And here I was thinking Brits were so charmingly bantery and easy to understand haha!
In my experience living in the US, Americans are an amped up exaggeration of the Brits depicted here, with everything being maniacally AWESOME, nothing sincere ever said and everything being taken literally all the time.
The part about being hot in a room was hilariously recognizable – countless meetings at schools, events etc where you can almost feel people’s teeth chatter as they clutch themselves with bluing fingers but no one says anything until you the foreigner ask if they can turn down the AC. I continue to be surprised by a certain prevalent conformism in the Anglosphere.
I developed a certain low-key hatred for the word AWESOME after living in the US. It was too much for the mostly indifferent European in me. But in contrast with the British, my experience with North Americans was that they were also very straight forward when the occasion demanded it, which I really appreciated. If they were hot, they simply said “Can you please turn on the AC to the polar setting, please? It doesn’t feel icy enough in here”
Yes, second the attitude to AWESOME. For me, something has to be truly "awesome" for me to call it that, otherwise it's just rendering words meaningless. Like that "objective distribution" meme https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzZ6s6QWUAAOBTt?format=jpg&name=large (I'm Eastern European)
The "polar setting" made me laugh out loud! The special relationship with extreme air conditioner settings and ice in drinks.
I think as an expat/immigrant there’s always the “exotic foreigner” card, like I will say and do weird stuff because I’m just the outlier weirdo.
There is so much more to language than just the words and the meaning isn’t it. Language is formed in and by culture so without understanding culture it’s so difficult to really “get” what people mean. It also took me a while to adapt to British working culture, especially them writing 7 paragraphs just to ask or convey the simplest thing! Though in the end I came to appreciate and enjoy the passive aggressiveness of writing things like “Not sure if you’ve had the chance to read my email following your request for information “. Anyway from the title I thought you were going to write about similar words with different meanings in languages. I was looking forward to the embarrassed/ embarazada joke 😂
"Language is formed in and by culture so without understanding culture it’s so difficult to really “get” what people mean." This has reminded me of the first time I heard the expression "not my cup of tea" and I was so puzzled because there was no tea whatsoever involved and I just didn't know what was going on 😂 But when you think about it, only in the UK could such an expression be used to say "it's not for me." I thought about the title a lot, but then False Friends seemed to convey that idea of it looks one thing, but it's actually another that I was going after. Glad it worked 😂
Rather than learning a language twice, I dare say we learned two languages. Or, the meaning of what a language is expands to include the performance of language. Very cool and funny examples, I especially liked the isn't it hot in here one. 🤭
Also you made me remember my pragmatics classes!! I loved them back then, so useful in real life too, it turns out.
Also! And that's without even discussing the differences between the way people speak a language and how they write it. That'll be a third language in itself. Ah, the language learning journey can be the most exciting and the most frustrating 🙃
Glad I brought you back to pragmatics - for some reason I started thinking about it and how many examples we come across in every day life.
"The thing is he thought he could get rid of me in 15 minutes and I’d be fine with it. Wrong, mate, that’s not going to happen,” this brought me so much joy. Use their odd ways in your favour!! hahahah
By the way, I’ve just remembered there’s a great French comedy film called Quai d’Orsay that is a parody of the inner workings of diplomacy and the main character (based on French Foreign Affairs Secretary Dominique de Villepin) is obsessed with language.
For what it's worth, Boris did a fine job here by telling people to "stay at home" when he meant "go to work". That was an interesting period of our lives 😅
And here I was thinking Brits were so charmingly bantery and easy to understand haha!
In my experience living in the US, Americans are an amped up exaggeration of the Brits depicted here, with everything being maniacally AWESOME, nothing sincere ever said and everything being taken literally all the time.
The part about being hot in a room was hilariously recognizable – countless meetings at schools, events etc where you can almost feel people’s teeth chatter as they clutch themselves with bluing fingers but no one says anything until you the foreigner ask if they can turn down the AC. I continue to be surprised by a certain prevalent conformism in the Anglosphere.
I developed a certain low-key hatred for the word AWESOME after living in the US. It was too much for the mostly indifferent European in me. But in contrast with the British, my experience with North Americans was that they were also very straight forward when the occasion demanded it, which I really appreciated. If they were hot, they simply said “Can you please turn on the AC to the polar setting, please? It doesn’t feel icy enough in here”
Yes, second the attitude to AWESOME. For me, something has to be truly "awesome" for me to call it that, otherwise it's just rendering words meaningless. Like that "objective distribution" meme https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzZ6s6QWUAAOBTt?format=jpg&name=large (I'm Eastern European)
The "polar setting" made me laugh out loud! The special relationship with extreme air conditioner settings and ice in drinks.
I think as an expat/immigrant there’s always the “exotic foreigner” card, like I will say and do weird stuff because I’m just the outlier weirdo.
That graphic meme about the use of awesome seems rather accurate : ) The Australians and the French seem to have similar standards.
Agree, and the "objective distribution" control part must be continental Europe
There is so much more to language than just the words and the meaning isn’t it. Language is formed in and by culture so without understanding culture it’s so difficult to really “get” what people mean. It also took me a while to adapt to British working culture, especially them writing 7 paragraphs just to ask or convey the simplest thing! Though in the end I came to appreciate and enjoy the passive aggressiveness of writing things like “Not sure if you’ve had the chance to read my email following your request for information “. Anyway from the title I thought you were going to write about similar words with different meanings in languages. I was looking forward to the embarrassed/ embarazada joke 😂
"Language is formed in and by culture so without understanding culture it’s so difficult to really “get” what people mean." This has reminded me of the first time I heard the expression "not my cup of tea" and I was so puzzled because there was no tea whatsoever involved and I just didn't know what was going on 😂 But when you think about it, only in the UK could such an expression be used to say "it's not for me." I thought about the title a lot, but then False Friends seemed to convey that idea of it looks one thing, but it's actually another that I was going after. Glad it worked 😂
Rather than learning a language twice, I dare say we learned two languages. Or, the meaning of what a language is expands to include the performance of language. Very cool and funny examples, I especially liked the isn't it hot in here one. 🤭
Also you made me remember my pragmatics classes!! I loved them back then, so useful in real life too, it turns out.
Also! And that's without even discussing the differences between the way people speak a language and how they write it. That'll be a third language in itself. Ah, the language learning journey can be the most exciting and the most frustrating 🙃
Glad I brought you back to pragmatics - for some reason I started thinking about it and how many examples we come across in every day life.
Pragmatics is fascinating, although I'm not a pragmatic type of person. ☁️ 😊
"The thing is he thought he could get rid of me in 15 minutes and I’d be fine with it. Wrong, mate, that’s not going to happen,” this brought me so much joy. Use their odd ways in your favour!! hahahah
This friend of mine is afraid of nothing! I'm getting a flashback now of when she told me this story and how much we laughed 😂
Hilarious. The meeting and post-meeting Jekyll and Hyde thing is so spot on - cannot tell you the number of times...
You do question if you have imagined everything! But no, it's just English working its magic
Can you imagine how this plays out in the arena of world politics?!
By the way, I’ve just remembered there’s a great French comedy film called Quai d’Orsay that is a parody of the inner workings of diplomacy and the main character (based on French Foreign Affairs Secretary Dominique de Villepin) is obsessed with language.
oh sounds intriguing! Will look it up!
For what it's worth, Boris did a fine job here by telling people to "stay at home" when he meant "go to work". That was an interesting period of our lives 😅
This is a dream to read and I hope that’s clear x
I'm very glad to hear because our conversation about you know who has partially inspired it 😅