Questions to Ask Americans
Questions to ask Americans when you are curious about ordinary life in the United States and want a better answer than a film gives you. They start with the place someone is from, then move through growing up and school, daily habits such as tipping and sales tax, holidays, money and work, and a few larger subjects for people you already know. Written for travelers, exchange students and new colleagues, each with a note on what to listen for or when to leave the question alone.
Want questions from the whole vault instead? Try the random question generator.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Places
Where did you grow up, and what would you show someone who had one day there?
Why ask it
Easier to answer than a question about the whole country. What they pick, a diner, a lake, a stadium, tells you what counts as an outing where they are from.
What do people get wrong about your part of the country?
Why ask it
People from the South, the Midwest, New Jersey and California all hear the same few jokes about home. This hands them the correction, so they do not have to sit through the joke again from you.
What food is your area actually known for, as opposed to what people assume?
Why ask it
Regional food gets far more specific than burgers and pizza: a style of barbecue, a chili, a sandwich that one city claims. Expect the name of a single restaurant, and write it down.
What word or phrase gives away where you are from?
Why ask it
Soda or pop, y'all or you guys, the name for a long sandwich: Americans enjoy arguing over this map. Asking for the word is also friendlier than remarking on the accent.
How many of the fifty states have you been to, and which one surprised you?
Why ask it
Ask it as curiosity, never as a quiz. Plenty of Americans have seen fewer states than a determined tourist has, and the one that surprised them is usually somewhere they expected nothing from.
How far is the nearest big city, and how often do you actually go?
Why ask it
Notice whether the answer comes in miles or in hours of driving. It explains how a two-hour drive can count as nearby, and why someone can live in a state for years and see its famous city twice.
What is a drive you know by heart?
Why ask it
The road to a grandparent's house, a college town or a lake comes with its own landmarks: the exit number, the gas station, the place where the radio station fades out. Ask what kept them making the trip.
What weather have you learned to plan around?
Why ask it
Answers range from hurricane season to ice storms to months of heat, and they explain local habits: basements, screened porches, air conditioning cold enough to need a sweater indoors.
Which sports team did you inherit, and did you get any say in it?
Why ask it
Loyalty tends to arrive with the family or the zip code, and in some states a college team outranks every professional one. A shrug means drop it; not everyone follows a team.
Which part of the country feels most foreign to you?
Why ask it
A New Englander might name the Deep South and a Texan might name Manhattan. Ask whether they have been there or are going on reputation; either way you learn where the borders inside the country run for them.
If work and family were no object, where in the country would you live?
Why ask it
The dream address shows what they feel is missing where they are: mountains, a coastline, winter, or the absence of winter. Anyone who says 'right here' is worth asking why.
Did most of the people you grew up with stay, or move away?
Why ask it
Leaving for a college or a job several states away is ordinary, and so is never leaving the county. Listen for whether moving away is told as ambition, as abandoning the family, or as what everyone did after graduation.
Growing Up
Was your high school anything like the ones in films?
Why ask it
Lockers, yearbooks, cheerleaders and a football team are real at many schools; the neat cliques and the dance numbers are mostly the film's. Someone from a school of two hundred and someone from a school of three thousand will describe two different countries.
How big a deal was prom at your school, and did you go?
Why ask it
Prom and homecoming are real, though how much they matter depends on the school and the person. You will hear about a rented suit and a borrowed car, or a cheerful account of skipping the whole thing.
Did your class say the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning?
Why ask it
Visitors often take this for a film invention. Practice differs by state, district and decade, so ask what their own classroom did and whether anyone thought much about the words.
Did you ride a yellow school bus, and what was the ride like?
Why ask it
The yellow bus is one screen detail that is accurate, though many children walked or were dropped off. From those who rode it you get the stop before sunrise, who sat where, and the driver everyone still remembers.
What was school lunch: a cafeteria tray or a bag from home?
Why ask it
Peanut butter and jelly, cartons of milk and rectangular pizza all exist, and people recall them in loving or horrified detail. Ask what could be traded for what.
How much did sports run the week at your school?
Why ask it
In some towns the Friday night football game is the main public event, and in others nobody outside the team notices. Either way you learn what the school, and often the town, was organized around.
