Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Understandable English Podcast.
I'm, of course Oliver, and today we will be talking about things that you should know when you travel to the UK for the first time.
Today's episode of the podcast is going to be a little bit different.
I've decided to pick and read an article about 15 points that you should know when you travel to the UK for the first time.
What I'm going to do is look at the titles of these points and some of the information and decide whether I think it's true or not, and also talk about my own experience.
I probably won't talk about all 15 because I don't think they're all very useful, but anyway, let's get started.
Okay, so the first point is don't push in or invade personal space.
So the writer of this article explains it as how, in the UK, we have mastered the art of queuing patiently, and we expect everyone to follow the rules.
So you should join the back of the line and wait.
And I guess the second point, or the second part of this point, is that people like their personal space.
So in public, they don't like when people get too close to them by almost touching them.
They really value personal space and personal boundaries.
In general, I would say this is very true, especially with queuing.
In general, people get very angry or a little bit upset whenever people cut in front of them in the queue.
So if they try to get into a queue somewhere further up.
Of course it's like that in most countries, but I think the expectation is very high in the UK that people sort of obey that personal space, the queuing system, and we always joke about how we make queues for almost everything.
So if people are waiting for things, it's almost guaranteed they will form an orderly queue.
The second point is don't underestimate the English love of tea and tea breaks.
This is entirely true, 100%.
I have never been in a country that seems to drink as much tea as growing up with my family, for example.
My parents during the day would drink, you know, five or six cups of tea, like right through to the evening time.
And I notice it absolutely everywhere I go.
It's just constant tea offers and cups of tea.
But the one thing I would say is which separates the UK from lots of other countries, is that in general, most people only drink black tea with milk, so they don't drink a lot of fancy types of tea.
I even call it fancy types of tea, but in reality, of course, there are many types of tea, but they don't drink a lot of tea with fruit flavors, for example.
Pretty much everyone is quite boring when it comes to tea, and the main differences will be whether they have sugar, you know, or do they take a lot of milk, a little milk or, in rare cases, no milk.
Okay, so I skipped the third point because it was kind of boring.
And the fourth point that the offer gives us is to understand the difference between the UK and Great Britain and England.
So this is very important.
If you visit the UK and I think it's something which most people outside of the EU, I would say, don't know a lot about um, especially living here in in russia um, it's not a problem because i don't really care too much, but it's uh something where people will always confuse the uk and great britain, for example.
Um, in russia, people in general just say villa britannia, which is uh great britain, or Anglia, which is England, to refer to the whole UK, so the country or union of the United Kingdom.
But in reality it's important to know that the UK is basically a political union between four countries or nations.
And the two separate unions within the UK is Great Britain and then the United Kingdom, which includes Northern Ireland.
So Great Britain is Scotland and Wales and England.
And the United Kingdom is Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland.
And that's the officially recognised nation or country with all of these smaller nations together.
I know it sounds complicated but in short, the UK is four smaller nations or countries joined together politically and were called the UK.
So the UK is not England.
The UK is also not Great Britain.
But in general, it's not even always a big problem in the UK.
It can be confusing in terms of how people even refer to their own identity.
So for example, often the British Olympics team will be called Team GB.
So Team GB is officially the official team of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
It's a very long name, so people just say Team GB.
But it is the team for the UK, so it gets a bit confusing.
In terms of nationalities, if you're from the UK, you are British.
Whether that's from well, it's a bit more complicated in Northern Ireland, but whether that's from Scotland, Wales or England, on your passport it will say British.
But people have their own cultural identity and nationality within each country as well.
So someone from Northern Ireland might say that they are Irish or Northern Irish.
From Scotland, they are also Scottish.
From Wales, they are Welsh.
And finally, from England, they are English.
So the most important thing and usually people get quite offended by it is don't call Irish people or Scottish people or Welsh people English.
They will often not like to hear that.
Because although they are British, they are not English.
They aren't from England.
Okay, so I talked about that one for quite a while, because I think it's a very common point which people make mistakes with.
