Hi everyone, I'm Susie from the UK,
welcome back to my channel.
Today I'm going to talk about
some bad habits British people do,
which might apply to other countries as well.
I came across these bad habits in an article.
There are 50 of them.
So I'm going to share them with you,
and then maybe we can learn some new English words.
To improve your listening skills,
I'm just going to talk naturally in English, okay?
Here we go.
So the top 50 bad habits according to The Independent,
so these are the results collected from a questionnaire
about what British people think are their most annoying habits.
So we'll start with number one, comfort eating.
Okay, comfort eating, so that means
eating food just to make yourself feel good.
Not because you need the food.
I have a feeling that this probably wouldn't be number one
in some Asian cultures.
I get the feeling that people are a bit more kind of maybe
sensible or restrained about what they eat in Asian countries.
The ones that I lived in anyway.
I'm guessing that perhaps there might be harsher judgment
for being overweight.
I don't tend to do it myself
but yeah, comfort eating is definitely something that
a lot of people here do.
Number two, swearing.
Maybe you've noticed this in England.
People do tend to swear quite a lot.
Like every other word will have f*** this and s*** that.
Especially in Scotland, people love to swear.
Like, get to f*** means I don't believe you.
Swear words can mean absolutely anything.
This is the s*** means this is amazing.
But this is s*** means something is bad.
You can pretty much use swear words
in any way that you like.
It's a way that people really exaggerate
and express their feelings.
But I guess on the inside,
they still kind of know that it's not very elegant
and so they might feel bad about it.
That's why it's number two on this list.
Me, again, I wouldn't say that's my worst habit.
Number three, biting your nails.
Yep, 100% number one. That's my worst habit.
I always bite or chew my nails, like this,
and once you get started, you need to make it smooth,
so you have to keep going.
You have to keep biting it.
I've spoken to lots of people about this
and they say they've noticed that British people
bite their nails quite a lot.
Maybe on the train.
Someone sitting by themselves, then they might just
have a little nibble on their nails.
I would definitely do that.
My students from Taiwan have said,
oh, that seems kind of weird.
They’ve noticed that British people do that
and they find it a little bit strange.
Okay, I don't know why that's more
socially acceptable here.
Number four, not doing exercise.
I'm surprised that's not number one, to be honest.
People are always complaining about not doing exercise,
which might surprise you because, again,
people from Asian countries have told me
they're surprised and amazed
at how much exercise people do in this country.
People are always at the gym
or out on the street going for a run.
You know, going for a jog with a dog
and exercise is everywhere.
I totally agree with you. I think it's the opposite problem.
People are exercising too much
or they feel like they should be.
How much do we really need to exercise?
It's a good question.
It's quite a recent kind of trend, isn't it?
A hundred, two hundred years ago,
people were not exercising like they are now.
And were they overweight?
I don't know. I'd have to research that.
That's a really good point, how is that number four
when in some of your observations,
you will say people love to exercise here.
So why do they feel guilty about not exercising?
This is a big topic. Let's talk about that another time.
Number five, this is going to be
getting close to the top of the list for me.
Procrastinating.
Now I was speaking with my friend the other day and she said,
have you ever heard anyone over the age of
forty or fifty use the word procrastinate?
And I said, no.
Maybe because either the word
wasn't used as much in their generation.
And then we were saying maybe it's because
there are so many more distractions now with the internet.
You know we've got our phones.
We've got anything that you want to distract yourself,
you have it.
In their generation, there weren't so many ways
that you could procrastinate.
Recently it has become a bit of a thing.
I'm trying to work out why, why do I keep procrastinating?
I think sometimes if you make a task,
you blow it out of proportion in your mind
and you think I really need to make this amazing
or you doubt your ability to complete the task
to the standard that you would like to.
So yeah, what's your experience with this?
Please comment down below and let me know.
Number six, stressing about things.
Okay, for me, I'd say that's probably in the top 10.
Maybe not the top 5.
I'm generally not that stressed but just,
you know when you make little things
seem bigger in your mind than they really are.
Not many things that happen in our day to day lives
are that important.
But it's easy for us to
Make mountains out of molehills
That's an idiom for you to learn.
To make a mountain out of a molehill
means to make something seem worse and bigger or scarier
than it really is.
Number seven, nose picking.
I'm surprised that that's at the top.
I'm interested to hear what you guys think about this actually.
Nose picking.
Is it acceptable to do it on your own?
Because here, yeah, of course, you could do it on your own.
But not with someone in public.
You shouldn't let other people see you pick your nose.
That's really socially unacceptable
so I don't think these people mean that.
I rarely see this happen.
But if you're on your own,
I mean that should be fine, right?
Maybe not great for your nose.
You're putting your grubby fingers up there.
Maybe wash your fingers first.
Let me know what you think about that one.
Number eight is eating fast food.
Like the comfort eating thing, pretty standard.
Maybe there's less fast food where you are in your country.
But there's tons of it here.
I think people are becoming lazier
and don't really want to cook.
You know we've heard all these stories about
what happens when you eat McDonald's every day.
Have you seen that film, Super Size Me?
The sign of McDonald's comes with the warning light
of like, this is bad for you.
Do not eat this.
That's how I think of it anyway.
Number nine, snoozing your alarm.
Most people that I know
say that they snooze their alarm now and then.
What I find is that lying in bed
when you know that you need to get up
in the next five or ten minutes anyway
is more painful than just getting up.
I'm really against snoozing as you can tell.
Let's move on.
Number ten,
spending too long scrolling through social media.
Who isn't guilty of this?
For me, I'm not so bad at the scrolling, I guess.
It's more just like checking.
You know when you start to get a lot of messages
and stuff happening on social media,
it's like you just want to check it
because something happens every time you check.
If there's one habit so far that we've talked about
that I would stop doing, it would be that one,
stop checking social media.
Okay, I need to stop now because it's way past my bedtime.
This is ridiculous.
I've only done 10 out of 50.
But I feel like that's a good place to stop.
The first 10 bad habits that British people do.
Do you agree?
Would these be the top 10 in your country?
Comment down below and let me know
and hopefully next time I can finish with the rest of the list.
So thanks for watching. I'll see you soon.
Bye!