Did you play soccer as a kid, and do you watch it now?
Why ask it
It is soccer here because football already means another game, and teasing will not change that. A lot of Americans played on Saturday mornings as children and have never watched a professional match, so see which half of the question gets a yes.
How old were you when you learned to drive, and who taught you?
Why ask it
Licensing ages and rules are set state by state, so ask how it worked where they lived. A nervous parent in an empty parking lot is a memory a great many people share.
Did you go to summer camp, or what did summers look like instead?
Why ask it
A school break that long has to be filled somehow, and the way a family filled it hints at money and geography without anyone stating either. The 'instead' leaves room for a July spent at a grandparent's house or behind a counter.
How did people you know choose a college, and how did they pay for it?
Why ask it
The price can differ a great deal between a public university in your own state, one in another state and a private college, so ask what the choice looked like where they lived. Keeping it to people they know lets them decide whether to bring up their own loans.
If you went away to college, what was sharing a dorm room like?
Why ask it
Being assigned a stranger to sleep a few feet from baffles people from countries where students live at home. The 'if' is deliberate, since plenty of Americans commute to class or do not go at all.
Were fraternities and sororities a big part of your college?
Why ask it
On some campuses the houses with Greek letters run the social calendar, and on others they are a small corner or absent altogether. A member can explain recruitment week and what the letters stand for; a non-member usually has a view as well.
Daily Life
What do you do that you only learned was unusual when someone from abroad pointed it out?
Why ask it
They pick the oddity, which makes this the most reliable question in the group. Ice in every drink, flags on front porches and the gaps around public toilet doors are frequent answers.
When someone says 'how are you' in passing, what are you supposed to say back?
Why ask it
Newcomers start answering in full while the other person keeps walking. A native speaker can give you the unwritten script, and most find it funny to spell out.
Do you talk to strangers in line, and is that normal where you live?
Why ask it
Chatting with whoever is nearby is a regional habit more than a national one. People from big cities and people from small towns often give opposite answers, each with complete conviction.
Why is the price on the shelf not the price at the register?
Why ask it
The practical answer is sales tax, added at the register and different from state to state and sometimes city to city. Then ask whether they still notice it, or add it up in their head without thinking.
How do you decide what to tip, and where do you not tip at all?
Why ask it
Visitors want a rule and residents have a habit, so ask for the habit: the restaurant, the taxi, the counter with a screen that suggests an amount. Expect an opinion on how far tipping has spread, which is the more interesting half.
Do you expect free refills and a glass of ice water when you sit down?
Why ask it
Both are common in sit-down restaurants and neither is a given, so find out what is normal near them. It also accounts for the look a visitor gets when asking for water with no ice.
How big is a normal restaurant meal to you, and what happens to the leftovers?
Why ask it
Portion size is the part everyone has heard about; the box to take home is the part visitors miss. Carrying half a dinner out of a restaurant is ordinary in the US, and it helps to hear that before your first meal out.
Are the red plastic cups at parties a real thing?
Why ask it
They are real, sold in tall stacks at the supermarket, and they turn up at family barbecues and children's birthdays as much as at the college parties on screen. Most people are amused to hear that anyone abroad has noticed the cups.
Shoes on or off in your house?
Why ask it
Households split on this and defend their side with surprising energy. Useful to know before you are invited to someone's home, where the polite move is to ask at the door.
What time is dinner at your house, and what is a typical weeknight one?
Why ask it
Dinner is often earlier than visitors from southern Europe or Latin America expect, though shift work and children's activities move it around. The weeknight menu, not the holiday table, is the true picture of home cooking.
What does a normal grocery run look like for you?
Why ask it
A warehouse store, a car trunk and a large refrigerator make the big weekly haul possible, and a city dweller without a car shops completely differently. Worth asking if you are about to stock a kitchen in the US yourself.
What can you get done without leaving your car?
Why ask it
Coffee and burgers come first, then pharmacies and banks, and people enjoy topping one another's examples. It is a light way into how much of daily life assumes a car.
Do you think only in Fahrenheit, miles and pounds, or can you switch?
