.) So German shoppers in the US can get very confused until they learn how the odd US sales tax addition works.

Note to US-Americans: The price of fuel works somewhat similarly to the European VAT. When you fill up your vehicle’s fuel tank and pay for it, the taxes are included in the price shown on the pump. You are paying both a federal and state tax for each gallon. On top of that, some states (or counties) add a sales tax that is also included in the final price. But how much you just paid in taxes is something you won’t learn from your receipt.

There are of course many more weird USA things we don’t have space for in this post. Perhaps we can cover those in a future post. If you have a suggestion for a weirdness we should include next time, please let us know.

– HF