I'm kidding of course, that would all be horribly offensive to my French teacher, M. Greaux who inadvertently gave a lesson in culture whilst also teaching grammar. So, in French and English, there are adjectives and let's say, that an American person saw a really awesome movie (*cough cough* Les Mis *cough*) and that person might, when asked about the movie, use adjectives like: "Fantastic! Great! Super! So good! Awesome Possum! or I'm dying right now". A French person might see the exact same movie, feel the exact same way about it, but when asked they would say "C'est pas mal" which means "It's not bad." Sometimes people might think that Americans are too sunny or that the Europeans are too cloudy but honestly it's just a matter of how reserved our culture allows us to be when expressing feelings. Apparently, if a German saw that movie they might say "It's not to be despised" (according to M. Greaux). Anyway, I just though that was an interesting thing to think about for the day.
1 comment:
I think that it is so interesting that different cultures are more or less restrained in terms of expressing their feelings. I think Americans have grown accustomed to being overly cheery!!!!! (That was just an example). But, why? I think many Americans have become used to communicating through social media or by texting (that not to say that people in other parts of the world don't). When I text I often feel like I need to over exaggerate my emotion as to get my point across whereas in a face to face conversation, it is not necessary to say, "The movie was SO AMAZING OMG!!!). That may just be one reason as to why Americans seem more emotional compared to Europeans and I'm sure there are others.
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