Why ask it
Said as teasing, it earns an eye roll. Said straight, you find out who uses metric at work or in a lab, and what number on the thermometer they call a nice day.
Why does the month come before the day when you write a date?
Why ask it
Few people have a reason beyond 'that is how we say it', March fifth, and many have not thought about it until a form from abroad trips them up. Worth settling before the two of you agree to meet on 4/5.
Holidays
Which holiday do you actually look forward to, and what happens on the day?
Why ask it
Let them choose before you name one. It may be Thanksgiving, Halloween or a long weekend with nothing planned, and the reason tends to be a person or a dish more than the occasion.
What has to be on the table at Thanksgiving in your family?
Why ask it
Every family has one dish that is not up for debate and another that nobody likes but somebody always makes. Ask who cooks and who travels, since for many people the journey is half the holiday.
What did your family do on the Fourth of July when you were a kid?
Why ask it
Asking about childhood keeps the question away from politics. You get parades, fireworks bought across a state line, or a family that ignored it entirely.
Did you go trick-or-treating, and what was Halloween like on your street?
Why ask it
It depends on the neighborhood: some blocks draw crowds of children and others stay dark, and a few families sit it out for religious reasons. Costume memories come easily to those who went.
Have you ever lined up for Black Friday, or do you stay well away?
Why ask it
The day after Thanksgiving is the famous sale day, and the lines before dawn that visitors have seen on the news are only one version of it. Others shop from the couch or refuse on principle, and those who went as teenagers tell it like a sporting event.
Do you watch the Super Bowl for the game, the ads or the food?
Why ask it
Not an official holiday, though the day is treated like one. Many guests at a Super Bowl party barely follow football, which is why the question offers three exits. If you get invited, the follow-up is what to bring.
Is there a holiday or tradition your family keeps that most Americans do not?
Why ask it
Here is where immigrant grandparents, religious calendars and regional customs appear: Lunar New Year, Three Kings Day, Mardi Gras, a town festival. The answers are a reminder that there is no single American calendar.
Money and Work
What was your first job, and how old were you?
Why ask it
Lifeguarding, bagging groceries, scooping ice cream: the teenage job is a common chapter and usually told fondly. It opens the subject of work without touching what anyone earns now.
How soon after meeting someone do people ask what you do for a living?
Why ask it
In much of the US it is an ordinary second question; to many visitors it feels abrupt. How they feel about being asked shows how much of a person's identity rides on the job.
How do you get to work, and how long does it take?
Why ask it
In much of the country the answer is alone in a car, and in a few cities it is a train or a walk. The minutes add up to a real cost, and the follow-up is whether they could manage where they live without driving.
How much vacation do people at your work get, and do they take it?
Why ask it
The number of days is set mostly by the employer, so ask how it works at theirs. The second half is the real question: whether people feel free to use their leave says more about a workplace than the policy does.
What do people at your work do when they are sick: stay home or push through?
Why ask it
Paid sick leave depends on the employer and on state or local rules, so ask how it works at their job in particular. The honest answer often covers what people do even when the leave exists.
How does health insurance work for you, practically speaking?
Why ask it
Coverage often comes through a job, and words such as deductible, copay and network need translating for anyone from a country with a national system. Ask what happens when they see a doctor, start to finish, and let them decide how much of their own situation to share.
At what age did people around you move out of their parents' house?
Why ask it
Out at eighteen is the old expectation, and rent has complicated it. Asking about the people they know, not about them, lets you hear how the expectation is shifting without anyone feeling judged.
When did you first have to care about your credit score?
Why ask it
The credit score puzzles new arrivals, who discover that having no history can count against them. Ask how they built theirs and who checks it where they live; habits and rules differ, so treat the answer as one person's experience.
Bigger Picture
Which American film or TV show gets ordinary life closest to right?
Why ask it
Most of the world met the United States through a screen, so let them say which screen to trust. The show they pick, and the one they call ridiculous, will correct your picture faster than an explanation.
Which thing the rest of the world believes about America is true where you live, and which is not?
Why ask it
Guns, medical bills, giant trucks, relentless friendliness: they know the list as well as you do. Letting them sort it into true and false raises the hard subjects without you having to name one.
