Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 191 of the Listening Time podcast.
Thank you all for listening.
I hope that your English learning is going great.
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Thank you again for listening.
And in today's episode, I want to talk about things that I've learned from other cultures.
I've had the opportunity to talk to people from all around the world.
I've had a very unique experience experience in my career because not many people have the chance to interact with tons of different cultures, people from different backgrounds.
It really is a unique experience that I've had and I feel blessed to have experienced had this experience, and there are a lot of things that I've learned from students of mine, people from around the world, from different regions, things that I value or respect from other cultures.
So I'm not going to talk about all the different cultures I've had experience with.
I'm sorry, I don't have time for that.
But I picked like four or five here that I'll talk about.
I'm sorry if I didn't include your region.
That doesn't mean that I didn't learn something valuable from people from your country or your culture.
I just chose four or five random ones to include in this episode.
Okay.
So I'm sure you'll enjoy it, and I want to remind you that if you're interested in improving your pronunciation, if you feel a little self-conscious about your accent and you feel like you just can't really pronounce words or phrases like a native speaker, then I highly encourage you to sign up for my membership and become a Listening Time super member or one of the other higher tiers and you'll get my specialized pronunciation training, in which I help you understand the essential elements of English pronunciation and I help you practice with them and say things more like native speakers say them.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let's talk about some things that I've learned from other cultures, from my time interacting with students from all over the world.
Let me start with something that I've learned from Mexican culture.
I could probably extend this and say that most of Latin America is like this, like Brazil, for example.
I'm just going to highlight Mexico, because I have tons of experience with this country, but most of this could be said about the rest of Latin America, probably.
So one thing I wanted to highlight about Mexican culture is that a lot of the people there tend to be positive and stay happy, even during negative times experiences, frustrating experiences.
During these negative times, they often remain positive.
And I wanted to highlight this feature or this tendency in particular because of my recent experience when I was traveling in Mexico and then I was supposed to fly back and the flight was cancelled and there was a long line of people waiting to talk to the representative from the airline and, And it was really striking to me.
Something that is striking means that it's very surprising.
It stands out to you.
It was really striking to me how positive the people were in line.
Because I saw a lot of people joking and laughing and just you wouldn't really know that their flight was just canceled, right?
And it really stood out to me.
It was striking because I think if the same thing had happened in the U.S., for example—
I would have seen more angry faces, more yelling, more anger, complaining, things like that.
And don't get me wrong, there were a couple people who I saw that were angry and were yelling at the representative of the airline.
And honestly, the representatives of that airline were not good.
I was not happy at all with how they were treating us.
Their attitude was just not what you would expect.
You would expect them to be really apologetic and trying to accommodate you and help you out if they just ruined your whole trip, right?
But they were not like that.
I will honestly probably never fly with that airline again, even though I've exclusively flown with them, probably a hundred times or something.
So they were really bad.
I was extremely disappointed with just their attitude and everything.
However, there were only a couple instances where people got really mad and I could hear them yelling.
Whereas I think if the same situation had occurred in the US, there would have been a lot more yelling.
I don't think people would have been joking and laughing as much in line.
So I was impressed because it was really nice to see people who, even though their trip was completely ruined because they were trying to give people flights like two or three days later.
It was terrible.
So many people had their trip completely ruined.
But they were still laughing and joking and smiling.
That's something that I need to learn from, because I'm not always like that in these types of situations.
It's harder for me to accept that.
These situations, I want to be able to have more control.
And I think it's a good quality for people to be able to accept things that aren't in their control.
So that's something that I really appreciate about Mexican culture.
And like I said, the same thing could probably be said for many countries in Latin America.
So I wanted to highlight that.
The next culture I want to talk about is what I'll call the Latin European cluster.
I actually just learned this term as well.
This is the term used to describe the countries in Europe that speak Latin-derived languages, like Spain and Portugal, and France and Italy.
So I wanted to highlight this region for the way that they're able to enjoy meals.
I know this sounds kind of trivial.
Trivial means like unimportant.
But But I don't think it is.
I really value this, especially having children.
If you don't have children yet, you probably don't understand the importance of having a nice meal where everyone is actually eating their food and is happy and there's just a good atmosphere.
