8 Cultural Differences between Native Speakers and English Learners

Hmm. Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.

Hi. James from engVid.

I've often said that learning language,

a foreign language is great. In this case, you're learning English, so congratulations.

But a lot of students, they learn the language, and they kind of forget about the culture,

like it doesn't really matter. Being an English speaker, I was born in England, and the culture

from England is very different from the culture from Canada, even though they are closely

related. So if you can imagine the cultural difference between someone from, say, China

and Canada, that would be fantastically different.

Well, as they say, as much as we're different, we're the same. But in this case, I want to

do a lesson on eight differences in culture

that if you're learning the language, which would be important.

Now, what I've done is shown the difference between the East and the West,

because frankly, you may be from the Middle East or Asia,

and you want to do business with Canadians or Americans or British people,

and you should see what we think are important.

And as well, this helps out English-speaking people about how we should communicate with

you when we're trying to teach you English. You like that? Let's go to the board.

We have Mr. E, here. He wants to eat his... Let's see. What should he eat? I'm going to

suggest that he has a pizza, because that's easy to draw, and anybody who knows me knows

I'm a terrible drawer.

There you go.

Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. He's having a piz-... Pepperoni pizza.

What would you suggest he eat with? A knife or a fork, or chopsticks?

Well, it seems obvious:

Use your hands. See, when you understand, you can manipulate or use things to your advantage.

Let's go to the board.

We'll start out with the West, which is where we are. All right? In the West, we say

"respect is earned". That means I cannot give you respect or look up to you until you have done something

to show me that you deserve my respect or I should give it to you. Just because you

say: "Hello, my name is" doesn't mean anything. You have to say:

"Hello, my name is, and I have done these things."

Because of that and if you do something that helps me, I will give you my respect.

Okay? In the East, it's a little different. In the East, what we say is:

"respect is due to hierarchy". Hierarchy? Well, just like the word says, think "high",

okay? The higher you are-okay?-the higher position you have. So if I come in and say:

"I am Generalissimo Kareer." You go: "Oh, I must give you great respect", in the East,

just because I am the General. I don't have to be a good General; I just have to be a

General. You must give me respect. Well, in the West, you'd have to be a good General

that's done a lot of good things.

Okay, number two:

open debate is encouraged. If you're going: "What is open debate?"

Open debate is conversation,

but it's more conversation where two ideas are conflicting or they don't

go together. You think A, they think B. So you don't both agree necessarily. Maybe you

think: "I don't agree with this person, or I don't like everything they say",

so you have a debate, which is a conversation to try and change each other's mind. Okay?

Open debate in the West is encouraged. If you don't like my idea, I'll say: "Why? What's wrong

with it? Why don't you come up with something? Tell me what you think, or tell me what's

wrong with my ideas." The challenge, we think, brings a greater result. In other words, if

you talk to me and we have a really good open debate, things should be better at the end

of the debate. Let's look at the East. In the East, open debate and confrontation is

avoided. Partly, this is because in the East... Remember we talked about hierarchy? There's

a level or layers? Well, if you question someone and they are on a higher level, you are not

showing them the respect they deserve, so it is almost better to do your debate... Or,

not even debate, but questions in a less public area. So it is not open debate; more of a

private thing with you and that person, and even then, you shouldn't really question them,

but ask questions of them. Okay? That's number two.

Number three, let's look at individual success and material success. In the West, they matter,

it's important. Yes, who I am is important, but it's who I am, just myself.

Have I done well in school? Have I made a lot of money? Have I bought a lot of things?

If so, I am good and I'm very successful, and this is great. Okay?

It sounds normal, until we consider

in the West, success is group success. That means: Yes, I've done well, but: How is my

brother? How are my parents? How is my sister? Is my family doing well?

If your family is not doing well, you cannot claim to be successful in the East. So they look at not even just

the family, but your society. Is your country doing well? Is your city doing well? If your

whole country is doing well, you are successful. If they are not, things are not good. While

in the West, it doesn't matter. Look at Donald Trump. Okay.

[Laughs].

