151–160 of 177 posts
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".
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This is something of a misunderstanding of American culture. It's far more complex than can be summarized in a HN comment, but it's more accurate to say that American culture prides itself on accessibility, egalitarianism, and a "lack of barriers" more than directness, defined as pure unfiltered honesty, per se. A good example to illustrate this phenomenon: in most American cities, it is considered fairly normal, eve…
>borderline verboten in German culture. The typical German will rarely engage in spontaneous conversation I spent a year in Germany as an exchange student. I still return every few years to visit friends and just because I'm in love with the place. I have so many random conversations with strangers there about all topics. These take place in trains, pubs, parks, etc. IME, contrasted to America, German "leisure" is mo…
Maybe your experience was different, but your whole comment seems to implicitly have a problem with Americans, so I'm dubious as to exactly how neutral your sentiments are.
> This may all be skewed by my own insecurities...
I think you answered your own question there.
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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.
Did you see Bercow has resigned? I'll miss his distinctive roar.
I got bit by "How's it going / How are you?" when I first came to the USA. Turns out you're not actually supposed to answer with how you really are, and if you do so, they look at you like you've said something weird.
This is such a weird thing isn't it. It's like this in the UK too, every conversation starts with "How are you?" "Fine, how are you?" "Fine." It's always the same, pretty much. It's daft, it's just like a ritual that everyone is happy to partake in. No one is actually asking you how you are, it's just a noise that both parties have agreed to start each conversation with. No actual information gets exchanged. You coul…
Some are too cynical but pretty funny. As a recent inductee to silicon-valley-ese I found it odd and funny how often people were "excited" about something.
Hella excited
This feels like someone has taken the classic "Anglo EU translation guide (2011)"[1] and tried to do the same thing for American sayings. It works a little better for British sayings because, frankly, we Brits are incredibly repressed and never say what we mean if we can put our true meaning in the subtext. [1] https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2011/05/17/anglo-eu-translation-gu...
Might be worth noting that this is a private page from MIT alumni. I saw the "mit.edu" next to the link and thought it was a study or official publication first.
As a European, I assume the page is presenting a stereotype and not the (more nuanced) truth. Personally, I've experienced problems communicating with US folks that reflect this stereotype, but at least in Tech/Science, I assume (and hope) people are somewhat more straight-forward in their communications.
... unfortunately, I'm not quite so sure that there would be much agreement on which ones were the true ones. :)
Where is all this suppressed behavior coming from and what does it tell you about the country? Language is the key to the psyche of a person.
I often wonder if part of America's productivity can be attributed to the shortness of this list. It's just a handful of expressions that are mildly misleading. In other cultures, you have to get together with friends over dinner to discuss the hidden meaning of a single suspect word your boss had used that day. High context cultures take a lot of mental effort.
A related thought however is whether such lists, for any given culture, tend to grow over time, like special cases in legacy software, until the overhead of working with complexity exceeds the cost of starting a new culture afresh..?
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> 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. We very much understand that. Our problem/concern/issue is that you don't seem to expect/appreciate the outpour of how one has been in the first place, whereas elsewhere it's a natural part of meeting the other person.…
What really gets me every time (and I'm on a US trip right now) is that they say the words but expect no response. I'll walk into a store and the dialog goes: - Hi, how are you? - I'm fine, how are y... - What can I get you? They don't mean to cut me off, it's just obvious they mistimed my response. What my American friends do: - Hi, how are you? - Hello, how are you? - What can I get you? It's very odd to me how nei…