Cultural awareness

 

Post 7

 

Language, for example, English, has an entirely opposite grammatical order from Korean. Therefore, it was a real challenge for me and still a challenge when it comes to mastering and communicating in English. Settling in the Netherlands was also a big culture shock for me in climate-wise because here, you barely get to see the sun throughout the year and had to consume vitamin D all the time, which was a supplement I never have took in my life. Moreover, unlike European countries, we don’t have a freedom of way we dress because it was considered impolite to wear achromatic colors in many circumstances. But here, there isn’t really a thing of being self-conscious and you can express your freedom because that is who you are. On the other hand, there is some downfalls of having too much freedom because I hear and see quite a lot of sexual harassment, where women get cat-called in the street, which was also a culture shock for me as it has a high risk of getting sued or get ostracized from the community in my country.

This week, our group shared languages and here are some examples. To say I’m sorry I don’t understand in other languages, in German, it is “Es tut mir leid, ich verstehe nicht, in Italian, “Mi dispiace, non capisco” and Ukrainian, “Мене дуже шкода, я не розумію”, in English pronunciation, “Mene dozh-ye shko-dah, ya ne roz-oo-mee-oo”. Ukrainian, especially is unable to read unless you know their letters properly. But, German and Italian, it is was at least possible to read because they all derived from Latin alphabet. That also includes Korean because in Korean, it is “미안합니다, 몰라요”, which is also a complete different alphabet and in English pronunciation, it is called, “Mi-an-hap-ni-da, mol-la-yo”.