I am a 22-year old student Office Management, I study translating and interpreting of English, French and Spanish at the University College of Ghent. Intercultural Communication is one of my subjects in my study program and for this purpose I opened this blog where I will publish now and then my experiences with people from other cultures.
For a start some background information about myself.
As mentionned above I study interpreting English, French and Spanish. I chose these languages for several reasons.
Firstly I chose French because I am half Belgian and half French. I speak fluently French as I speak it at home with my family. I travelled a lot to France to visit my family who live everywhere in France: Lille, Lyon, the Provence, the Pyrenees...France is a very important country to me and I consider it to be my second home country after Belgium which is my home country. It goes without saying that I am very familiar with the French culture, language and people.Basically I don't see much difference between the Belgians and the French but there are some which I will discuss later.
Secondly I chose English as it is the most important language in the world and people of my generation have grown up with this language thanks to American tv-shows and movies, which are all spoken in English and subtitled in Dutch on Flemish television.
Finally I had to choose between German and Spanish for the third language. I had already taken German classes in high school and I did not like it very much. Besides, I like southern countries, their language and their culture and this is why I chose to study Spanish.
In the class of 18 November we had a lesson about the differences in signs between cultures. This reminded me of something I saw once on tv.
Last year, during summer, I was watching an American reality show, I forgot the name of the program, but the show was about a big holiday resort for young adults where they can party all the time. You were only allowed to enter this resort if you were at least 21 years old. At a certain moment a random guy had to show his ID to the bar when he wanted to order some drinks. The date of birth was written like this: 11/03/1989. At that moment we were in the summer of 2010. The barkeeper called security as according to him, this guy was only 20 years old. After explaining half an hour that he was Spanish and in Spain dates are written different than in the USA, the security let him stay in the resort. In Spain, first the day is written, then the month and finally the year. In America the month comes first, then the day and finally the year. Is goes without saying that the barkeeper was not really wrong to call the security. However, the Spanish guy got lucky that the security believed him.
In the class of 18 November we had a lesson about the differences in signs between cultures. This reminded me of something I saw once on tv.
