I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it’s pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that’d be rather time consuming.
Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can’t ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.
edit: the high number of replies mentioning “swimming” made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.
Italy.
Cooking, every foreign person I know eats 20x more takeout and fast food than I do.
How to walk on ice is a big one. How to cross a street is another one here in Chicago (hint: look at the cars, not the lights).
For the ice one you mean taking a running start, sliding on it, and yelling weeeeeeeee… Right?
Just like crossing a street.
In Chicago it’s the same thing.
I didn’t, but that’s another learned skill in this category, yes.
Dealing with winter. I live in the rural upper Midwest, where winter can hit -20 with whiteout blizzards, week-long power outages, and car-burying snowdrifts. I’ve seen too many people move here from warmer places and think “I guess I’ll buy a warmer coat and a snow shovel”, rather than “I should have a backup generator, a backup heat source, a few barrels of spare fuel, a month’s worth of stockpiled food, and at least two different pieces of heavy snow-moving machinery tested to be in good working order”.
How to stay safe in the wilderness. We get too many people that aren’t from around here that think you can do a hike late in the afternoon wearing sandals and only bringing a water bottle. People don’t realize that the wilderness is a dangerous place if you aren’t prepared. Weather can change rapidly and you need proper clothing and footwear to account for it. Make sure you have enough time for the hike and bring the essentials just in case something happens and you need to spend a night outdoors.
The death valley Germans comes to mind. The theory from the guy who found their bodies was that they thought area 51 would have patrols/guards like US bases in Germany. They didn’t realize that area 51 has a largely unguarded area as part of its “official territory” because death valley does the guarding for them.
Great long form write-up from the guy who found them: Here
I’m somewhat upset at you for having spent literally 8 hours on that wonderful blog. Thank you and also fuck you for that link. People give warnings for movietrope links, I might recommend the same.
And petting wildlife. Or trying to take selfies with wildlife. Or feeding wildlife.
No, no, and no.
Even a cute lil’ chipmunk is a no-no. Bison, moose, and their sweet huggable calves are serious no-nos.
Yeah, while I’m not a big hiker myself, being Swiss I know how prepared you need to be.
Walked around in Taiwan when I came across a hiking trail. 1.5 hours, like 150m verticality only, labelled as easy. Cool, but not enough water (only carried a 2l bottle). Went to a local teahouse and got me 4 more bottles to be safe and went for it. Walked past countless others because I was underprepared, and am glad I did because those could have turned out not so nice if I did go.
I’ve also been caught out by this in other places. I was in Hong Kong and went up to The Peak, which has a 3km path around the top. I thought one water bottle was enough for a flat walk in 35C humid summer heat. It wasn’t and ended up rationing water halfway through and chugging two whole bottles of water when I got back to where I could get water again.
I’m Danish. Opening beer with a lighter or other things that aren’t technically a bottle opener.
I once opened a glass bottle of soda with my teeth, having nothing else around. It worked but it wasn’t worth it.
What if you do it wrong and you make the lighter explode, taking a finger with it
Everything’s a bottle opener.
A bottle of beer or a can of beer?
Hold up - as a Canadian, this isn’t a skill everyone learns in/around high school??
So how do you open one without a bottle opener?
Here in Switzerland the question you ask is usually, “do you ski or do you snowboard”? It’s just assumed that you can do at least one.
Male being good at talking and flirting with girls. Where I grew up (south of Italy) you have to be able to know what to do as a young heterosexual man, otherwise girls would completely ignore you. When I was young, italian girls expected “work” from boys, a lot of work. You could not throw money or take shortcuts (I don’t know if it is still valid).
When I moved to north of Europe, in 3 different countries, I realized that for north european guys existing was enough to get many girls. It was so easy, girls flirt with you, they literally go after boys. You could do nothing and a girl would start flirting with you. And being decent at talking with girls meant that any average Italian guy abroad was a Don Giovanni.
Is it like that across all Italy, and is there an age group where that kinda does down?
