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“Thank You” in Hindi and English Mean Very Different Things

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Re: “Thank You” in Hindi and English Mean Very Different Things

#151

Post by SilasX »

littletimmy wrote: post #49

As a non-American, this was one of the biggest culture shocks I faced. On the surface, relationships in the US seem very transactional (not making the judgment that they are really transactional). For example, in the US a son would thank his parents for paying his college tuition. In my culture, this would be insulting because it would suggest being distant from family, in the sense that the son ought to believe his…

That was implicit model I used growing up, until learned people use "thank you" differently. I was reluctant to thank anyone for doing what I thought was already their obligation -- it didn't make sense. And likewise, I would be confused at receiving thanks for what I thought was my job.

(Naturally, in either case, it would make sense if the thanked did something that went above-and-beyond.)

Re: “Thank You” in Hindi and English Mean Very Different Things

#153

Post by panglott »

littletimmy wrote: post #49

As a non-American, this was one of the biggest culture shocks I faced. On the surface, relationships in the US seem very transactional (not making the judgment that they are really transactional). For example, in the US a son would thank his parents for paying his college tuition. In my culture, this would be insulting because it would suggest being distant from family, in the sense that the son ought to believe his…

On some level there's a tradeoff between individual autonomy and social interdependence, and different cultures fall at different places on the continuum between them.

Clearly the U.S. is at one extreme. But I don't know that one is "better": there are different benefits and costs. In the U.S. people have huge amounts of personal freedom and autonomy, but are more likely to live thousands of miles away from their friends and family, and struggle with loneliness. But there are different costs when you erode individual autonomy.

Re: “Thank You” in Hindi and English Mean Very Different Things

#154

Post by ManFromUranus »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #140
ManFromUranus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if that system also fosters corruption and nepotism? Need to hire somebody for a job? family first (you owe them remember?), tender a contract (family first) the list goes on. You are a public servant, someone comes to your office to get you to do the job that you were hired to do, but they're not your family, you don't owe them anything... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India Yeah that system is bet…

And the opposite does not? It makes calling in the debt owed much more discrete, which means the corruption is more conscious, but the transactional nature would foster corruption among those who are of higher power instead of those who are family. In the culture grandparent comment describe, if someone comes into my office, any favoritism will be based on their being close to my family. In a culture without that, if…

>In a culture without that, if someone comes into my office, any favoritism will be based on their ability to offer me favoritism

So your first point is: one hand washes the other. I will show favoritism to people who can be of some benefit to me. Sounds like merit based favoritism. So for example could I show favoritism to a guy that works really hard? Is that corruption? Or I show favoritism to a guy who can invest in my company because his family has money? Is that corruption? (probably more so than the first example but I'm not sure).

The second point favoritism among the powerful is worse than the familial sort, because of your first point.

If anything it seems that the opposite is true because according to your logic the favoritism here is more merit based.

Re: “Thank You” in Hindi and English Mean Very Different Things

#155

Post by cactusface »

jmadsen wrote: post #52
cactusface wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a minute, sumimasen only means thank-you when it's a thanks plus a kind of apology for making someone go to some trouble. Some version of doumo arigato gozaimasu is really fine in most other situations! http://www.tofugu.com/2013/10/24/sorry-for-saying-thank-you-... http://www.livinglanguage.com/blog/2013/06/20/how-to-say-tha...

EDIT: after reading the post above, I'd like to add that there may even be regional differences with all of this, so let me state this is based on my own experience. No, not really IMHO - much more complicated. The first article (I only skimmed) seemed pretty good, the second was prolly a Japanese person trying to codify it :-) Here's a foreigner's attempt to explain them, based on how I use them (and I'm focusing on…

Yes, it is interesting how regional it is! I lived in Tokyo and in the north, and sumimasen (or suimasen) was basically just used for sorry-thanks (along with all the other excuse-me type situations). Also doumo was the least formal way of saying thanks, not arigato, unless there was some other way of demonstrating appreciation in which case it might be skipped altogether. Some of the people I was with would say sugoi about every 10 seconds and if you did something deserving a doumo you might get a sugoi instead. I wouldn't say doumo in a shop unless I knew the people, and I wouldn't say arigato much with people I was close to. I certainly wouldn't use arigato much at dinner, let alone doumo; with friends it was close to saying "I'm grateful" in English which you only really say if it's at least somewhat important.