I have to say my kids are very good at this, thank God.
But I have seen many, many families where mealtime is a disaster because their kids don't want to eat anything.
They don't want to be sitting at the table enjoying their meal.
It's complete chaos with them.
Some of you know what I'm talking about.
However, I think that something that I've noticed I don't know if you would agree with me about this or not, if you're from one of these countries, but I think that in these countries, mealtime is just more important.
There's more ceremony involved, and I think that includes the kids even, right?
Like everyone just really enjoys this time together, right?
Whether it's lunch.
Usually in a lot of these countries lunch is the big meal, or dinner or whatever.
There's more ceremony there.
It seems like a more formal occasion.
People seem to enjoy this time more.
I think that Americans enjoy eating, of course.
But we can often rush this or neglect this kind of ceremonial aspect of it, or we just might not value this as much.
I'm not talking about me personally, but I think just Americans in general can sometimes do this.
I think that in the Latin European cluster you'll see a lot of joy around the dinner table or the lunch table, I should say.
Of course, just the quality of the food is often a lot better in these countries.
Uh, you guys might not realize this, but we have a lot of food here in the us that is just terrible quality.
Even whole natural foods like eggs and chicken and things like that um are often way worse here than they are in Spain or in France, in Italy, in Portugal, for example.
The quality of our food is often just way worse, right?
So that's another thing.
I feel like people here can sometimes rush their meals, whereas maybe in Those European countries people might take their time more.
There's just a lot less pickiness in the Latin European countries, meaning people aren't as demanding with what they will and won't eat.
Here in the U.S., people tend to be picky.
This is what I've noticed.
Americans might think that certain foods are gross or weird, but in other countries they're like normal food or people really like that food.
So there's a lot of pickiness here.
And, like I said, just the whole tradition and ceremony of meals is Just seems more interesting, with better quality, just more joy, maybe in the Latin European cluster.
I'm generalizing here, of course, but it's what I have noticed.
Maybe you disagree with me, but this is what I've seen and I really value that about that part of the world.
So moving on to the next region, the next culture, not just one culture here.
I'll include a whole region of the world here.
Eastern Europe and Russia.
So many countries included here.
One thing I really value about this part of the world, one thing I have learned from these cultures, is how important it is to be able to endure turmoil.
Turmoil meaning kind of uncertainty in a very negative sense.
There is chaos or there is something negative happening.
This is turmoil.
Right, you're able to endure very negative, chaotic situations or harsh conditions, let's say So.
This could be said of many regions around the world.
I'm not saying that this is the only region that is really good at this.
Of course not.
But I have a ton of experience talking to people from this region, from Russia Ukraine Belarus, a lot of different countries in that region Moldova.
I'm not going to name all of them.
But I've got a lot of experience talking to people from this part of the world.
So it really kind of stands out to me.
I've noticed this over the years.
So people from this part of the world have had to endure some really difficult just awful things throughout history.
Of course, just, you know, the whole communist era, right?
And I've known people I know people personally in my own life that have escaped communism and literally arrived in here in the US with nothing, literally zero money, just the clothes on their back, as we say, and had to build their own lives and try to succeed without even speaking English.
You know, that is something you'll find, people who escaped communism in Eastern Europe or whatever.
Of course, the whole fall of the Soviet Union right?
Once this all came crashing down, it wasn't just like everything became nice and easy after that.
No way.
During the 90s, for example, it was like the Wild West.
Things were just chaotic and uncertain and all kinds of crime and trouble and different issues.
So even after the Soviet Union, right?
And then, of course, all the way up until today, there have been just crazy political situations war, And not to mention the weather.
In some of these places, there is very extreme weather with very harsh winters, right?
I don't know how I would ever survive these types of winters, because I love the sun and the hot weather.
I can't stand the cold.
By the way, when we say you can't stand something, that means that you can't tolerate it.
Right, it's hard for you to tolerate this, so i can't stand the cold.
I have a lot of respect for this aspect of the cultures there in eastern europe, in russia, in other places around there, the former soviet union countries right, i really respect that ability to endure, to endure just horrible situations horrible war, horrible uncertainty craziness, very harsh weather.
