Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Understandable English Podcast.
My name is Oliver and today we are going to talk about understanding the British people.
Or understanding the British mentality.
So how British people behave or think.
How they can be seen as perhaps different.
Some cultural differences.
The reason this topic came up is I was thinking with people who live here.
How people behave differently.
So some cultural or mentality differences.
We're going to be basing or reading this off of an article, and it's called Tips for Understanding the British People.
I will link this article in the description of the video, if you're watching on YouTube, and of the podcast, if you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Google or wherever you listen.
So, with the way the world has changed, with globalization, which is the process of things becoming more global and shared, the internet has played a big role in this.
We can watch videos or content from countries all around the world.
And we also can all communicate and share our ideas and mentality, which has led to us becoming more familiar and similar than ever before.
However, I think, of course, every culture and country has differences too.
And it's important to understand those.
Otherwise, we can try to think about different cultures through the way we were raised, through our own cultures, mentality or mindset.
The difficulty with this, for example, is that something which is acceptable or normal in one culture might be seen as rude or unacceptable in another culture.
So it's important to understand the culture and the context of each country that you go to.
Which is why today I want to focus on my culture, on the UK in general.
It's important to note that of course the UK is different all over.
There is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
And each of these places have their own cultural differences too.
But I'm going to look at some general ideas within the article that I'm going to read, or at least take ideas from and discuss them with you.
So let's get started.
One of the big focus points or points of UK culture and society is individualism.
So individualism, what is this?
So society in the UK likes to focus on and reinforce individual achievement.
So we are very focused on individuals.
Other countries, for example, have more of a collective focus.
So a focus as a group.
So achieving things together for the better of the country.
This could be seen within certain political ideas such as communism or socialism, but the UK tends to be very different on this.
It's a lot closer to the USA, so very big focus on the individual's interests.
So in the UK the individual, so one person, your individual self and your rights are most important.
So everyone should look after themselves and their family before everything else.
So people tend to be more private and focused on themselves and their close circle of family and friends.
So that can be a little bit different from some societies.
This can also affect the workplace and business.
Teamwork is important, of course, to achieve goals, but even within teams people can compete.
Management particularly likes to look at individual performance as well as team performance.
So the performance of individual people is very important and it can be very competitive.
And this also is the case in education.
Education is a competitive system here.
It is based on your individual performance and achieving the best that you can achieve.
The next area we will look at is communication.
For me, this is the biggest difference from other countries, or a lot of other countries, because there are countries that have similar communication styles to the UK.
The UK has very mixed communication, so different parts of the UK can be different.
In the south of England, for example, people often seem to be more indirect and reserved, so more private with their emotions and what they think.
People in the North of the UK do tend to be more open and direct about what they want and what they think.
But of course every person is different and communication styles are different from each individual to the next.
I'm not going to talk about communication too much because I do have a few extra podcasts that I have made in the past about indirect and direct communication.
And also about British politeness.
So how people perceive things as polite or as rude.
Okay, so the next point that this article talks about is personal space.
And it says that in general, the British are quite private in nature.
In their nature.
So they are naturally quite private.
And the quote they have put is... An English man's home is his castle.
So people put a big value on their home.
And it is the place where they can be themselves most freely.
And outside of the home, so in society, in public...
People behave and conform to the social norms.
So the normal social behavior.
Personal space is seen as very important in the UK.
People don't like to stand too close together.
They don't like when people invade or enter their personal space.
Of course, again, everyone is different on this point.
Some people love to hug, for example.
Some people like a handshake.
This is different from person to person.
But in general, people do like personal space.
They don't like people being too close and all over each other.
They do like space here.
Another big point in UK culture, which is particularly important for work culture, is action.
So in the UK there is more of a doing orientation or a tendency towards action, which is being on time, so not being late and getting your work done.
Often companies don't care so much about the time but more about the result.
So getting the work done and the result.
This can be different because I know, even when I lived in Russia, for example, companies would want me to stay in the office for all of my working hours, even if I wasn't doing any work.
The time mattered more to them than the action and the result.
Whereas here, most companies, they want the result.
If you get your work done, then it's not as big a deal.
If you, I don't know finish early or go home a little bit early.
The result and the action is important.
But I think in general that this also is different from the city to the countryside and from the south to the north.
In the north and in the countryside, things tend to be a little bit slower.
But within the workplace, I think it's true and that it's important to remember.
Especially being on time.
It's a big part of British culture.
And being late can be seen as being lazy or not respecting someone else's time.
Those are the main points that I want to talk about today.
I hope that was interesting and helps you to understand some different characteristics of the British people and society here.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please be sure to come back for the next one.
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Thank you very much for listening and I hope you have an amazing day.
Goodbye.