Re: “Thank You” in Hindi and English Mean Very Different Things

#158

Post by dragonwriter »

jldugger wrote: post #131
littletimmy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, you're welcome. This is really interesting because it raises the question: what role does affluence have to play in all of this? In the case of my country, people usually aren't rich enough to save for retirement, nor are starting salaries high enough for young adults to stake out on their own. So parents help their kids right up to the point they can no longer work, and then kids take over to provide for the fa…

> So, does affluence naturally lead to a weakening of strong family ties? IMO, what you call strong family ties, others might call patriarchy. When women have improved ability to support themselves, they're more inclined to leave abusive relationships. And like Sandberg, they're less willing to accept menial household roles traditionally assigned to them. There's a podcast from Planet Money about how this plays out a…

> IMO, what you call strong family ties, others might call patriarchy.

They are often correlated and found in similar cultural sources, but they are distinct elements. The US idealization of the nuclear rather than extended family and corresponding weaker family ties didn't (and still often doesn't) come with the breaking of patriarchy -- in fact, it is rooted in a time when patriarchy was quite strong -- though you sometimes (especially now) find non-patriarchal arrangements along with it.

Strong family ties and non-transactional view of family interactions doesn't have any essential tie to patriarchy, nor do weak family ties and a transaction approach to interactions have any essential tie to the absence of patriarchy.

Re: “Thank You” in Hindi and English Mean Very Different Things

#159

Post by Lawtonfogle »

ManFromUranus wrote: post #154
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the opposite does not? It makes calling in the debt owed much more discrete, which means the corruption is more conscious, but the transactional nature would foster corruption among those who are of higher power instead of those who are family. In the culture grandparent comment describe, if someone comes into my office, any favoritism will be based on their being close to my family. In a culture without that, if…

>In a culture without that, if someone comes into my office, any favoritism will be based on their ability to offer me favoritism So your first point is: one hand washes the other. I will show favoritism to people who can be of some benefit to me. Sounds like merit based favoritism. So for example could I show favoritism to a guy that works really hard? Is that corruption? Or I show favoritism to a guy who can invest…

Power isn't based on merit and even if it were, the damage from corruption is not dependant upon how deserved/merit based the corruption is.

Re: “Thank You” in Hindi and English Mean Very Different Things

#160

Post by bpyne »

harryh wrote: post #126
bpyne wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to have a better idea what's meant by "family ties". I'm from the US. My teammate on a project is a woman from India. (We're both working in the US.) She doesn't have children, but I have a 9yo daughter. We talk about differences in how my wife and I raise our daughter versus how she was raised. My wife and I follow the trend in the US of being very involved in our daughter's life. We walk her to scho…

Articles like this make me think the Indian way is better: http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/children-today-are-suffering... I'm about to have a kid (wife is 8 months pregnant) so I've been thinking about this some. Unfortunately though, a lot of this is culture and individual parents can't necessarily do a lot. It doesn't matter if I'd rather my kid play in a pick-up game instead of an organized league if all the othe…

Just some advice, don't worry about organized league vs. street play so much. I played organized hockey year-round (up to 3 teams at a time) and still had plenty of time for unorganized play with neighborhood kids. I grew up in an urban, relatively population-dense neighborhood. Within 2 blocks, there were at least 30 kids within 3 years of my age. Your child's chance to do unorganized activity depends mostly on the number of kids close to his/her age within shouting distance.

The biggest drain on your child's free time is going to be school. Our culture is scared right now about falling behind the rest of the developed world in cognitive skills necessary for the future job market. The knee-jerk reaction is to work harder. The result is that more homework gets assigned, more testing takes place, and some groups are calling for longer school days and less vacation time.

You're a parent now. Educate yourself on child development and Education reform. Then get yourself involved politically so you can be your child's advocate.

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