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 sign up for our one dollar listening practice seminars at polyglossa.com and download my free listening time podcast so you can practice your listening skills [Music] so today i'm going to talk about stereotypes a stereotype is an idea or image about a group of people that might be true but it might also be a little oversimplified this is a topic that a lot of us might find pretty funny but some people might also get offended when this topic comes up my intention with this video is definitely not to offend any of you so i think it'd be better if i focused on stereotypes about americans rather than stereotypes about people from other countries i'll go through some of the most common ones and then i'll give my opinion about how accurate they actually are so without further ado here's the first stereotype americans are rich this is a stereotype that practically every american will face at some point if they spend a significant time abroad as an american who's lived abroad for years i can tell you firsthand that this stereotype is strong no doubt it usually isn't a big issue but sometimes you get the feeling that people are looking at you with dollar signs in their eyes to me it's kind of funny because i'm not rich not even close yet i get treated like this all the time to an extent though this stereotype has some general truth to it the average american is definitely better off than the average person from most other countries so this stereotype's complicated the next one is that americans don't know much about the rest of the world some might even use the word ignorant when describing the average american's knowledge about things like names and languages of other countries this stereotype definitely has some truth to it obviously there are many americans who are knowledgeable about other countries but by and large the average american doesn't know a whole lot about foreign countries for example many americans probably think that brazilians speak spanish and many americans have probably never heard of countries like uzbekistan or azerbaijan but let me just say this in my experience talking to people from all over the world i found that most people don't really know a whole lot about countries that are far away from their own it's not only americans that don't know much about far away countries people from other countries don't know much either and that's natural because we normally just pay attention to what's relevant to our lives for most people knowing about world geography simply isn't that important so yes this second stereotype is somewhat true but i think it's also true for people from other countries alright here's another stereotype americans are workaholics a workaholic for those of you who don't know is someone who's addicted to working this stereotype is an interesting one because i can definitely see a lot of truth to it compared with other countries americans work a lot and we work pretty hard i actually like this tradition i think that being hard working is a great trait to have we can obviously see the fruit of all this labor as america has produced and invented a lot over the years however the negative side to this is that some americans are obsessed with their work their work consumes their whole life and they don't have time for anything else when people take it to that extreme it's definitely a bad thing overall i think the stereotype of americans being workaholics is fairly accurate but i also think that the work ethic is slowly dropping over time i think that in general our grandparents generation probably worked a little longer and harder than my generation here's one last stereotype americans are very patriotic overall if you compare america to other countries this one's definitely true obviously not everybody's patriotic but if we consider the nation as a whole in my opinion america is definitely the most patriotic country okay now i'm going to ask you three questions about today's video write your answers in a comment down below number one name three stereotypes about americans number two what's a workaholic and number three in your opinion do you think americans are very patriotic all right before we go remember to sign up for our one dollar listening practice seminars and download our free listening time podcast to practice your listening skills and of course subscribe to the channel click on the bell and follow us on instagram i'll see you next time you