Archive for the ‘Learning English’ Category
June 6, 2015
All children in England and America are taught to start letters with the salutation, “Dear So-and-So.” As children, we all wonder where this strange salutation came from, and what it means, but generally, no one knows. We just use it. Surprisingly, living abroad, I have discovered where it came from, through it’s usage by foreign friends.
With the internet, I have had a much greater opportunity to meet and correspond with people from other countries. It seemed so strange to me when people I hardly knew, particularly men, in the middle of a conversation, would say things like, “Lynne, dear …” or “My dear, Lynne…” At first, I was confused, and highly offended! I thought, “WHO are these people to speak to me as if we have an intimate relationship?”
Modern English usage in England and America now reserves the term “dear” for immediate family members, husband and wife, or serious boyfriend/girlfriend. I felt offended when men spoke to me with this term, wondering why they were doing it, and wondering if, in fact, they were trying to initiate an inappropriate relationship! Later, as I got to know some foreign women on line, I found them speaking to me in the same manner. I again felt offended, wondering what they meant by it. Over time, it began to dawn on me that women were speaking to each other this way, as well, and that the term was being used as a politeness, as in, “you are my dear friend.”
There are two types of societies with regard to how others are treated. In English-speaking North America, we generally try to treat everyone “the same,” whether they are family members, friends, or strangers. Nepotism does exist, but it is highly frowned on.
Conversely, in many societies, your own treatment depends upon whether you belong to the “in-group” or “out-group.” In these societies, strangers are either ignored, treated with suspicion, or even taken advantage of. In order to do business or become friends, one has to become a member of the “in-group.” In these societies, in particular, I find that non-Westerners, speaking in English, tend to use the salutation “dear” both in correspondence, and in conversation, such as on Facebook, and even in the middle of text messaging. I believe it is their way of showing a person respect, esteem, and an indication to confer “in-group” status. It is not to be interpreted, after all, as an attempt to force unwanted intimacies.
I realized, then, that this was why I had been taking offense. I realized that, seeing the current usage from places as diverse as India, Egypt, and Morocco, that perhaps this was an OLDER English/French usage of the term, that was no doubt used to indicate friendship. These other countries, outside of the West, are continuing to use the term in this way. My friends are merely translating this politeness from their own cultures, and older usage, into current English speech.
So now, when I am addressed with the term “dear” by foreign-speaking friends, I am able to overlook the feelings I would have in my own culture, and take it in the spirit of politeness, with which it is intended.
–Lynne Diligent
Tags:definition of dear, does nepotism exist in America, foreign speaker use of dear in English, ingroup and outgroup societies defined, Morocco, old-fashioned meaning and usage of dear, when men use dear should a woman be offended, where does the salutation dear come from
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December 5, 2012
“Kitchen! Kitchen!” Most North African boys still make fun of each other by saying this, which means, “Sissy!” (For my foreign readers, this means, “You’re acting like a girl!”)
North African mothers still raise their daughters to do all the housework, and boys are not expected to help at all. (The only exception is in some families where there are no girls, and the boys have learned to help.)
The first generation of educated, North African women are out in the labor force. But are the attitudes of men changing? Not yet. Working women are still expected to work full time AND do ALL of the child care AND take care of ALL the housework. In general, men are expected to work, and spend all of the rest of their time relaxing. They still expect to come home and find “everything done and waiting for them.” (A very few modern husbands do help out doing dishes or cooking, or with general housework. But they don’t tell their friends! Some even make sure the curtains are closed so no neighbors see them helping out, either.)
As one young dual-citizen North African-American girl told me, “In North American culture, MEN take care of WOMEN. In Arab culture, WOMEN are expected to take care of MEN.” This accounts for the shocking experience of American women who marry Arab men, only to find they are expected to take care of the man as if they were his MOTHER! Many intercultural couples have hit the divorce courts over this exact issue, as many of these men are unable to adapt, even when living in America.
Will this change, in Arab countries, within a generation, as the second generation of women hits the workforce in 25 years? I don’t think so. Here’s why not. This is my own theory, but when I discussed it with several local North African women, they all agreed with me.
