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40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

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Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#301

Post by kop316 »

jogjayr wrote: post #300
kop316 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that. Going back to your original comment, I think Americans will understand that you don't get those culturual references, and several will not mind showing you and helping you. For me it's actually a lot of fun to show different parts of american cultureand seeing someone else experience it for the first time (Like here: https://xkcd.com/1053/ ). One of the most interesting things that happens if they…

Agreed. And that's the part that I take the blame for. When you're adrift in a culture, you should ask for help. In my (relative) immaturity, I thought asking questions would be considered annoying, rather than being a way to build bridges.

I understand why you could have that mentality though, you can't be blamed for it. I hope sometime you would be able to visit the USA with that knowledge and get a better experience!

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#302

Post by eon1 »

troyjfarrell wrote: post #280
bwb wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am American and could care less about football, it does limit a lot of guy relationships if you don't care about watching sports. Playing sports is so much fun though, and a way better way to meet people.

For non-native English speakers: “I could care less about $THING” and “I couldn't care less about $THING” mean the same thing. Each means that the speaker does not care about $THING.

I'm a non-American native English speaker and "I could care less.." confused me until I had it explicitly explained to me. I took it as some kind of inversion of "I couldn't care less" which I had heard plenty. It still doesn't make any sense (if you could care less, it's implicit that you care to some degree, right..?) but at least I get it now.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#303

Post by pafje »

lwdjklfad wrote: post #273
morgante wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced that language is actually such an essential aspect. Cultural similarity seems like a much bigger one. For example, I've seen Indians with great English struggle a lot more to fit in and acclimate than French students with poor English but more shared cultural touchstones. As an American, I've found it to be much easier to make friends with Europeans than with students from non-Western cultures—even…

Indeed. My experience as an Indian grad student in Seattle was a miserable one to say the least; now I think of Americans as pretentious jerks who spare no moment to talk about "diversity" & "equality" and all these things, when in reality they are biologically just as "racist" as the red-necks. I realized after a while to understand that what people really meant (in practice) was only that they were against the publ…

About people being instantly friendly and then ignoring you later on, I've heard the exact same thing from french students in America. In France, people will generally be very polite upfront but not overly friendly. Friendship has to be build over time (nothing is valued more than decade-long friendships, it is the subject of many french movies). I think many other (western) European cultures are similar in that respect, so it might be an American thing (in the spirit "everything has to happen now or never").

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#304

Post by afashglaksnhb »

detaro wrote: post #256
afashglaksnhb wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once your karma goes over about 1000 you get a downvote on articles (not certain about the threshold).

No, you don't. Articles can't be downvoted, only comments.

Weird I'm sure I've been able to downvote articles on an old profile.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#305

Post by saint_fiasco »

Arizhel wrote: post #292
saint_fiasco wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money. Asking an American how much they earn or how much they paid for something can be perceived as rude.

>Asking an American how much they earn or how much they paid for something can be perceived as rude. American here. Really? I agree about the first part (how much you earn), but not the second. Lots of people like to brag about how they scored a great bargain on something, or complain about how something cost too much. But it really depends on a lot of things: what it is, what your relationship to the other person is…

> Lots of people like to brag about how they scored a great bargain on something

But if I ask how much they paid for something, and it was not a bargain, will they feel bad? Like I'm mocking them for their poor haggling skills or something?

I don't have a lot of experience with Americans. It's just something I heard from my English teacher.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#306

Post by guitarbill »

dominotw wrote: post #281
guitarbill wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's pretty demeaning. there's certainly overlap, however that's mostly US TV and movies being exported, which also happens in other (non-English speaking) countries. but each has a distinctive culture, with different TV shows, music, artists, celebrities, politicians, words, lifestyles etc. now, speaking english with ease does make it easier to pick up on the differences. but it still takes effort to engage with p…

>that's pretty demeaning. sorry , Certainly not my intention. I am curious why you say this though.

Calling the US, UK and Australia "identical cultures" is pretty bad, just because they all speak English? True, they share common history, but they also have so many other influences that they're quite different. E.g. Wales, a country in the UK, even has it's own language which is still taught in schools and used officially everywhere.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#307

Post by Arizhel »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #305
Arizhel wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Asking an American how much they earn or how much they paid for something can be perceived as rude. American here. Really? I agree about the first part (how much you earn), but not the second. Lots of people like to brag about how they scored a great bargain on something, or complain about how something cost too much. But it really depends on a lot of things: what it is, what your relationship to the other person is…

> Lots of people like to brag about how they scored a great bargain on something But if I ask how much they paid for something, and it was not a bargain, will they feel bad? Like I'm mocking them for their poor haggling skills or something? I don't have a lot of experience with Americans. It's just something I heard from my English teacher.

It really depends on a lot of things. And obviously there's a big difference between asking someone, and them volunteering the information to you.

I wouldn't ask someone how much they paid for a car, for instance: it's a big-ticket item, and strangely enough it's still haggled over in this country even though most things are fixed-price. Same goes for a house. But something small, I might. Retail goods are usually about the same price everywhere, unless there was a sale or someone took advantage of some kind of promotion, so it's not like the price they likely paid is a big secret. If I want to know the price of the latest iPhone, I can look it up. So you're not going to be exposing anyone's poor haggling skills by asking how much they paid for a (normally) fixed-price item. But yeah, I wouldn't ask how much they paid for a house or car.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#308

Post by flour_power »

habosa wrote: post #74

It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency: Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed) Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification) Level 4: Can do all of the above passiv…

Native english speaker and I can't do 5 half the time.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#309

Post by jasonkostempski »

aakriti1215 wrote: post #105
jasonkostempski wrote: post #60

What percent of Americans have close friends of any nationality on campus?

^ repost.

What does that mean? Did someone else ask the same thing? If so, no one has time to read every single comment before commenting, sorry.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#310

Post by aakriti1215 »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #309
aakriti1215 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ repost.

What does that mean? Did someone else ask the same thing? If so, no one has time to read every single comment before commenting, sorry.

Sorry, I didn't make that very clear - I meant that I completely agree!
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