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Fri, 21/08/2009 - 13:27

Hidden meaning

If you are an international student in Australia there is a good chance that you will experience a culture shock. (read Bert’s blog from last week). And this will not only happen when you are from a non-western culture like China or India or somewhere else in Asia. I believe the shock may be even bigger if you are from a western culture but not Anglo Saxon, like from Europe for example. At first things do not feel all that different. Your English is probably good enough to understand the Aussies, although the accent and slang may take a bit of time to get used to. The TV shows are the same even the supermarkets and restaurants offer such a diversity of cultural foods that you may feel at home rather quickly. But then problems start as small differences can lead to large misunderstandings. You will need an Australian `culture phrase book` to be able to communicate in such a way that people not only understand what you mean, but most importantly so you can understand the cultural meaning behind Australian conversations.

Politeness

Politeness is a matter of culture. In Australia you cannot say `please` or `thank you` enough. As you will notice for example in a bakery: The girl behind the counter will say `thank you` (a guy may say `thanks mate` after you’ve got to know him better) when she gives you the bread, when she receives your money, when she gives change back to you and often again at the end saying `thank you good buy`. Foreigners who do not understand these polite etiquettes are misunderstood or regarded as rude.

Sorry

Australians, like most Anglo Saxons, are not as direct as for example Europeans. It is common not to say: “give me some bread please”. No, an Australian would say: would it be possible for you to reach over there and pass me the bread please? Remember: you can never be indirect enough. A good word for being indirect polite is the overused word `sorry`. In Australia much time is spent on educating children about being sorry. “Say you are sorry”; “What do we say now?”; “Please apologise or else!” If by accident, you would step on someone’s tow, the Australian victim would say `sorry`, while you are expected to say the same! For most questions it is rather polite to use the words: “I’m sorry but........”. I am sorry but could I sit here? I am sorry but could you please not throw beer over me? And there are many ways to say sorry like: I wasn’t thinking; My fault!; I apologise; Forgive me etc.

How are you?

Many people, even complete strangers, say “How are you?” the first time you meet them. It sounds very friendly but it can take a while before you realise that “How are you” is not a question! It just means “Hello”. You are not expected to start explaining how you feel. The correct answer is “great how are you?”. Make sure that you always feel great, even if you do not feel all that great at all. In Australia you are in general expected to upgrade everything with at least two levels. So if you feel okay, you feel great. And if you like something a lot you must say that it is `fantastic, really great`!

More examples

There are many more examples of cultural politeness where it is good to take things not all that literally.

The following table shows some common misunderstandings:

Australian says	Meaning
If an Australian says: `Let’s have lunch some time`. What do they mean?	Well, most of the time they are just being polite so don’t book a table for the next day.
When an Australian says: “I have to think about it” what does that mean?	I have thought about it and the answer is No.
When a teacher says: You might want to consider reading that text	He means: I absolutely expect you to read that text!
When a teacher says: You would want to read it.	He means: you must do it now!
If a fellow student in the group says: `Yeh, that is interesting`.	She means: It is crap, I don’t like the idea.
If a teacher says: That sounds great!!! (lot of exclamation marks)	He means: That is not so bad. If he really liked your paper he would go into more trouble making sure you would understand that: your paper is fantastic, truly outstanding work, worth a High Distinction.
If a teacher says: your paper is okay but....	He means it is very poor and still needs a lot of work!

Please let me know more examples of misunderstandings between Australians and international students, leave a comment! Next week I will write about business culture and how it can affect your work.

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Comments

Zaida Segura said:

Totally agree!, about the "polite way" of avoiding saying "no" replaced by " I have to think about it", definitely Australians look are bit more friendlier than for example English people, that normally are much more straightforward.

The greeting of how are you? as a "Hello" is very common in my language too, I didn't even notice how often, we do use it in spanish.

Tue, 25/08/2009 - 22:40

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