What comes to mind when you hear the name of my country?
Why ask it
You have been asking about their home, so this turns the question around on yours. Take a stereotype or a blank with good humor, then offer one true thing that would surprise them.
What do people in your town argue about that never makes the news abroad?
Why ask it
You skip the imported headlines and get a school board, a zoning fight, a new stadium or who is entitled to the water. Local arguments are safer ground than national ones, and people can usually give both sides because they know a neighbor on each.
How do you handle politics with relatives you disagree with?
Why ask it
Asking about method, not position, keeps this answerable. You might hear about a rule for the Thanksgiving table or a subject two brothers no longer raise, and you never need to learn how anyone voted.
What does 'the American dream' mean to you, if anything?
Why ask it
The 'if anything' does the work: a skeptic can answer honestly instead of reciting. With a family, put it to two generations and compare.
What do you know about where your family came from, and does any of it still show at home?
Why ask it
Many Americans call themselves Irish, Italian or Korean generations after anyone crossed an ocean, which confuses visitors from those countries. Ask what survives: a recipe, a surname, a holiday. Accept a short answer, because not every family's arrival was a choice and not every history was written down.
Have you spent time outside the US, and what did you notice about home when you came back?
Why ask it
Do not assume a passport; the country takes days to cross and many people holiday inside it. Those who have been abroad usually came home noticing something small: the portions, the volume, the amount of parking.
What about life here would you keep exactly as it is?
Why ask it
A genuine positive question that is not flag-waving. Answers often land on national parks, public libraries, or the ease of starting something.
If you could change one thing about living here, what would it be?
Why ask it
Placed last, this gets a considered answer instead of a slogan. If it comes early in a conversation with a stranger, expect a defensive one.
How to Ask Americans About Everyday Life
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
What Works
Ask about their place, not the country
Nobody can speak for a whole country, and being asked to try makes people cautious. A question about one town, one school or one family gets a real answer.
Anchor in the concrete
Distances, costs, schedules and food produce better conversation than abstractions about values. The values usually come out anyway, through the details.
Let childhood do the work
Questions framed around what happened when they were young sidestep present-day politics while still getting at how a place works.
Work down the groups as you get to know them
Places and Growing Up are safe with someone you met an hour ago, and Holidays suits anyone. Daily Life is for the small puzzles a visitor runs into. Money and Work and Bigger Picture assume some trust, so keep them for a colleague, a host or a friend.
What Goes Wrong
Opening with the hard topics
Guns, abortion, healthcare politics and elections are all reasonable subjects later, with someone you know. As an opener they read as a test rather than curiosity.
Testing their geography
Asking someone to find your country on a map or name its capital is a quiz, and the laugh is at their expense. Tell them one thing about the place instead, then ask what comes to mind when they hear its name.
Turning a puzzle into a verdict
Sales tax, tipping and portion sizes are fair things to be curious about. Asked as "why do you people do this", the same subjects become a complaint that one person is expected to answer for.
Treating the accent as the topic
Comments on how someone sounds, or requests that they say a word again, get old fast, particularly for people from the South or from immigrant families.
Assuming they have traveled widely at home
Plenty of people have never been to either coast, and some have rarely left their state. Absence of travel is not a gap to point out.
Three Ways to Sequence It
Meeting someone for the first time
- 1Start local: where they grew up and what they would show a visitor there.
- 2Move to the stereotype about that region and let them correct it.
- 3Follow the food, the weather, or the drive, whichever they warmed to.
- 4Stop there. Save costs, insurance and politics for a second conversation.
Talking with a colleague or host you know
- 1Begin with practicalities: the commute, vacation days, what they tip and where.
- 2Ask about the local arguments that never make the news abroad.
- 3Ask what they would keep unchanged before asking what they would change.
- 4Offer the same answers about your own country when they ask back.
When you have just arrived and need to know how things work
- 1Start with the scripts: what to say back to "how are you", and whether strangers chat in line.
- 2Ask about money at the counter: the tax added at the register and what they tip.
- 3Get the household customs before a visit: shoes at the door, dinner time, what to bring.
- 4Leave insurance, sick leave and credit scores for someone who has offered to help you settle in.