Do you consider yourself a geography pro? Are you one of those people that have always had an interest in geography and… the rest of the world?
In Episode 2: Do You Know Your Countries? We test each others knowledge (and yours!) as it pertains to countries that are not our home. Some of you, like myself, might pride themselves in knowing that you know of other countries on this globe. But, how much do you know about any of the 195 countries in the world?
So this challenge came from the need to redeem ourselves as Americans and show that we do know a little something when it comes to foreign countries. This redemption was sparked by a Jimmy Kimmel clip titled “Can You Name a Country?”. Perhaps you have seen it. And you probably either laughed at the stupidity (if you do not reside in the US) or screamed in despair (if you are a resident of the US). If you have not witnessed this “treasure” check out the video below (at least there is a saving grace at the end… which I will not spoil until the next paragraph).
**Spoilers** below of the Jimmy Kimmel show clip. Stop here and watch it if you don’t want to spoil the episode. If you watched it, please continue reading.
Now that we are on the same page… at least the middle schooler at the end was a “light at the end of the tunnel”. Because he is literally going to be our future, and hopefully he is more representative of the rest of his generation (unlike the rest of the participants whom I hope are not accurate representations), then we might be okay!
After we had come down from the hysteria of knowing how little many people knew about other countries, the difference between countries and continents, or even about our own country, we figured it was time to prove this depiction as inaccurate. As we in science would say, that is an inaccurate sample size that does not represent the larger population. (Once again, I am positive that is not a verbatim saying, but all of you science-y people get my point).
Now I know the two of us does not necessarily add much to the sample size… but it is a start! (Hopefully, some of you can add to our side of the sample and help us redeem ourselves as a population!). The experiment was simple. We each compiled a list of 10 countries and their capitals, progressively getting more difficult, to test the extent of each other’s world knowledge. As a bonus, we found interesting trivia about each of the countries (this way, if not the capitals, we could remember something about the countries- like who hated mustaches and who is shaped like a crocodile).
DISCLAIMER: For the full real-time experience of learning how much we know about other countries (or at least the ones that we chose) and learning some interesting facts to help you remember the countries listen to Episode 2 of the podcast: “Do you know your countries?” Keep reading below for my condensed analysis of what was discussed!
I would describe all the craziness that went on, but my commentator (commentary?) skills might be a little rusty… (plus there is just some weirdness that cannot be put into words 🙂 ).
The trivia challenge was off to a great start (I mean we did pick the easy ones first, right?). Greece and France. Easy peesy. So okay we know some of the European countries’ capitals (Athens and Paris), but pretty much anyone would know those… right? The next two were fairly straight forward as well; Cuba and Ireland. You know how in school you always ask the question, “When will I ever need this in the real world?” Well, sixth grade Spanish class was the reason I remembered the capital of Cuba (and a bunch of the other Hispanic countries). How many of you have had to sing that song? Ready…
Madrid, España
Santo Domingo… La Republica Dominicana
San Juan, Puerto Rico
La Havana de Cuba!
Oh Hispanic countries and their capitals song, you never let me down! (Except for when I can’t remember what country comes next… because this was supposed to also help you remember the location of the countries). Either way, I was still on a success streak. My co-host, Taranjit, was able to guess her country’s capital (Dublin) with hesitant confidence. You are probably wondering what is hesitant confidence? You are either hesitant or confident, not both.
Well she was.
To get the true feeling for how it is done, you have to listen to the episode, but I will try my best to recreate it for you. Alright… here goes… ahem… DUbliiiinnnnn…..
There was the confidence in the beginning, and then it turned into a lingering sound as she switched over into uncertainty. So I guess the accurate term would then be confident hesitance rather than hesitant confidence. Needless to say, she got it right and we were so far redeeming the reputation marred by that video.
This is where things began to get a little interesting.
And by interesting I mean the telepathic ability that the two of us have to unknowingly read each other’s minds came into play. Not only did we choose the same countries to quiz each other on, but we also had chosen them in the same order! So I guess our test was a little flawed in that we truly did not know whether we would have been able to guess some of these countries’ capitals (…Qatar and Thailand), but at least we didn’t pick the same fun facts (which was kind of strange…). From there things started to go downhill. And I mean we were one of those snowballs that barreled down a large incline, gained momentum as we grew larger and destroyed any more hope of redeeming ourselves as somewhat informed of other countries. I would like to think that if this were a multiple choice quiz or one of those match-the-country-to-the-capital type questions, I would have been able to correctly name (or logically deduce) the correct answer to more of them. At least I know that I would be able to point out on a map the (general) area in which most of them are located. I mean how many people know the exact shape of say Hungary or Qatar? Now that I know that Cuba is shaped like a crocodile that should make that country easier to point out if my handy Hispanic country naming song fails me!
But the thing is, I looked up a picture of Cuba on Google Maps and from no angle does it look like a crocodile! Was this used as one of those ink blot tests and someone just happened to say, “I see a crocodile,” and it just stuck? That must be one deformed crocodile! I see a really long crab claw (the main island) trying to grab the smaller island that is part of the country (maybe it was trying to escape?). What do you see? Let us know in the comments, because I need to know from what angle a crocodile looks like Cuba.
How many of those countries can you point out on a blank world map?
To see how well we know the capitals of countries (or how badly we failed) check out the full episode 2 of DriveWithUs: “Do You Know Your Countries?” It can be found on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or Google Play. Or click the podcast episodes tab right here on the website to listen now!
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