Never goes down
That sounds… Tiring
I don’t know how it is now. I am an old millennial that has been “out of the market” for over 15 years. It might have changed due to social media.
I can’t say if it was all of Italy, because it’s rather big. But from discussions with other Italians, it was a pretty general feeling, particularly for those from south of Italy.
So everyone in Italy has “acts of service” as their love language? Noted.
If a guy is interested in me, I just expect him to be his best self.
Don’t know what to answer.
Normal and healthy mammals relationships start with courtship display https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtship_display.
It is the normal behavior in humans as well. Not doing it would be pretty unusual, and probably worrying.
The difference is that in Italy, girls used to require a long, complex and time consuming courtship. One night stands were not even a thing, they were unthinkable, some fantasy from Hollywood movies.
North European girls not only had much lower expectations from men, required much less effort, but many of them even proactively started the process themselves, flirting and clearly communicating their intentions. This made the process particularly straightforward, but it also didn’t allow local men to improve their communication skills. Therefore average Italians looked extremely good with women: charming, listeners, caring… Despite the language barriers
I don’t know if it is still valid tough, I have been married for a long time
m
Don’t know what you mean by toxic, but it has its issues for sure. As any other country
You could do nothing and a girl would start flirting with you
does this work for lesbians too?
On a night out in Newcastle? Absolutely, sweetheart
UK is one of the 3 countries I mentioned! Nights out in uk were a pretty strong (positive) surprise for me
yeah, guess that should be my next vacation lol!
The swimming lesson thing was interesting. I also assumed everyone learned how to swim in school.
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Rural Japan.
My kids (2 and 4) can use chopsticks already. Plenty of restaurants around here where you won’t see a spoon, fork or knife. (However, it’s certainly possible to ask the staff for western cutlery, and in the main cities they’re more likely to be prepared for that question)
Pronouncing local place names. Lots of scattered areas here with place names that are spelled like other places names (for example we got a town called Egypt, a town called Binghamton, etc.) except that they’re all pronounced differently. For example, we have a town called Leicester, named after the actual Leicester, and locals tend to raise an eyebrow when someone asks “how do you get to lester” (that would be the normal way to pronounce it)?
“Who’s Lester? Is he the new guy in town?”
“What? No, the town.”
“That’s Leesester, not Lester.”
“I’m sorry, wut?”
I of course just add to the confusion if I’m the one to break the news, as I have a Kiwi accent, which is atypical around here. So it becomes a “what do you know” kind of interaction.
Where I live basically every location is some combination of “French, native American, English, Scandinavian”, “pronounced natively or not”, and “spelled like it’s pronounced or not”.
The fun ones are the English pronunciation of the French transliteration of the native word.
There’s a place in Colorado called Buena Vista, yes, named in Spanish for good view. The locals all state that it’s Spanish. But they want it to be unique, so no, it’s not pronounced bwena. It’s fucking pronounced byunah. They literally know they’re pronouncing it wrong, they claim that it’s Spanish, and then they still say you’re pronouncing it wrong if you actually say it correctly.
There’s a city in Kentucky called Versailles. Pronounced, you guessed it, vur-sails.
The capital of South Dakota is spelled “Pierre” and pronounced “Pier” like the thing ships pull up to.
And in California, the J, but not the LL, in “Vallejo” are pronounced as in Spanish. “Va-lay-ho”.
I remember reading a Bill Bryson book, in which he mentioned a town (in Iowa, I think?) spelled Cairo, but pronounced cay-roh.
haha you’re joking. 🤦
I briefly lived in a place with some very unintuitive place names that I had no idea how to say.
Problem is that unless it’s a very large area, there’s often not an easy way to look up how local place names are pronounced.
I remember for some of the places, I had taken to searching on YouTube hoping to find local news reports where they said the name out loud lol.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/fHxO0UdpoxM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Lmao. It’s not quite that long, but there is a river nearish to me with a bizarrely long name. I tried looking it up one night and could only ever find people abbreviating it! So I’ll never know how the full name is pronounced lol. Maybe no one else knows either.