If you don't know who he is, please watch The Apprentice and My Failure to be President, if you watch those

two movies or programs, you'll see what I'm talking about. Anyway. Where are we?

Next, let's go back here. Vocal leadership. In the West, we like our leaders to talk,

talk, talk, and tell you: "I'm the leader, listen to me because I'm the one who knows

what's going on. I am the important one. You should know this. I'm the leader. I make the

most, I talk the most. And look at me."

In the East, leadership is silent. It's not that

the leaders won't speak, they speak, but remember it's about group success? They will talk more about:

"We have done this, we are doing this. We, as a society or a group, are coming forward.

I am proud of my people." Versus: "I did it, and I'm the one."

Okay? So the leadership is a little bit more silent.

They say: "We lead from behind",

which is we lead, but we let the people take the credit or get the... Get praised.

While in the West, I stand in the front and I should get the praise, because I've done it. Okay?

Where are we now? Let's go down to five, which is strange: law more important than the relations.

In the West, we have what's called "the letter of the law". If the law says do this, you

must do this. It doesn't matter if you're my mother, my father, my brother, a good uncle

or a good friend. What does the law say I have to do? That is more important, that comes

first. In business relationships, let's say. Not necessarily family, but especially in

business relationships, we love contracts. We love to have the piece of paper, we like

to have the writing, because that tells us what I'm supposed to do and what you're supposed

to do, and everything's organized so there's no questions.

In the East, we notice relationships

are more important than the letter of the law.

This is true and not true. In the West,

we used to be more like this, but in the East it's still so, which is: When we shake hands,

that is the bond. The contract shouldn't be necessary. We... They do it because it is

the modern world, but they look at you as a person. If they don't trust you, they don't

care about the paper. What is the relationship like? Is it a good relationship? Then they

will sign the paper because they trust you, and they know that what you say they believe

will happen, not what the paper says. While in the West, we point to the paper and say:

"You have to do it because the paper said it. I don't need a relationship with you."

So in the East, they will try and actually make relationships, go out for dinner, meet

you in maybe your home just to get to know you so that they know when you say something,

they can believe it or trust it.

In the West, recent accomplishments matter.

An "accomplishment" is a deed or a goal. You

have done this, and you can show people: "Look what I have done. I have made a million dollars.

I have built a house. I have finished school and graduated."

They care or we care about recent. What have you done today?

Or Janet would say: "What have you done for my lately?"

We want to know what you've done today. We don't care about 20 years ago, that was 20 years ago.

Maybe you were a great movie star 20 years ago.

Tom Cruise, what have you done recently? Mission Impossible, what?

Okay. You know what I'm saying. Right?

When you look at that, we're looking at today. What matters is today. And it's true.

The sun comes up today. If you died 10 years ago, you don't matter anymore.

But today, what are you doing?

Talk to me about that. In the East, it's a little different. They like to look at you

might say character. Remember we talked about relationships? They look at what you've done

in the past because they believe what you did before-okay?-is what you're going to do

in the future. They think:

"Okay, if you've always been a good person, even if you make a mistake today,

you've been a good person, you'll probably be a good person again in the future."

Or if you're a bad person, you've always been bad: Just because you're good

today doesn't mean you're going to be good forever. And between those two differences,

you might say: "Wow, that's a really big world difference", because one seems to be based

on just the here and now with no thought to the future and no caring about the past. But

in some ways, in the West, we're more apt to... We're more able to say:

"Hey, look, if you change and want to be a better person,

we'll support that because we look at what

you're doing now. Maybe you were bad before, but you're good now. We give you a chance."

Well, in the West... The Eastern way of looking at it, if you were bad before, you're probably

still bad and shouldn't be trusted. Which is better? I don't know. Okay.

Now let's go to number 7: results matter. In the West, it's not what you were thinking about.

I wanted to help my friend who was on drugs,

and he was really, really, really, really needing them, so I bought the drugs so he would feel better.

That's my intention.

In the West, if that person dies, you can go to jail because: "Hey, he died."

But you would say: "I was trying to help them."

And we would say: "We don't care. What you did, what happened, the result was, that's what matters."

