Campfire: What is the biggest problem, other than language, communicating with someone from another country?

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Permalink Reply by KTHarHar on March 26, 2008 at 12:47am

You've been to Mongolia? That's really cool. I'd like to travel the world someday. It seems like a neat place. :D

And the sun may be up for you, but it's 3 in the morning here in the states. I better get some shut-eye -_-zZ

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Permalink Reply by Flamekebab on March 26, 2008 at 1:02am

Mongolia was beautiful but I wasn't really a fan of the culture. I far prefer New Zealand!

Speaking of that, my parents have finally got back from there so I'm going down to Wales to see them (I'm a student in Edinburgh), I've ended up staying up all night because it was less hassle than trying to not oversleep and miss my train!

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Permalink Reply by dee oh cee on March 26, 2008 at 12:03am

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Permalink Reply by Bashar Al-Ba'noon on March 26, 2008 at 1:16am

This is my first video response in Epic-Fu and probably my last :S

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Permalink Reply by LVS on March 26, 2008 at 6:50am

That was a great video post Bashar.

I've experienced Culture Shock. I was in Thailand last year and the poverty shocked me. I really didnt know how to act for the first 24 hours. I didnt want to just be another dumb westerner. I found that my attempts in speaking thai and being polite went along way to people feeling at ease around me... they opened up and talked more about their lives. Respect and genuine interest goes a long way.

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Permalink Reply by Bashar Al-Ba'noon on March 26, 2008 at 1:38pm

Thanks LVS *blushes*

I guess this is a solid proof that all people in the world could adjust with each others if they really wanted to.

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Permalink Reply by Richa on March 26, 2008 at 10:42pm

This probably isn't the biggest issue when communicating with someone from another country, but I personally know it can be really annoying. The time difference. I have an online friend who lives in England and we usually find it difficult to talk a lot cos either he has to stay up all night till morning or visa versa. We both have school, which doesn't really help the situation at all.

On a more general scale, religion is a big difference. So is language, and I'm proud to say that I can somewhat understand that spanish comments posted on this discussion. It's only because I'm learning spanish in school. I think people in general should be exposed to different languages as well as different cultures. And I'm sure it'll surprise most in how similar they really are to those cultures.

-Reesh =]

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Permalink Reply by Flamekebab on March 28, 2008 at 1:15pm

A minor cultural difference here, but I thought perhaps it might be worth mentioning - it sounds very odd to me when people from the US refer to the UK as "England", whilst they're not necessarily wrong (although whenever people say I live in England they're wrong) it's a bit, well, out of date. Is there a reason you guys always say "England" rather than referring to the whole nation that is Britain?

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Permalink Reply by Richa on March 28, 2008 at 2:43pm

I guess it's just how we were raised? Or maybe it's cos we call y'all English, so to keep it straight we refer to the country as England. Personally, I never call it Britain, only England or the UK, lol.

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Permalink Reply by Leadpipe on April 8, 2008 at 8:17am

to be fair, as an American, the differences between "England" "Britain" and "U.K." are not understood, nor taught in our schools. I had to go on some pretty lengthy searches for the difference, and I'm still pretty fuzzy on the difference.

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Permalink Reply by Mayank on March 27, 2008 at 2:14am

A big part of my undergraduate study is dealing with communication in what we marketers call "The Global Village" where the workplaces nowadays are really diverse as far as their ethnic mix is concerned and also that many western countries themselves are starting to see their demographics change to a very mixed and multi-cultural set up.

Other than language there are non verbal signals we send that make alot of difference in communication like making eye contact is considered threatening in some cultures/countries while in others it might mean that the person is honest and truthful. Also there are things like humour which may be perceived in some countries as a way of 'breaking the ice' but may be considered disrespectful in some countries. The main problem i have found personally in inter-cultural communication is that in some cultures the same things may have different meanings depending on which context they are used in but in most western cultures the context is not seen as important compared to the actual message itself.

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Permalink Reply by Alex V. on March 27, 2008 at 10:59am

I think the biggest problem when trying to communicate with someone is meaning, trying to get your ideas understood correctly. And that's because of language, context, culture and all the differences between each one of us. No two people are alike, so trying to overcome those differences by understanding and accepting them while also focusing on the common things between us is in my opinion the key to better communication.

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