Ruairidh: “Rory”
Featherstonehaugh: “Fanshaw”
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I grew up in the US northeast. The general lack of knowing how to dress warm everywhere else is pretty surprising, so I guess that’s the skill I’d pick.
In Ontario, it’s often swimming.
Lots of lakes here, children need to be taught to swim
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Dutchy here.
Most, if not all, children learn to swim when they reach age five. Lots of water here, it’s pretty much a basic life/survival skill.
It used to be part of the school curriculum but it was often after most children had at least learned the basics in swimming classes.
There’s dedicated swimming schools, run by swimming pools and overseen by the government.
That leads to a follow up question to people from different areas: Is swimming a regular part of school sports?
I grew up in Germany with pretty much no lakes, and we had blocks of sports classes in the swimming pool from first grade - didn’t make me a great swimmer, but I can go swim a bit in a lake without having to worry.
Now we’re in Finland (lots of lakes here), and also swimming classes take place from first grade.
Not where I am. It never came up, despite water technically being everywhere. People just assume I guess. Still not something I can do.
American here. The nearest swimming pool to my hometown was in Canada. So no.
Edit: I don’t think this is normal
How big distances / population are we talking here?
I was growing up in a small village, so in elementary school we went by bus to a nearby village with 7000 inhabitants and a swimming pool.
Now we’re living in a town with a population of 46000 with its own swimming pool.
Yeah, a small village. It would have been a half-hour bus ride to the town of ~5000, but they couldn’t compel all students to get a passport, and the nearest pool in the US would have been about an hour and a half away, so it was never part of the curriculum. Some kids had their parents drive them to Canada after school for private (expensive?) swimming lessons, but it wasn’t standard.
Also american here and I learned to swim before I started preschool. But I also live in the land of 10,000 lakes so it’s basically a requirement here. So this is another one of those things that is going to depend on which state you’re in.
Oh yeah, I make no claim that any of my experiences are anywhere near universal. Basically no part of the American experience is.
It’s generally not taught by default in US schools, but some schools offer it as an elective and/or as a competitive sport. Maintaining a swimming pool is an expense that many schools, especially in poorer districts, cannot afford. Outside of schools, there are sometimes community swim classes at places like the YMCA, but those require the parents to be actively involved (like with many extracurricular activities) and usually are an additional expense.
Physical education is usually a mandatory part of US schools through high school (where students graduate at around age 18), and schools often offer students a selection of sports for PE - I did fencing one year and wrestling, gymnastics, and archery other years - but swimming requires more infrastructure than a basketball court and some padded mats.
Maintaining a swimming pool is an expense that many schools, especially in poorer districts can’t afford.
German here: the solution for most of the schools I went to and heard of (elementary) was to get a bus to drive to the next public swimming pool and they’d let us use it for a few hours. The government is funding that. And that solution worked for most of them, although I only managed to get do my swim test after swimming classes in school because I was anxious about it.
NL here. It’s similar here. I remember the bus, our school would hire a coach to take group 3 (think six-year-olds) to swimming at the pool on the other side of town. And until you had at least one diploma, you were required to come along. By group five, everyone had at least a basic swimming diploma.
When I was a kid in Florida in elementary school, that’s what most elementary schools did, mine was next door to a swimming pool so we just walked. At the time I think it actually was mandated by the state - swimming pools in backyards are extremely common there and it was an upsettingly common occurrence for kids to drown in them, so they took a week to make sure we all knew how to tread water. I don’t know if Florida kids still learn how to tread water or if swimming lessons are now woke somehow.
Physical education is usually a mandatory part of US schools through high school
In Germany the same - but swimming classes are mandated by law from grade 3 onwards, though we started going from grade 1 back then.
I had swimming as a subject from 7 years old in school here in NL.
Same for Swiss. It’s not normal that you can’t swim here.
Don’t walk on dark places at night.