Okay?

If you look at the East, it's difference.

They talk about: "What were you trying to do?

What was in your head at the time? We know the person maybe died

because they took too many drugs, but you were trying

to kill them? No. You were trying to make them feel better,

to relax them, to make their life easier.

Oh, okay, well, that makes everything different."

And this goes back to the relationship thing.

If you have a relationship, there's a trust built in, so they look for your intention

and they go on that. Well, in the West because we're looking at what's happening now, the

result matters. What happened in the end? That's all that matters.

One last, one way to look at is here: exact time. What does that mean?

In the West,

12 o'clock means 12 o'clock.

In the East, 12 o'clock means

12 o'clock or 12:10, around that. Okay?

It's approximate. That's an important one, because if you have to meet somebody

from the West, especially if they're from Germany, meet at 12 o'clock. If they're from

maybe China or maybe, I don't know, Laos, 12:05, you'll be okay. All right?

Now, I want to do a test to see if you understand the cultural differences.

Actually, just before that, let's just go over really quickly.

What I want you to understand is there is really

no better one. I'm not saying West is better than East, it's just something to keep in

mind because we have a lot of relations, and our big world is becoming smaller, and in

order to understand each other, we have to understand how we think. And then we use our

language, we can use the right language at the right time with the right people.

Does that make sense? Good. I'm going to help you, because we're going to go do a test now to

test how well you understand the difference between here, which is relationship-based,

and here, where we base things on facts and exact matters. Or you could say:

the individual versus the society or the collective. All right.

Are you ready? Let's go to the board.

[Snaps].

Okay, test time. Now, just once again, I mentioned it, remember this is a generalization.

Countries such as Japan and Korea are, when I talked about the time thing, they're very much on

exact time, but in general... General thought, when we're saying that East has more of a,

we say, circular dynamic, they approach things a little bit holistically, while we are more

direct. Is one better than the other? Do you remember about the pizza? Is it better to

eat pizza with a knife and fork, or chopsticks? It's better with your hands.

So I would say a synthesis or bringing them together would be best, but let's do our test and take a look.

Here we go. Cowboy mentality. Cowboy mentality is the Western mentality. Right? We are like...

We are strong, we are individuals, we do everything by ourselves, even though the roads, and the

ships, and the airplanes are built by lots of other people, that doesn't matter.

If I'm a pilot, I fly the plane. I didn't make it, I didn't design it, I didn't invent it.

But that is our Western mentality, but it's kind of cool, because we think we can do anything

if we put our minds to it as an individual. Samurai mentality is this...You go:

"Samurais are individual soldiers." Not really. The Samurai, which is the Eastern mentality,

they serve, they serve a master, and they serve the greater good.

So even though they are powerful like a cowboy, they say: "I use my power for my master",

and in that way, we serve everybody; everybody is served.

As the individual, you would say:

"By my great accomplishments, I bring up society."

And in the East, they say: "By working together, we bring up society."

Yin and Yang. [Laughs]. Anyway. Moving on.

Quiz time. All right? Are you ready? We have top four questions on the board.

I'm going to ask the first one, and I want you to try to think carefully about all the information

I gave you: What would be the appropriate way to interact? Because that's what this

lesson is about. Yes, you speak English, but what kind of English should you be using?

A more direct line, talking to a Westerner, or coming at it from a side or a little softer,

on an angle for an Easterner? Let's go to the board.

When having an interview with an Asian manager, would he or she care more about

your past history, your performance over time,

or your recent accomplishments, what have you done lately? Remember Janet Jackson? Miss Jackson if you're nasty.

Okay. Think about it. Take a second.

That's right. They would care more about your past history. They're going to...

Even in the West, don't get me wrong, we do look back at your history to see what you've done,

but we're more looking at, you know, accomplishment, accomplishment, and then we

want to know: What are you doing now? What's important now? In the East, they're more looking

back at your character: What decisions have you made and what kind of character have you developed?

Similar but different. Right? Keep that in mind. So they're going to be looking

more for your past history, because they say that will show us what you'll do in the future.