But the next point in this article by this author is don't just stay in London.
And I have to completely agree with this point.
So a lot of people on trips just visit London, but there are so many other wonderful places to even visit in England Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
Very beautiful nature, very different cities, amazing coastlines, beaches, mountains.
You know, the UK really has a very diverse landscape across it.
And, for example, Scotland is very different from the south of England.
For such a small country, there is a lot of diversity in what you can see.
So definitely don't just stay in London.
It is a very fascinating city.
It's an amazing city, but you have to travel outside and see some of the rest of the UK.
I guess the real UK outside of just London.
Okay, so one of the final points for today's podcast is the author has written be prepared to talk about the weather a lot.
She says the English are pretty obsessed with the weather.
And they'll talk about it all the time.
If temperatures rise above 16 degrees, expect to see people in t-shirts and shorts.
And above 23 degrees, it's a heat wave.
And people will tell you a million times a day that it's too hot.
She also goes on to say that be prepared for the weather to change rapidly.
And this is so, so true.
I think because the UK is an island, the weather is very, very changeable.
So it says here in this article, sunshine one minute and snow and wind the next.
And that is just in summer.
Often we have a phrase in the UK which is quite funny, and it is that summer is the best day of the year.
So what that means is we have like one day of summer.
But in general, in the UK, you don't want to go anywhere without a coat.
So even if the weather's nice in the morning, there might be rain in the afternoon or the evening, or even 20 minutes from then.
The skies change so quickly because of the wind and because it is an island or a set of islands.
So you have to always be prepared for any weather changes.
And on the first part of it, yes, people talk about the weather a lot.
And in general, I think this comes as an icebreaker.
So a way of making sort of easy, non-awkward conversation to avoid silence.
And I don't mind it, to be honest.
I realize that I do it too.
I sort of talk about the weather quite a bit.
But it is something to be prepared for, especially if the weather changes a lot.
Okay, and the final point for today's podcast, which is one I actually agree with, is the author has said don't talk about money in the UK.
So she says Brits or British people aren't particularly comfortable talking about money.
It can seem quite arrogant and show-offy if you share how much you earn or how much you have spent, for example.
And I would completely agree with this point.
In British culture and in the UK it is considered very rude to ask someone how much they earn, for example, so how much money they make.
I would not even know growing up, for example, how much money my parents make.
Not even roughly, really.
Or how much my friends earn or the people around me.
It's something we don't talk about and and I think the reason about it or the reason for it comes from The big divide in wealth in the UK between classes.
So there's still very different levels of wealth in the UK and they are quite separated.
And also In general, we really don't want to make someone feel bad about having less money or being in a worse position.
People often consider it like, when you talk about how much money you earn, that you are almost saying like look at me, I have this much money like you don't this kind of thing.
I know it's different in every culture, but in the UK, this topic is kind of treated like that.
It's like how in some other cultures, you wouldn't talk about politics in public.
We also don't talk about money in that way, but we love to talk about politics.
That's always a great topic in the UK.
And a quick one I would add at the end of this podcast is don't forget that we drive on the other side of the road.
So on the left side.
And also this applies to usually pavements and other areas.
So if in buildings people tend to walk on the left side because they're used to it, from cars as well.
For example, in my school in the corridors everyone had to walk on the left side of the hall, not the road.
And yeah, it can be a bit confusing because so few countries do this in the world.
Don't ask me why, we do things weirdly sometimes in the UK.
But yeah, that's all the points for today.
I hope it was interesting.
I hope there were some new points for you, or at least I explained some of these points a little bit more for you.
I hope each and every one of you will get to visit the UK someday or sometime.
And if you have, let me know what you thought.
Do you agree with the points that this author or writer wrote in this article?
Let me know.
You can message me on Instagram or contact me through email or any other way as well.
So thank you all so much for listening.
I hope you have a really great day morning afternoon, evening or whatever time you're listening to this.
I'll see you all in the next episode.
Goodbye.
