In my experience, many people outside of the states can only really name a few specific states. Often it's New York, California, Hawaii, Texas, Florida, and/or Alaska.

I'd wager quite a bit of money that less than 50% of people outside of the US would be able to identify which name in the following list is not one of the 50 states: Navajo, Idaho, Utah, and Montana.

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

I’d wager quite a bit of money that I (EU) can name as many as the average US banana republic dweller.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As American politics and decisions have a big influence on what is happening in the world, the chance that someone from outside the US knows something about the US are bigger, way bigger than the other way round. We speak your mother tongue, but you probably don't speak any of ours...

That said, it would be rather interesting to see Navajo as a state. It would probably located in the Utah/Arizona/New Mexico area. If it existed.

[–] MufinMcFlufin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As American politics and decisions have a big influence on what is happening in the world, the chance that someone from outside the US knows something about the US are bigger, way bigger than the other way round.

I do understand that, but that's part of the reason I listed those 6 states as in general I feel those are the most influential, noteworthy, and/or easily identifiable states. Even as an American I don't know the last time I heard about news happening in Arkansas much less something that should be worthy of international news.

We speak your mother tongue, but you probably don't speak any of ours...

You might be surprised by this. I haven't done much digging to find scholarly sources since I have things going on this weekend, but I did find one (non scholarly) source claiming that the percentage of bilingual people in the US (as defined by people who use multiple languages on a daily basis, not just able to speak it) was 23% which was just below their claimed EU average of 25%.

I know you're use of "you/your" was likely more meant as me as an American rather than as a specific individual however as for myself as an individual, I took 3 years of German which I'm rather rusty with now considering that was over a decade ago at this point, and I've been studying Japanese with a tutor for the last 1.5 years now.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

Congratulations for speaking more than just American. Bilinguality in the US is an odd thing, and often caused by people who have English as their second language.