Lifestyle in Britain and America

Lifestyle in Britain and America 

The British are said to be very polite and have very good manners - they are never tired of saying their ‘favourite’ phrases such as ‘I beg your pardon’ or ‘Excuse me’. The English word ‘gentleman’ mean a man with good manners all over the world. But they are also said to be very conservative and ‘keeping himself to himself’ - they e.g. don’t shake hands or kiss hello as people on the (European) Continent. The British are nowadays still too conservative (that) they aloof [1] and don’t accept even high educated people who are foreign citizens (!) - a bipolar society is everyday fact in Britain. On the other hand there is a long tradition of charity, which is ordinary and obvious [2] part of the British lifestyle. 

Cotação dólar americano (USD) - Estados Unidos de América

They spend lot of their leisure time at home with the family and pets - the main stage [3] of an Englishman’s social life is the family, the job and the club.
Not only the motto ‘My home, my castle’ explain that about 60 per cent of houses in Britain are owned by people who live in them. They also love and follow one’s traditions, like the ‘tea ceremony’ around 5 o’clock p.m.
But the British are also the democratic people and the world-famous saying ‘time is money’ shows the practical side of the British character indeed.

Convertitore valuta - Sterlina britannica
 
The Americans are mainly the mobile (or moving) nation. They ‘move away’ (or commute) for new home, new work, for holidays etc. usually x-times in their life. Also because of this, the USA is called the ‘melting pot’,  the ‘pizza’ or the ‘salad bowl’ [4] - there live and move million of people of all origins and all nationality at the same time. They are also an urban nation which means that majority of people live in bigger or smaller cities or towns.

Typical for the American lifestyle is the ideal (or theory) of the ‘American dream’ - belief that it is possible for anyone in America to win successes by their own efforts [5]. So the ideal American is the ‘self-made’ and ‘self-reliance’ [6] man - it is said that the first American of this kind was Benjamin Franklin. The ideal of the ‘American dream’ appears in many works of the American literature, such as in the famous F.S.Fitzgerald’s novels but it has a few negative characters there.

Another feature of the American lifestyle what is well-known all around the world is fast food eating. As well as the Europeans like to cook some food at home, the Americans like to go to some Mc’Donald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken etc. to buy and eat chickens, hamburgers, pizzas etc. Both in Great Britain and the USA, popcorn, which is available in both sweet and salty flavours, is very popular.
 
[1] straní se
[2] samozřejmý
[3] etapa, stádium, období
[4] dosl. „tavicí pánev“, „pizza“ nebo „salátová mísa“ - přeneseně vše ve smyslu „směsice národů“
[5] úsilí, přičinění, námaha
[6] samorostlý a sebevědomý, sebejistý

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