Greetings Native English Speakers Do Not Use | Go Natural English

Hi, I'm Gabby from gonaturalenglish.com where you can learn to speak English fluently and with cultural confidence

Today we're talking about three greetings that native English speakers. Do not use but maybe they should

so these are

Greetings, we're talking more about the cultural side of the greetings rather than just learning the vocabulary of greetings

So this is about your cultural

Competency and about what I have learned from working and living all over the world

Well at least in a few different places

So I got this idea to talk about different greetings that native English speakers

Don't use when I heard a story of a Brazilian man where I'm living right now is Brazil who?

Went to the United States to work. He was fluent in English

His English was really good you guys and he had a huge cultural problem

So he learned English in the traditional way and a lot of traditional English classrooms. Don't teach the cultural part

So that's why we're talking about this today. So he went to the US and where I'm from so I'm talking about

United States North American culture here

I say native English speakers because I think we have a lot in common throughout the english-speaking world

but if you want to correct me if you want to say in the comments whether you know

You're from a different english-speaking country. And you do use these greetings. Awesome. Let me know

Anyway, this Brazilian man, let's call him Marcos de Silva cuz that's a nice Brazilian name. Just making it up

so Marcos went to the United States and he was

Working for about a month and then he got called into Human Resources, and they said Marcos we have to talk to you

It's serious. We have a lot of your co-workers

Complaining about your sexual harassment and he was like, what are you talking about?

This is a family guy a really

professional guy

And he didn't think that he was sexually harassing anyone but Human Resources said Markos

You're hugging everyone you're touching them inappropriately

And he was like what?

because in Brazil in professional

environments it is totally appropriate to

Hug people to greet them

so in the United States

It is not and a lot of his American co-workers felt like he was touching them too much. He was getting too close

Physically in North America we have this like, I don't know about three feet one meter

Of personal space we like to respect and so hugs

definitely kisses are not

Greetings that we do in the US and a handshake is always a safe bet

for men and women so I've been in different cultures where men and women don't even touch you don't even

Shake a man's hand if you're a woman or vice versa

That's a little weird for me because in the u.s. We

Shake everyone's hand in

Brazil and in Latin America, I really

Enjoy hugging people to greet them or giving them a little kiss on the cheek

I think it's really warm and nice, but you just have to know that in the United States people can be a little standoffish

We might seem a little cold if you're coming from a culture where everyone hugs and kisses each other

But that's just the way it is

so be careful and be smart and

Just don't touch people very much in the United States. Unless they say yes, it's okay. Like you can ask is it?

Okay, if I give you a hug and if they're like uh-uh

Probably the answer is no. Okay. So stay on the safe side don't get sued for sexual harassment. Okay

number two number one was hugging and kissing number two is

We do not

Greet everyone in a room when we arrive

We also do not say goodbye to everyone in a room when we leave

So this also might seem a little cold or a little

Self-centred - just arrived without saying hello and leave without saying goodbye

Again, it's just the way it is. It might seem strange depending on where you're from

but when I went to live in the Dominican Republic

Many many years ago. This is the first time that I realized that

it's

Common, and actually really nice to say hello to everyone in a room when you arrive

office or at a party or

wherever it may be also when you leave but

Thankfully for my American

Cultural norms. I've been able to leave

Parties and situations that I'm not comfortable in in a hurry because I didn't feel it was necessary to say goodbye to everyone

So sometimes it can take a long time to say hello and to say goodbye. I think that we when we arrive at the office

we

Can say good morning we can say hello, but it's not necessary

I'm the kind of person who always likes to say hello to everyone in the room and say good morning

And I just love to connect with people as soon as possible

And I think a lot of that comes from living in the Dominican Republic living in Brazil living abroad in many

Cultures that really take the time to connect with each person in their own

But you should know if you go to the United States

It is not very common to greet everyone in the room when you arrive at the office

And it's also not common to say goodbye to everyone in the room number three

Okay, this comes from my years living and working in Japan. There's two really cool

phrases or

cultural

Actions behaviors, that's the word. I'm trying to say that a Japanese people do in the office

so when they arrive if you arrive later than your co-workers you would say, osaki me should sedation Oz and

That means I'm sorry for arriving later than you. How nice is that?