Well, in the West, we'd be looking at: "Hey, what you're doing now is important, because

then we'll see what you're going." Right? So, answer to this one is: past history of performance.

Let's do number two. If you are having a conversation with a Western friend and you disagree with

them, which is your best approach? Have an open debate,

or say nothing and let them figure it out?

That's right. I was too quiet.

As a Western person, I would have said: You need to have an open debate.

Right? In the East, it's not that they don't talk, but they might

suggest something. Like if I said:

"Do I look fat in this coat?"

In the West, I'd go: "Yeah, you look fat. Change it." In the East, they would say:

"Hmm. Does a worm look big in a thimble?"

You go: "What!?" They're like: "Think about it, then you'll figure it out, then you will change the coat,

but I'm not going to say you look fat, but you'll know." Okay?

So it's a silly joke, but it's just saying they would give you some way to think about it;

while in the West, we just tell you yes or no. Okay? Once again, which one's better?

It's really not about being better. It's about understanding the culture. Okay? But in the

West, if you're having a conversation, you disagree with someone, we want to hear about

it. We don't want you to be silent. We want you to tell us what your disagreements are,

because we might think we can make something better by you saying something or bring up

something we never thought about. Okay? While in the East, they'd probably want to do it

in a different time in a different way.

Number three: If you are on a date with your new Western girlfriend

[clicks tongue]

"wonw, wonw",

or boyfriend, "roof, roof, roof". Okay?

And you want to impress them, which would

you...? Which would they care more about? Okay? Your success, your personal success,

or your family's success? Now, remember we're talking about your Western girlfriend or boyfriend.

That's right, you can hear the audience all clamoring around just now: "Yay!" in the background.

Well, they're going to care about your Ferrari, your new position, your new raise, and your

new house. They're going to care more about your success, because in the West, we think:

"Look, a person does what they do. It doesn't matter what you come from."

And that's part of our personal, we call it, ethos or our story. Or we like to think that anyone can

be anything, so a poor person can become President of the United States of America,

or the Prime Minister of Canada. We think that is true, and because of that, we think your success

is important. What are you doing? It's not where you came from. It's what you're doing

now and your successes; not your family's successes. So for your Western partner, tell

them about what you're doing, show them the keys. Okay?

Number four and our final one: If you want to convince an Eastern friend to do something,

which is your best approach? Sorry, I forgot a little... There. What's your best approach?

Do you talk about the results, how much money you're going to make, or the intention, the

reason why you should do it?

Now, think about it, it's an Eastern friend.

That's right.

In the East, what's important are your intentions and your effort. How much work did you put

in, what were you trying to do? They are aware that things happen in life, not always great.

But if you were trying to do the right thing, you should be treated accordingly or treated

correctly because you were trying to do the right thing. You won't always get the results.

Maybe in the future, it'll happen, but maybe it didn't happen now. So if you want to convince

them to start a business with you or do something, talk about your intentions, what you're trying

to do, and really talk about society, how it will benefit the society.

They're going to be much more reasonable or much more willing to help or work with you. Then in the West,

we would talk about results, like: What am I going to get? What's going to happen? Cool?

Well, the result of this video is you should have a better understanding

of the East and the West. And please remember the East is not just China, Korea, and Japan.

There's Vietnam, there's Laos, other countries, there's... India is considered part of the East. So when

we talk about these generalizations, and they are generalizations, remember we're talking

about a planet and a globe, and these are general ideas that if we approach these people

with an open mind and these ideas are in your mind, you will probably have a much more successful

relationship. And the West is the same.

America and Germany are Western, but they're not exactly the same, but the ideas of being

on time, and being results-driven are important.

But Germans also care about the environment

that they're in. See? A generalization will get you in trouble if you take it too seriously.

But on that note, in order to help you learn more and learn faster,

maybe go back and look at other videos on cultural differences we have on engVid,

I would like you to go to www, eng as in English, vid as in video.com (www.engvid.com)

where there'll be a test that you can take on this, and you'll learn more about our language.

Anyway, have a good one.

E, you look good as a Samurai.

Chow.