Cultural misunderstanding and language exchange

 

POST №5

Cultural Misunderstanding/ Dilemma

Last year, I studied here for a foundation year. It was a very multicultural class, where I met a lot of new friends with very different cultural backgrounds. The only guy, that was always trying to socialize with others, but had some problems with it, was a Chinese student, from another class, that had never experienced intercultural communication before.  We thought that it would be a great idea, to help him to adapt faster. We decided to be friendly with him by giving him some sweets sometimes or inviting him for drinks. But after our first time going out, on the next day he texted us asking to have a Chinese traditional lunch together. We thought that he will show us, how to cook it, and we will share it together. However, on that day, he just brought already prepared lunch. We were shocked because we were supposed to learn how to cook it by ourselves. And what shocked us more, was that he already ate lunch, and just brought other parts of it to us. He was just standing and watching how we eat it. We felt very weird and tried to tell him about that, but he didn’t listen to us. After that, we tried to give him advice, that he was not right on that day. However, he was just stick to his own way of culture and didn’t listen to us.

 

 

 

Language exchange 

 

1)     German: Hund (dog)

Italian: Cane (dog)

South Korean: 개 (gae, dog)

Ukrainian: Собака (Sobaka, dog)

English: Dog

2)     German: Kaffee (coffee)

Italian: Caffè (coffee)

South Korean: 커피 (keopi, coffee)

Ukrainian: Кава (Kava, coffee)

English: Coffee

3)     German: Telefon (telephone)

Italian: Telefono (telephone)

South Korean: 전화기 (jeonhwagi, telephone)

Ukrainian: Телефон (Telefon, telephone)

English: Telephone

4)     German: Wasser (water)

Italian: Acqua (water)

South Korean: 물 (mul, water)

Ukrainian: Вода (Voda, water)

English: Water

5)     German: Computer (computer)

Italian: Computer (computer)

South Korean: 컴퓨터 (keompyuteo, computer)

Ukrainian: Комп'ютер (Komp'yuter, computer)

English: Computer