Posts Tagged ‘multicultural society’
Pardon my French, we are all English here! - Part 1
Sunday, April 29th, 2012
Today, we live in a multicultural society with so many people speaking very many different languages. This is very much in contrast to say other parts of the world say China or India where the language itself may have dialects but there is usually a predominant one which most people speak and understand. USA is a melting pot of many cultures and though English is the first language, there are many other spoken languages at work here. The English language itself has been turned upside down and we are now finding that we sometimes don’t even understand the English people! The result of the infusion of people from differing cultures has brought about some interesting dialects and interesting usage of the English language spoken by people whose first language is not English. Since the dating game in USA has many crossbreeds of people mixing and working together there is bound to be some communication issues. Here are some essential tips when you come across dates that don’t have English as their first language.
Apart from the obvious pronunciation difficulty of some words, there is a tendency for people to apply the English as spoken in their own natural language. For example they may say the action words first and then the person doing it ie. “he is doing it”, turns to “doing it is he”. This is much like the Yoda character in Star Wars where he would say things like ‘Decide you must, how to serve them best’. The general advice when you do come across your date mincing those words is to smile and be amused. If your date is a woman then you may go as far to say it’s a very likeable quality. Language is a funny thing and we have many people who are self-conscious of the way they speak especially if the person finds that other people to be ridiculing them whenever they speak. Unfortunately, the birth of the English Language which is the United Kingdom is often a culprit to this kind of profiling. However, over time as racial integration kicked in more people are now open to the nuances of the language as spoken by people of different cultures.
Tags: across dates, China or India, communication issues, English people, general advice, multicultural society, Pardon my French, people of different cultures, racial integration, we are all English here!