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Directness of your country or your TL | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5279 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 9 of 49 23 June 2012 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
I wonder whether I have been to imprecise here. I do not use directness as a euphemism for rudeness. Directness in my book, it to be able to be direct without being perceived as rude, within a specific cultural context. In the beginning in Spain, I cried a lot. First because all the shouting and gesticulating when I did not understand the language made me believe they were really mad at me, and later because their directness shocked me, and I interpreted it as unfriendliness. Now I know the cultural codes, and I can just laugh along, because I know that there is no ill will there. Spaniards are some of the kindest, nicest people I know - you just have to know that they will not only say things straight out, but they will even exaggerate things, in a friendly way. I have friends who refer to their sister as "La gorda", if my sister did that to me I would never have spoken to her again. Norwegians on the other hand, may come across as very rude, because we do not ever say "Yes, Sir, or "No, mam", we rarely remember to ask how people are or enquire about their family, and we rarely excuse ourselves when we bump into someone on the street. We are also very direct in our way, and in a business context I would bet that in particular the Brits, who are very sophisticated, regard us as very uncouth. Therefore I was not trying to describe a rude/polite scale. I was trying to describe how the different cultural context is neccesary to know when you learn a new language, so that you can interpret what you hear correctly. What is rude in one language, may be fine in another language, and sometimes you cannot apply the same rules in different languages. An English speaking friend of mine wanted those working in the kindergarden here in Norway, to teach her son to say "please" every time he asked for something. The thing is that this does not really work in Norwegian. We would just say "May I have" in stead of "I want". That is as polite as it gets. You cannot just add "please", you would have to redo the whole sentence, which would make it very formal and not fitting a 5 year old. But of course, yes, the individual differences are large, but it is still quite easy to spot trends. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 24 June 2012 at 12:07am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5711 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 10 of 49 24 June 2012 at 12:43am | IP Logged | |||||
Interesting. I must have made similar experiences myself, but my own overall impression was that when you compare German and Spanish culture, Germans tend transfer more of the physical attributes of a person to their personality. Spaniards seemed to be more natural about physical attributes, their bodies and needs than Germans to me. I can't really put numbers on how I perceive the behaviour of people from different cultures. I always try to pay attention to the situation and body language more than the actual words that are said to figure out what somebody means. Also, there are certain patterns of interaction that clash across cultures. For example, a French classmate told us about the problem he has with German bureaucracy. Like many other people, he finds is difficult and frustrating to deal with filling out forms and then having them looked through and be questioned about different points. So, the accepted German behaviour in such situations is to suck it up, and only later vent your frustration to friends or family. He told us he tends to express his frustration right there and then, which makes the official in charge feel threatened and offended, to which they in turn react negatively. In France, he said, he expresses his frustration in the same way but officials there usually know to ignore it because they realize it's aimed at the situation, and not at them; Germans believe that frustration aimed at the situation should be hidden, so they interpret its expression as aimed at them. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4804 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 11 of 49 24 June 2012 at 1:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, but being direct sometimes also mean that you're not afraid to use vulgarisms when you want to ;)
2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6542 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 12 of 49 24 June 2012 at 1:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah.
And Cristina, I wasn't under the impression that you meant polite vs rude :) I just focused on this part because it's probably the most common reason of not using the appropriate level of directness. It's a weird feeling when your own speech sounds rude to you, even though you know it actually isn't. It's probably also difficult when you're not sure whether you've been polite enough (when speaking the likes of Japanese, Korean etc), though I don't have any experience with that. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| COF Senior Member United States Joined 5776 days ago 262 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 49 24 June 2012 at 5:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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I find the politeness of British people to be over-estimated. Maybe it was once true, but Brits today seem as abrupt, rude and direct as anyone else, if not more so in many cases.
In fact, I have heard British people comment that they find Americans to be more polite and courteous than Brits. Edited by COF on 24 June 2012 at 5:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Darya0Khoshki Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5013 days ago 71 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Iraqi) Studies: Persian | Message 14 of 49 24 June 2012 at 6:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ha, ha. This is a great topic. Kurdish people routinely ask questions like, "WHY do you have so many zits?"
They have certain topics they're indirect about (like when they're asking for money), but when it comes to physical appearance, you say it like it is! This reminds me of an actual conversation overheard at church in Iraq between an Arab woman (from Mosul) and an Assyrian woman (from Northern Iraq): -"You're fat." -"I know." -"No, but I mean your stomach sticks out. Why? Aren't there exercises you can do for that?" I think both Arab culture and Kurdish culture are fairly direct about physical appearance, but maybe Kurds more so. For example, Kurds routinely throw out the word in Kurdish for "ugly" as if it's no big deal. They will even tell a shopkeeper that his suggestions for clothes he thinks they should buy are "ugly" if they don't like them. But I have NEVER heard Arabs use the Arabic word for ugly - it would almost have the meaning of something evil or perverse. (They will always say "not beautiful" instead). It has a much stronger meaning. However, when it comes to money or asking for favors, they are very indirect."Help me" can a euphemism for either "inflate my grades" (if you are a teacher) or "give me money". Interesting topic! 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5409 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 15 of 49 24 June 2012 at 9:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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The Japanese are of course well known for having made politeness into an art form. You are expected to
use formal Japanese with people even just a few months older than you (there are, of course, exceptions to this), and in contrast to languages like Russian and French, where people tend to start on the V form and switch to the T form by mutual consent after getting to know each other a bit better, it's entirely possible to have an intimate and lifelong friendship in Japan without ever switching to more casual forms. Indirectness is also a very important feature of Japanese, essential for keeping interpersonal relationships harmonious. One of the perennial irritants for foreign residents here is that Japanese people claim to be able to converse using almost no words and that foreigners, no matter how advanced their Japanese becomes, can never achieve this. I'm sure the claim is true to a certain extent, but I've also seen and been in many situations where a Japanese person has read a certain meaning into some utterance or other that was never there in the first place. Where the Japanese differ from Brits, at least, is their lack of a concept of personal space (get on a Tokyo train at 8am Monday morning and you'll see, or more precisely feel, exactly what I mean) and relaxedness around nudity (only with people of the same sex, mind you). Edited by TixhiiDon on 24 June 2012 at 9:28am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4804 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 16 of 49 24 June 2012 at 10:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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After reading this I wonder, how can we cope with communication between people? ;)
1 person has voted this message useful |
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