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American Phrase Book

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Re: American Phrase Book

#121

Post by nir »

inglor wrote: post #106

As an Israeli this was a shock for me when I first moved to the US. Here "let's have lunch sometime" is literally "let's have lunch sometime". The American culture is so indirect and giving direct feedback is so hard. One of the biggest prides in our culture here is that employees can always burst into the CEO's office and tell them they are wrong if that's the case :]

Same here, even after five years in the US I still had to remind myself how some phrases actually communicate the exact opposite of their literal meaning.

Wasn't surprised at all to see this phrase book was authored by another Israeli :)

Re: American Phrase Book

#122

Post by mjlee »

sdrothrock wrote: post #105
9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #13

Yup. One of the great mysteries of the world is how Americans think they are so straightforward and direct and honest... and then they ask a German if their butt looks big in these pants, and burst into tears on hearing the answer. On a mildly more serious note, I remember well my first ever serious business meeting in the US, where we pitched a potential joint venture to another company. 30 minutes of mutual praise…

> One of the great mysteries of the world is how Americans think they are so straightforward and direct and honest... and then they ask a German if their butt looks big in these pants, and burst into tears on hearing the answer. The Culture Map by Erin Meyer goes into this a bit; one of the key traits she uses to assess cross-cultural communication is how directly cultures give/take negative feedback. There are two t…

I'll second the recommendation for The Culture Map, I found it very useful.

Re: American Phrase Book

#123

Post by [deleted] »

barry-cotter wrote: post #33
sn41 wrote: post #6

This is great. I think we need phrasebooks for all cultures. I'm Indian, and a Chinese friend was pissed that Indians say "yes" and never do it. I think it's a cultural no-no in India to say "no" to someone's face. I finally realised that a short "yes" most probably means "yes", and a long-drawn out "yes" probably means "no".

> I'm Indian, and a Chinese friend was pissed that Indians say "yes" and never do it. I laughed. For a Chinese person to give any other culture shit about this is hilarious. The only thing foreign businesspeople in Shanghai complain more about than people saying they’ll do something and then forgetting or ghosting them is poor quality control/fraud.

[deleted]

Re: American Phrase Book

#125

Post by mafm »

keiferski wrote: post #88
coldtea wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the great mysteries of the world is how Americans think they are so straightforward and direct and honest... and then they ask a German if their butt looks big in these pants, and burst into tears on hearing the answer. Or how they ask a friend/relative/acquaintance "How have you been" and expect just a fake generic "fine" or similar, not the actual story of how you were, as told in several (at least Europea…

Non-Americans always harp on this yet don't understand that "How are you?" is just functioning as a generic "Hello" and not as a literal question. This happens in every language with various phrases. For example, the phrase for "Hello" in most European languages directly translates to "Good Day." It is not as if people are saying "Good Day" in any literal sense of the words; the meaning implied is "Hello."

For Chinese, "Ni Hao" literally means "you good", equivalent to "hello".

If you actually want to ask someone how they're going, the phrase is "Ni Hao Ma", which is literally the question: "you good?"

The question version isn't something you'd normally use. It might be appropriate on meeting a friend if you knew they'd been recently ill.

Re: American Phrase Book

#126

Post by biztos »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #23

I'd love to see one of these for Australian English, although I don't think it would be possible. Aussies have a love of metaphor a simile that's unmatched in any other dialect of English, especially if you hang out with bogans (basically Australian Rednecks, for lack of a better description). It's basically the opposite of America, where instead of trying to be excessively polite, we try to be excessively offensive.…

Where I'm from -- Northern California, USA -- "built like a brick shithouse" was used frequently, and exclusively, to describe very sexy females. It had nothing to do with muscularity per se, and would never have been used to describe a man, not even in jest.

At least, in the 80's it was thus.

Re: American Phrase Book

#127

Post by philwelch »

roenxi wrote: post #110
9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #13

Yup. One of the great mysteries of the world is how Americans think they are so straightforward and direct and honest... and then they ask a German if their butt looks big in these pants, and burst into tears on hearing the answer. On a mildly more serious note, I remember well my first ever serious business meeting in the US, where we pitched a potential joint venture to another company. 30 minutes of mutual praise…

And yet the current American president is renowned the world over for using unusually direct and simple language. 'Americans are straightfoward' to me has always meant that when a large group of Americans decide what to do they'll fight it out in public with big, well defined interest groups coalescing around well broadcast opinions. Very transparent. No real nuance at the strategic level; usually simple opinions lik…

I have to laugh at the notion that British politics is "dignified". The House of Commons is a melee of shouting and heckling punctuated by an increasingly haggard-looking man shouting "ORDAAAA" whenever it gets too rowdy, which seems to be every 2 minutes or so.

Re: American Phrase Book

#129

Post by nir »

peteretep wrote: post #109

> US natives will usually phrase everything in a manner that creates the least social friction in any given interaction This person has clearly never been to Asia, where a whole different level of this exists.

My experience (as non-American, non-Asian) has been the interaction was actually somewhat easier in Japan or China, because you don't expect a smooth communication to begin with and both sides are not speaking in their native tongue.

When you're in the US you have the false sense that you actually understand what's being said, while in truth learning the actual meaning can take a while.

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