Les Howell wrote:
On Mon, 2013-07-15 at 10:47 +0100, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
On Mon, 2013-07-15 at 06:27 +0200, lee wrote:
You need to realise that native speakers of English have a tendency to
be overly polite and to expect others to be just as overly polite as
they are, in ways non-native speakers of English mostly cannot fathom
(at least Germans cannot). At the same time, non-native speakers of
English (at least Germans) can come across to native speakers of
English
as utterly rude, without any intention to come across like that and
without knowing that they do. --- For example, what I just wrote is
probably somewhat rude, without me intending to be. It's because I'm
German, and the totally different mindsets of English and German
"collide", which would make it extremely complicated and requiring a
great deal of elaboration to put it in such a way that it doesn't seem
rude.
I think you're over-generalizing here. In my experience German speakers
are just as polite as English speakers, especially if their English is
as good as yours. Possibly some may come across as rude when their
English is less good, as when one is learning a language one tends to
say things more bluntly due to feeling more restricted, but it can also
work the other way, when the beginner appears to be overly formal.
Idiomatic expression and fleeting cultural references account for a huge
proportion of everyday speech and a lot of that bleeds into written
communication.
In my experience, national stereotypes are an unreliable guide in
everyday life, though one thing that does seem to be different from one
culture to another is the kind of thing they find funny. But that's
another story.
poc
Culture is absorbed. I spent many years in Asia. When I returned to
the United States, I would go to parties, and whoever I spoke with and I
would move slowly across the room and eventually no one was talking to
me. An Asian friend and I were talking later and I mentioned this to
him. He told me that in Asia people stand close, within a few inches.
The culture's "personal bubble" is very small. American's personal
bubble is a couple of feet. So I would get close, the person would move
away, I would get close and we would slowly move across the room.
People felt uncomfortable with me without knowing exactly why. Once I
knew this I could adapt, or use it as needed.
In the same way, Americans have basically only three pronouns and every
other method of addressing someone comes as public, personal, or formal.
But in many languages, there are different ways to talk about distinct
family members, for example Korea in formal language has specific names
for first born son, or grandmother on the mothers side, or grandfather
on each side. At least that is what I was told.
Interesting that it happens in the nouns, Latin had a lot more verb tenses, I
vaguely remember a set of pluperfect tenses of verbs, although neither the words
nor the rules for using the tenses.
--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@xxxxxxx>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot
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