B1 English Listening Practice - American Culture Pt 2 – YouTube Dictation Transcript & Vocabulary

1.hey everybody welcome to this b1 english listening practice video you can use this video to practice your listening and comprehension as i speak before we start remember to download the listening time podcast and if you need my specialized training to help you improve your listening then become a member at patreon.com listeningtime if you become a member then you'll get my seminars where i train you to listen more effectively and understand native speakers when they speak fast and if you become a listening time family member you'll receive my advanced podcast episodes which will help you reach an advanced level of listening okay today i'm going to continue talking about american culture this video will be a part 2 to the last b-1 video i made so let's jump right in and examine a few more important elements of american culture the first one i want to talk about is the tendency for americans to hold people and things to a high standard what do i mean by this well americans often demand excellence and when we don't get it we often complain for example when americans experience sub-optimal customer service this can leave an impact on them they might write a negative review online about that establishment and they probably won't ever go there again if they don't have to i'll be honest i have this tendency as well i don't leave negative reviews but when i receive bad service at a store or restaurant i get annoyed i know it's not great to have this reaction and i'm trying to get better at it however sometimes i can't help but get a little ticked off when i'm paying for a service and yet the worker is slacking off or has a bad attitude so of course you can imagine how frustrating it can sometimes be for me to deal with workers at public institutions and most americans would agree with me on this we demand excellence and we're often disappointed when we don't get it okay the next cultural element i want to talk about is competition in the u.s there's competition everywhere this aspect of american culture has its positives and negatives in terms of economics science and technology this competitive atmosphere has resulted in a lot of good things there are many people who want to create the best product or they want to be the first one to discover something new and so a lot of advancement technology and wealth is created in the us as consumers we love the fact that companies compete with each other to give us the best product or service at the lowest price and it's awesome to see experts compete to come out with the newest game-changing technology but of course this competitiveness can sometimes be a negative thing people can feel a ton of pressure to be better than others and they might feel inadequate if they don't measure up so i think it's important to maintain a healthy level of competition without going overboard alright the last cultural element i want to talk about is a pretty funny one in the u.s many people like big things a lot of foreigners notice this really quickly when they travel to the us for the first time for example there are a ton of big cars and trucks on the road and the roads themselves are big also when you order food at restaurants the portions are usually bigger than portions in other countries and a lot of people like to buy things in bulk too which means they buy huge boxes or packages of food and other items and i think in general the us feels really big because it has a lot of wide open spaces so i guess you could say that overall things are bigger in america alright that's all for today leave a comment and tell me if there are any other cultural elements in the us that you find interesting remember to download my free listening time podcast and click on the link below in the description box to become a member so that you can receive my specialized training which will help you understand native speakers and if you want to reach an advanced level of listening then become a listening time family member so you can receive my advanced podcast episodes also subscribe to the channel click on the bell and follow us on instagram i'll see you next time