That's something that a lot of people here, maybe where I live, have never had to endure, right?
So this is something that I've learned from my time talking to people from this part of the world.
It makes me want to just be, let's say, a tougher man, be able to endure hardships, because the stuff that I've had to endure has been nothing compared to a lot of this other stuff that I'm referencing.
So that's something that I have learned from the people in that part of the world.
Right.
And one other region, I'm really generalizing here, but I'll say East Asia, okay?
That's a huge part of the world, so I'm really generalizing here.
But I've talked to many people from countries like Japan and China and Korea and Japan.
You know countries in that region.
So I'm generalizing, but I would like to say that one thing I have learned to value about these different cultures is their respect for authority.
Let me just say, of course, that if we have a really bad authority, that is wanting you to do bad things, like in the Bible when it talks about if earthly authority wants you to defy god, meaning to disobey god, obviously we don't want to obey that earthly authority, right?
But in general, when talking about authority, I think that authority is good.
Some people might disagree with me about this but, for example, I think it's good that children have to obey their parents.
I am a parent, so I can talk from experience here.
If my children didn't need to obey me as their authority, that would be a disaster.
They would not survive.
They would make mistakes. awful decisions and do things that would endanger them.
We can use the verb endanger to mean that something puts someone in danger.
So they would endanger themselves if they didn't need to obey their authority.
So I think that, in general, authority is good.
Obviously with the kind of caveat that I just gave you.
That, of course, if the authority is telling you to sin.
For example, then that's a different story.
Right.
But in general, I think authority is good.
And I have found that many people in East Asia really respect authority.
They often have more respect for just the rules and laws than people in other parts of the world.
There are many places around the world where people just do not respect the rules.
A lot of you know what I'm talking about.
A lot of you live in countries where people just have very little respect for the rules, right?
You can see it in different aspects of life.
And I'm not saying that all of East Asia follows the rules very well.
Of course not.
But in general, I think that part of the cultures there is to respect authority, right?
Another way you can see that is that people in those cultures tend to honor their parents and honor their grandparents.
A lot of them tend to view their elders as just people to have respect for, to honor.
You really see that in those cultures more so than in a lot of other places, right?
So that's something that that I think is very admirable to have respect and honor for your parents, who raised you, who are your authority when you're a kid.
But even when you're an adult, to respect and honor your parents and your grandparents.
I think that that's a great thing.
I do want to point out one situation in which I personally have seen this this respect for authority.
When I was a teacher for a Chinese company and I taught Chinese kids, It was shocking to me how I never spoke to their parents.
And their parents trusted me 100.
It was like the teacher knows everything.
Just obey the teacher and that's it.
Like they never questioned me.
They never wanted to know what I was teaching their children.
They just left their kid behind alone talking to me.
This was online, of course, not in the same room together, but i was able to talk to the kids without any interference from the parents.
They will often give teachers just huge amount of respect and they look at teachers often as being just like the authority.
They know what's best.
Don't question them.
And I felt that when I was a teacher.
When I've taught kids from other countries, it's very different.
Their parents want to talk to you and they want to give you advice on what to do with their kids and all that kind of stuff.
I never had that once when i taught these chinese children, so it was really shocking to me because that's so different from here in the us, let's say so.
That's an example of just how much respect they have for uh, different types of authority right.
So for some people it can seem a little extreme, but I view it overall as a positive right.
When a culture respects authority and wants to follow the rules in general, I think that's a good thing.
So I wanted to highlight that.
All right.
Of course, there are many other cultures I could talk about, but I'm out of time so I'm going to stop there.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and I want to remind you that you can get my pronunciation training.
A lot of you have never trained your pronunciation before.
This is a great opportunity to do that.
You can get my pronunciation seminars if you become a Listening Time super member, family member or VIP.
So the link to sign up is down below.
And, of course, family members and VIPs can also access my advanced podcast episodes on.
Those will be very useful for you so you can start practicing with real English spoken fast.
And, of course, the link to my US Conversations podcast is down below as well.
You'll need to start practicing listening to conversations between native speakers at some point.
So why not use my U.S.
Conversations podcast?
It's the perfect introduction to that.
So if you want to check that out, the link is down below.
All right.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
