I hope we don’t get stereotyped as not knowing how to use apostrophes! 
I don’t believe in the use of apostrophes…our Euro brethren however should note this is a personal preference, not something my fellow American(’)s follow.
-XT
Oh, you reminded me – I’ve read that Nicholas Sarkozy, the French president-elect, wrote a book extolling the American work ethic. News story.
Please note that I’m not arguing that this is a popular view – far from it. I think it’s a minority view, and in general, I’d say a lot more “Europeans” wonder why Americans spend so much of their lives fixated on work.
The canonical phrase is, ‘oversexed, overpaid, and over here.’ 
Americans get periodically lauded for high productivity, not for being hard-working. And frankly, from my experience working Over There, it isn’t so much “high productivity” as “putting in a lot of hours,” which is sort of the opposite, isn’t it? I just don’t try to explain it to Euros Who Haven’t Worked There because so much of the relevant regulations and customs are so different, you pretty much need to live both to be able to compare them.
Among many Euros Who’ve Worked There, american… not individuals, but how to call this… policies from american companies? Schools of thought? Are often seen as two-tongued palefaces. Quote from quite a few people who’ve either studied Economics /Business Management/ or Worked Over There: “if we do it, it’s abuse, but if they do it, it’s networking!”
Most people in Spain when they say “los americanos” don’t mean American people, American individuals. They mean either “the current american government” or “american corporations;” occasionally “the globality of the people who live in the USA, who may or may not be US citizens” when talking about stuff like medical studies or which country’s people’s brush their teeth more often. Individual Americans are known to come in all flavors, same as everybody else.
As for being taught in school, these are way too broad to be taught in school - you wouldn’t expect a statement to the point of $country has/has not got culture in a textbook, don’t you?
On the English/American point, of course you get exposed to differences between British/American English fairly early in English language class (I seem to recollect the first “differences of American to standard English” unit some time in the second or third year of English class (out of 9 years of English classes)).
BTW, German publishers do seem to make the distinction, on title pages:
Title
by British/Irish/Australian/South African etc, author
Translated from English by translator
Title
by US author
Translated from American by translator
Yeah well we’ll save YOUR asses in WW3.
Courtesy of Moe (The Simpsons)
We never got an explanation of “differences between different accents or spellings,” but with all but one of my Spanish-citizen ESL teachers, you’d get marked down for writing “color” instead of “colour.” Note that in some cases, like that one, the American spelling happens to be the Spanish word! So knowing whether something is in “English you can use for ESL class” or in “American” can be important. Pretty stupid if you ask me, specially the “not being told about accents” part. If Dad hadn’t thought of recording My Fair Lady in English with subtitles when it happened to be on TV three days before I left for America for the first time, myself and my travelmates would have been completely lost in London!
We were taught the differences as they came up. In generall, we could use either AmE or BrE in written assignments, but the choise had to be consistent troughout the work.
Being British, I don’t much admire the American ‘work ethic’, I doubt that many people in Europe do - the idea is work smart and the only time you do long hours is down to an emergency (aka a FUp) or because one is playing the system - slowing things down to get overtime.
We place quite a value on holidays, I get a mental kick in the balls when I think about Americans having two weeks per year - maybe that is not true, but it is commonly believed.
My father used to go to the USA quite often, his comment was that they are good at bullsh/t and presentations - but when it gets down to doing things …
My single visit was to Chicago and Miami - on business and some time ago. I was not impressed, things looked more sordid (read run down) than I expected - too much like the UK to get me wondering about migration.
Since the advent of teh Intrawab I’ve found that there are USA citizens who are smart, thoughtful people who are well informed and ready to change their minds when ‘facts’ change - but I can’t help thinking that the majority of Americans, like the majority of British, are a bit … well … uninteresting.
For what it is worth, I doubt I know a single person who admires how much Americans work - output is interesting, but excessive input is a bit dim.
I’ve been to the USA many times and to be honest I like the place, I like the people (as a whole) I like the food and some of the drink. The beer however is crap as is the coffee. This surprised me very much on my first visit as I always expected that a coffee drinking nation would have good coffee, but you don’t.
I like my grub! indeed I do…however the portions served in the States are far and away to big. You could feed a small nation on what I saw being thrown away each and every day, this seemed to me to be disgraceful.
I love football (soccer) you don’t, this is a shame IMO. I’ve watched baseball at Wrigley and was bored shitless, I’ve watched Ice Hockey in Grandville, Michigan and was just as bored, I’ve watched basketball in Rhode Island with the same result…don’t you guys have any decent sports? and don’t mention American Football please.
As FRDE says we value our holidays and 2 weeks is piss poor, makes my nads hurt to just think about it.
All in all I’ve found that Americans in the north are polite and very generous, in the south, especially Alabama I find them a tad overbearing with a chip on their collective shoulders about the Civil War…fucking hell it was years ago and they still rabbit on as if they never really lost.
Well, I was being a little sarcastic there, I admit. I didn’t think such broad statements were part of the official curriculum.
That’s interesting. I noticed the same distinction in French newspapers and books. As an American, though, I prefer to have my language called “English,” which is what I call it myself.
Thanks for the replies in this thread. Now I have a bit more culture. 
I’m amazed that a soccer/football fan would find ice hockey boring, as they are essentially the same game; hockey being a faster version.
What was it about ice hockey that bored you? The substitutions?
Do you extend the same courtesy to other countries? Do you refer to Germany as Deutschland, for example?
Sometimes, but only because my father is German.
Also, I call the language spoken in most of Canada “English.” Maybe I should reconsider?
Has any analysis ever been conducted on the way Americans work as compared to Europeans? Are American workplaces more or less relaxed? Are European workers, during the fewer hours they are on the job, more pressured to crank out the work?
Well apart from one game using a ball the other a puck, one kicking a ball the other using a stick,one played on grass the other on ice , one game having 11 players each side the other having 6, size of both playing areas being vastly different I guess you could say they are essentially the same game :rolleyes:
What bored me? the whole game apart from the squabbling which really was like 2 girls arguing in the playground
Let me speak for all Europeans for the sake of the OP:
Our stereotype of the hard-working American is the starting-a-business-from-nothing-turning-it-in-to-a-multimillion-corporation kind. Also the immigrant working the graveyard shift to provide for a big family and sending checks to relatives in their home country.
On the other side we have the sitting-in-endless-meetings, working-on-a-soon-cancelled-project kind of Americans. And the hates-his-job, spitting-in-hamburgers minimum wage employee.
So, this European’s verdict on U.S. workforce depends on if it’s Michael Dell, Apu Nahasap… or Dilbert who first spring to mind. We believe all Americans are in it for the money, which makes the self-employed doing a great job and the employee merely please his boss.
Always remember: Our “USA-bashing” is just a twisted form of flattery, since it’s always O.K. to take a shot at the stronger ones. You’ll know it’s time to worry when we start to defend you.
As others have said, the USA is a large place. I would agree with you on the coffee served in the southeastern U.S. As soon as you cross into the former CSA, the beverage is unrecognizable as the same substance you get in the greater NY area; it’s just bitter water. The Seattle area is known to be fanatical about good coffee as well, although I have no personal experience there.