So I think it's pretty cool that people say that to respect each other and to say hello

But we don't have anything like this in the US. So in the u.s. You would just we arrive at work

Maybe say hello if you make eye contact with people

But the people that you don't make eye contact with you don't need to say hello, and you don't need to say I'm sorry

I arrived later than you just if you arrive late just try to be there earlier

The next day being on time is super important. I'll say that or even early for work

So also another phrase from Japan that I really liked was

It's got a sama

which means thank you for your hard work and often at

The end of a work day or even during a work day people would say, oh, it's kaio-sama

Which is thank you for your hard work

acknowledging and respecting someone's dedication to their work is really a lovely thing and we don't really have anything like this in

North American culture we might say thank you we say thank you very often actually

We don't have any phrase that is thank you for your hard work that we use often

And so I really like this phrase because it's a way that you can connect with your co-workers start a conversation or end a conversation

and

Yeah, and it's nice but as a native English speaker, I can't think of anything that we have like this

So if you want to thank your co-workers just simply say thank you. I appreciate

everything that you're doing and you're so helpful and

You kind of have to like just talk a lot and and use a lot of different words and phrases to express your thanks

Whereas in Japanese we have this nice little common phrase that's used all the time. So there we have it three

Greetings or goodbyes or phrases that we use in other cultures, but not in North American culture

So the first one is actually not even a phrase. It's just the way that we greet people

We don't use a hug and a kiss

We would simply shake hands if it's the first time you're meeting someone but if you're in an office environment

You don't need to shake everyone's hand every day

We just shake hands the first time we meet someone or if we're doing a business deal

We shake hands when we conclude the business deal

Otherwise, we don't need to shake and that's actually another cultural difference that I forgot to mention that

we don't shake hands as much I've worked with students from

many different countries and I noticed that a lot of my

students from the Middle East

also

From some parts of Europe would shake my hand every single time that we met

Even though we'd known each other for a long time and I thought okay, this is nice

But it's not normal in North American culture to shake someone's hand every single time

You see them just the first time you meet them

And then if you're concluding a business deal like you, you know sold your house or something

You could shake someone's hand when you sell the house. So

No hand shaking besides the first time and the last time you see someone no hugging no kissing

Sorry about that. Just hello

Good morning

And then we also don't need to say hello or goodbye to everyone in the room

Just people who you're working closely with people who you make eye contact with. Otherwise, you don't really need to

Announce your arrival or announce your departure and if you want to say thank you for someone's

Great work with you simply say thank you. It's really a pleasure to work with you. I appreciate

Everything that you are doing. Thank you for everything. Just use other words like that when it's appropriate

You don't need to say this every single day. If you do say this every single day, it could come off as actually

insincere

Because we don't usually thank someone every single day for their work like I experienced in Japan, which is really nice. So I

Missed some of these things when I work in the u.s

I definitely missed some of these things that I've experienced working and living abroad

but I just wanted to share them with you so that you know if and when you go to

live study or work in the United States that there's nothing wrong with you if people aren't

hugging you or kissing you or

Greeting you or saying goodbye to you or thanking you for the for your work?

Nothing wrong with you

just

observe how

People are acting in an environment and try to follow that because I will say

Every work environment is different and the greetings or the behaviors that you practice in a work environment

highly depend on the cultural environment of

That business I will say it again. Every business is a little different if you work at a huge corporation

The feeling would be even more

Formal and professional than if you're working at a small

Startup which could be super informal and people might hug and give high-fives and say hey, what's up, man? Good morning

And it could be a more relaxed atmosphere. So take my advice here with a grain of salt and be sure to

observe your environment to

See what makes sense for where you are working or living or studying

All right. Let me know your thoughts about these different greetings that we don't do. Do you think Americans should do them?

Let me know in the comments. I can't wait to hear from you

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