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Ending up disliking a TL and its culture | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4720 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 81 of 84 06 March 2012 at 3:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Even being a Brazilian, I can relate to many things you said. Not about the Portuguese course or the "taking things out of the bag" things, those were very rude and even illegal cases, no one's ever done this to me or to my Russian wife, for example.
I mean the high prices for bad service and all that, it is usually true. But about this:
I have to strongly disagree. People in the Northeast tend to be nicer indeed, but never more polite. Let's say it's easier to make friends in the Northeast, and you're usually very well treated, but education there is weaker than in the South, and you'll find much more people with no boundaries and impolite there than you would in Rio, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, etc. I don't want to generalize it. Isabliss (from this very forum) is from the Northeast and she's a lovely and very well educated girl. Also, services in general are MUCH better in the South, for fast internet, restaurants, malls, conferences, hotels, etc, etc... However, they are more humble, no questions there! Edited by fabriciocarraro on 06 March 2012 at 3:09am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4706 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 82 of 84 06 March 2012 at 5:19am | IP Logged | ||
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How people are being treated has less to do with whatever you attribute the natives to be, but more with how familiar these people are with you (and you with them).
There's more to communication than language. Behavior, body language, I could go on for a while and still miss a lot. What it boils down to: Yeah, while you might have been there for whatever amount of time, while you may speak fluently, you may have lacked in other departments. We have a saying here in Germany: "Wie du in den Wald rufst, so schallt's auch wieder heraus" (basically means, every action leads to some sort of reaction). This might have happened in the OP's case. Personally, I've met a lot of friendly Japanese who went out of their way to be helpful, without benefiting from that at all. Maybe one needs to put more effort into figuring out how culture is actually being lived by the natives instead of collecting theoretical facts and observing patterns of behavior, then filling in the blanks oneself - with one's, for this specific culture, alien concepts and ways to think and feel. (I also think women do way better in this department than us guys) Edited by atama warui on 06 March 2012 at 5:21am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5339 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 83 of 84 06 March 2012 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||
Your first story reminds me of many, many years ago, when I had invited a Bolivian friend to my home, and he just took one of my books from my book shelf, a collection of poems by Pablo Neruda, and said: "You have to give me this book, I need this book. You can buy it again whenever you like, I can't." And then he just took it with him. I was speechless. Which really doesn't happen very often! And it took me two years before I was able to find that book in a book store in Spain. In retrospect I am not so surprised. I have been enough around Latinos to know, that if I had wanted something that badly, they would just have given it to me as a present. In a way, I felt like the stingy one, for not offering the present to my friend. And of course he was right, even if it took some time, I was able to get it back, and I had the money to buy it, something which he hadn't. Otherwise I like to think that what you say about Norwegians is true. Most of us do appear very cold, and it can be quite difficult to make new friends, but once you make a friend, you are friends for life.A lot of the coldness is actually shyness, and yes, a desire to respect other people's personal life, but for someone who comes from a warmer culture, it may come off as disinterest and even rudeness. Perhaps we and the Russians are not so different after all? On the other hand, I have also made friends with very different nationalities, and I guess that once you clic, extraordinary friendships can be forged with people from any nation. I have friends that I consider family from both Spain, Peru and Ukraine, which all three are quite different. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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