Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6148 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes
| Message 1 of 46 17 November 2008 at 5:17am | IP Logged |
How common is it to remove your shoes before entering a house around your area?
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zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6372 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 2 of 46 17 November 2008 at 5:26am | IP Logged |
Well, I live in Australia. I reckon about 1 in every 10 people practice this
'religiously'. Others usually just take their shoes off for comfort and to preserve
the carpet.
Not many would make you, the guest, take your shoes off.
When I have my home, I'll take my shoes off for comfort mostly. But I don't care too
much about preserving the carpet. A house is meant to be lived in not preserved. :)
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Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 3 of 46 17 November 2008 at 5:38am | IP Logged |
I find it's pretty rare in Switzerland/Italy. Shoes are basically never removed before entering, and during dinners/parties/etc at a house, while shoes are sometimes removed near the entrance, the overwhelming majority of the time they're not.
In Canada, it was another matter - absolutely no one would leave their snow-sodden boots on and track snow all over the house, or mud, depending on the season.
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Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6109 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian
| Message 4 of 46 17 November 2008 at 5:47am | IP Logged |
Volte wrote:
I find it's pretty rare in Switzerland/Italy. Shoes are basically never removed before entering, and during dinners/parties/etc at a house, while shoes are sometimes removed near the entrance, the overwhelming majority of the time they're not. |
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I agree regarding Italy. Then at your home you often use slippers.
In Finland shoes are almost always removed, unless it is an important happening with a dress code.
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tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6678 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian
| Message 5 of 46 17 November 2008 at 6:36am | IP Logged |
In Sweden you remove them. Where I'm from (= the north) you don't walk one meter inside the house with your shoes on.
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furyou_gaijin Senior Member Japan Joined 6386 days ago 540 posts - 631 votes Speaks: Latin*
| Message 6 of 46 17 November 2008 at 6:47am | IP Logged |
I went apartment-hunting two months ago and made the capital mistake of wearing tight shoes with laces. Sixteen
apartments in one day. Big, big mistake.
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anamsc Triglot Senior Member Andorra Joined 6203 days ago 296 posts - 382 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Written), French
| Message 7 of 46 17 November 2008 at 7:12am | IP Logged |
In Spain, I have found that it is also very uncommon, although when people are in their own houses they often use slippers. Where I am from in the US, it is common courtesy to ask when entering a house whether or not you should take your shoes off, but I would say people would want you to maybe half the time.
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TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6080 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin
| Message 8 of 46 17 November 2008 at 7:20am | IP Logged |
In Cornwall (at least) it depends on what you're doing in the house. If you are just dropping something in, or spending only a little time in the house, you keep them on.
If you are coming for a while, you take them off. It's not offending if you don't do it, just everybody does! I have no idea why - for respect, comfort or something else!!
TEL
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