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This is great. I think we need phrasebooks for all cultures. I'm Indian, and a Chinese friend was pissed that Indians say "yes" and never do it. I think it's a
by sn41 7y ago
This is great. I think we need phrasebooks for all cultures. I'm Indian, and a Chinese friend was pissed that Indians say "yes" and never do it. I think it's a cultural no-no in India to say "no" to someone's face. I finally realised that a short "yes" most probably means "yes", and a long-drawn out "yes" probably means "no".
- Stratoscope 7y agoA good friend of mine from Japan said something similar: if someone says "we will do our best", it means "ain't gonna happen." I can sympathize with this! I have such a hard time saying "no", even (or especially) when that is what must be said. In any case, keep in mind that this is a fake phrasebook made for the sake of humor. It doesn't depict how Americans actually speak with each other, it's just all in fun.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- scarejunba 7y agoHahaha, it's like how "inshallah" is used colloquially.
- barry-cotter 7y ago> I'm Indian, and a Chinese friend was pissed that Indians say "yes" and never do it. I laughed. For a Chinese person to give any other culture shit about this is hilarious. The only thing foreign businesspeople in Shanghai complain more about than people saying they’ll do something and then forgetting or ghosting them is poor quality control/fraud.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- shifto 7y agoThis is not helpful for a Dutch person like me (who are usually very direct) when the IT has been outsourced to India. You ask them to do something, they say yes and when time comes it hasn't been done. This got me so annoyed.
- klaasn 7y agoI am a Dutch person outsourcing as well. I normally ask for a probability to complete by a certain date. That works well enough.
- quadrifoliate 7y ago> This is not helpful for a Dutch person like me (who are usually very direct) While we are at this, I think Dutch people should work on being less "direct", and also try to improve their sentence construction when writing English. Plenty of my (former) Dutch coworkers' emails in English just came across as rude, in both senses of that word.
- benj111 7y agoHows your Dutch sentence construction?
- scarejunba 7y agoI mean, if we're going down that road, might as well go one step back and ask how the Dutch fellow's understanding of Indian culture is. In any case, these are things you learn once. After that, the better you are at navigating the differences, the more successful you'll be. After all, it's low probability that you'll reform (in your mind) another culture and high probability that you can improve your ability to win. So might as well chase the win by modifying the self every time.
- benj111 7y agoLearning a language is hard. This whole thread is the differences between nations who speak the same language. If they can't agree what chance has a non native got? As a native English speaker I appreciate that I don't need to learn another language. But on the other hand, the language has also become the worlds language, so its about as fair criticising the Dutch for sentence construction, as it is for criticising Australians for making everything into a question?
- goatinaboat 7y agoIf you ever deal with offshore workers in India you very quickly learn to avoid yes/no questions.