Culture

[Tombo]

I'm pretty sure personal attacks aren't allowed... still, it is cool to take the pee out of someone's interests without admitting that you have none of your own...

Calm down, I was joking.

Mods, any chance of moving this to SC so we can get away from the children and idiots? For some people this is an interesting subject due to the incredible changes it brings in behaviour and we're having this spoiled with brainless one-liners and bacteria trying to wind people up miles more intellectually superior than anything they can ever aspire to be. If not, just lock it and I'll rewrite something in SC.

 

[Col_M]

Well I've lived in Prague for coming up to a couple years now and I seem to be a square peg in a round hole. It's not that I don't like the country or people on the contrary I think they're really nice and Prague is a beautiful city with everything a modern city should have. I just seem to feel at odds with everything that happens here, the way the people think and how they do things and find it hard to adapt my way of thinking.

I think the fact that I haven't learnt a lot of the language doesn't help, I know I should but it's easy to get by without it, that and when I do try I get Russian and Czech mixed up. I've thought about taking classes but it comes down to time and money. The other thing is in the back of my mind I want to move back to the UK in a few years anyway so think why bother as I'll never use it again. Not the best attitude I'll agree but it's just the way I think.

Living with my gf I've probably picked up more Russian culture than Czech because I'm exposed to it more often and it's much stronger than Czech.

 

[nicktay2605]

My aunt lives in the USA and has done so now for over 30 years, and she is much more American than she is British, so much so that I forget that for the first 25 years of her life she lived in Manchester!

I think that it doesn't take very long to get immersed in the local culture and learn the language but I think it would take me at least 10 years of living in a foreign country to become more foreign than British, if that was to ever actually happen.

 

[Shoseki]

I find we're quite adept at adapting, depending on whom I'm with. I tend to swear in English for emphasis, rather than offence... London trait? Northerners don't seem to do it like I do. When I lived in Korea, I thought I remained British throughout... but when I came back people pointed out things I did differently... and I was only there for a few months. Maybe we adapt to blur in.... to protect ourselves from standing out.



あなたは日本語がわかりますか。

漢字はとても難しですね。

Hai hai! Demo, kanji o kaeru koto ga dekimasen kara, romaji o tsukatteimasu.

Actually, to be honest, I am a little confused even by some of the kanji in the second sentence, I think 難 is "omo" as in omoshiroii (interesting), but I am guessing 漢字 means some kind of school (I recognise 字).

I only know about 30-40 kanji probably at the most, and certainly not the onyomi and kunyomi of them all, let alone combinations.

EDIT : And by japanese book, I mean Japanese for Busy People (am on book 2, just started kanji)

 

[meghatronic]

Actually, to be honest, I am a little confused even by some of the kanji in the second sentence, I think 難 is "omo" as in omoshiroii (interesting), but I am guessing 漢字 means some kind of school (I recognise 字).

あなたは日本語がわかりますか。

漢字はとても難しですね。

anatawa nihongoga wakarimaska? - you understand Japanese?

kanjiwa totemo muzukashi desune - kanji are very difficult, aren't they?

漢 means (in this instance) "Chinese", and 字 characters.... Thus kanji 漢字 Chinese (han) characters. 難 = difficult, arduous etc....

 

[Shoseki]

anatawa nihongoga wakarimaska? - you understand Japanese?

kanjiwa totemo muzukashi desune - kanji are very difficult, aren't they?

漢 means (in this instance) "Chinese", and 字 characters.... Thus kanji 漢字 Chinese (han) characters. 難 = difficult, arduous etc....

Damn! I even have 漢字 on my background saying "Kanji - Gotta catch em all!"... but too difficult to recognise when chisaii

I am assuming you are a bit of a pro at the old japanese

EDIT : Its the font, or perhaps its firefox, but 漢 looks like a white clump character on my screen. *puts on glasses*

 

[whitecrook]

Well I don't have much expereince but I was working and living in Belgium a few years ago for about 4 months. After a month or so I found I was picking up a bit of the language, and by the end of my stay I could successfully navigate about the place, order food and buy things, restaurants and all that stuff, count money, answer people when they ask the time and stuff all in French, without using English at all. OK, for some people they can do this is 3rd year at school, but I hadn't spoke a word of french for 10+years since school.

Not so much culture related, but I don't think it really takes long before just being in a situation like that, the mind just starts to absorb things subconsiously. Conversations overheard, signs, adverts, TV etc. And you start to talk to yourself in french in your mind

 

[meghatronic]

Damn! I even have 漢字 on my background saying "Kanji - Gotta catch em all!"... but too difficult to recognise when chisaii

I am assuming you are a bit of a pro at the old japanese

EDIT : Its the font, or perhaps its firefox, but 漢 looks like a white clump character on my screen. *puts on glasses*

Re: EDIT, the curse of Japanese on a screen... I think it might be to do with AA/smoothing/font stuff, as printed it's fine.

I'm not a pro AT ALL, but have an oral tomorrow... わるい！！！

 

[krooton]

I spent my first 19 years in Cape Town, and have been in the UK for almost 7 years now.

You'd be hard pressed to know I was a saffa, I'm fully integrated into British society and sound like a public schooled guy

 

[Rainmaker]

...i behave in ways that people in the UK find baffling, yet i still find totally normal, and frequently i find English people strange for things that in the UK are perfectly normal.

This interests me, also. Care to give a couple of examples of both? That is, "strange" English habits and "baffling" SA habits?

 

[Heliospherez]

On out last training course (in Europe) - the two guys teaching us were both originally from near Amsterdam & were both working in Liechtenstein (and had been for over 10 years)

One of the guys could speak 7 languages fluently. They had both worked in loads of countries in Europe, but preferred the regions around Switzerland, Austria etc.

Their main (work) language was English but they chatted together in Dutch. I think deep down, they hadn't really changed at all. They acted dutch, even though they spent very little time there. But they knew so much about each of the countries and cultures of Europe it was shocking and showed me how little we know or understand about other countries due to us being stuck on an Island on the side of Europe.

 

[drizzy]

Have only been here since June 2007, generally find it very similar to Australia, only better in most ways except for the weather. Not really a culture to adapt to, mostly just new systems/companies/departments/goods etc. with which I'm not familiar. Probably since I was originally from a city of about 150,000 people the whole moving to a big city thing was more of a change than the actual country.

Or possibly I just haven't been here long enough to realise that I'm doing strange things and everyone is too polite to tell me

Language-wise I'm getting all sorts of confused. I'll jokingly use 'well good' and throw random 'innit's around, but then find myself use a certain tone/accent in some situations completely accidentally which is really driving me nuts. I've never had a particularly broad Aussie accent anyway so I feel like I'm starting to forget what 'normal' for me is, particularly when drunk. It's well confusing innit.