Islamic inheritance laws give double to boys as they do to girls. The reason for this is that men are supposed to be financially responsible for women under their care, in THEORY. If a man is decent, he will do it. (But just as everywhere, many men are irresponsible, or not decent.) In practice, many women are never able to claim their inheritance rights, particularly in places like mountain villages. (Crawford, 2008)
The essential point is this. Every woman knows that she is under a man’s thumb, or will be in the future. Girls are under their father’s control. Wives are still under their husband’s control in most Arab countries (such as needing the husband’s permission to get or renew a passport, even for a foreign wife, such as in Egypt). When women become widows, they are not free, but instead under the control of their sons, and at the mercy of their sons! Love aside, THIS is the TRUE reason why mothers spoil their sons so extremely. That son is eventually going to have power over them, and be responsible for supporting them in old age, so of course they need that to be a very strong emotional relationship. But it accounts for why they young boys are treated as pashas (the amount varying by specific country, but in all countries when in comparison with the West, where boys and girls are treated equally).
When I asked several North African women, that what if inheritance (and divorce) laws were changed and made totally equal between men and women, do they think women would continue to treat men and boys as pashas? Each of the women I asked answered me by saying, “What you say is true, of course they would not.”
However, since those inheritance laws are laid out in the Koran, I don’t see any changes on the horizon!
–Lynne Diligent
Tags:Arab husbands, Arab women who have trouble claiming their inheritance rights, are North African and Arab husbands helping with childcare dishes or housework, are North African boys expected to help out with household chores yet, divorce laws in Arab countries, do real men do laundry dishes childcare cooking cleaning, how many Arab husbands help out with the housework, if husbands want more romance they have to help out in the kitchen and the home, Islamic inheritance laws, Islamic inheritance laws and how they affect women, Muslim husbands, North African husbands, progress in relationships between men and women in North Africa, the problems with inheritance laws in Arab countries, why are Arab and North African boys spoiled while girls have to work hard, why are sons preferred to daughters in Arab culture, women's liberation in Arab countries, women's rights in North African and Islamic countries
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October 19, 2012
“Those Peace Corps workers are spies in our country!”
As an American living in the Middle East for twenty years, I am amazed each time I hear this. Whenever I ask, “Why would you think that?” I never receive a clear, satisfactory, or understandable answer–but now, I finally have.
A North African friend explained to me that the saying, “Know your enemy!” is extremely popular throughout Arab culture in the Middle East. He said that most ordinary citizens in the street view the American government as an enemy, (regardless of whether their own governments are allies with the United States). This is both because of America’s seeming “unconditional” support for Israel, and because the United States has been involved in wars in the Middle East, or in seeming support of previous dictators in the region.
Therefore, when Peace Corps volunteers come to the Middle East, people wonder, “Why would anyone leave their own rich countries, in order to come and live in a very poor lifestyle, among us, saying they want to help us?”
Many Middle Easterners, especially those who are poor and living in rural areas, just don’t understand the idea of volunteer work. (1) (They are judging foreigners by their own standards, since they would not go to help others who were not part of their own family/religious group, or from whom they did not “want” something in return–such as information, or a natural resource.) They just don’t trust anyone; in general, Middle Eastern societies are low in trust of others. Their recent experience of colonialism increases their distrust.
When I point out, “What possible interest would the American government have in the life of your little mountain village?” I usually get vague and confusing answers that make no sense to me (being a Westerner). But now I have received an understandable answer. My local friend told me, ” They think America is studying every aspect of how they live and think in order to better know their enemy.”
What a sad case of two ships passing in the night, in terms of cultural misunderstanding!
Just to set the record straight, Peace Corps workers are NOT spies, never have been, and never will be. While they have apparently been ASKED on a couple of occasions (Bolivia and Cuba), read the link to see that they refused, and that this is NOT government policy. However, when I pointed this out to my friend, she asked me, “OK, these volunteers refused to spy, but how on earth would we be sure EVERY Peace Corps volunteer would refuse to spy?” At least now, I understand where they are coming from.
–Lynne Diligent
(1) 06-EuroMedJeunesse-Etude_MOROCCO.pdf (p. 7, 8, 17, 23)
Tags:Middle Eastern culture is a very low-trust culture, Middle Eastern dark glasses, Middle Easterners are always thinking about "know your enemy", Peace Corps workers are NOT spies, Peace Corps workers' problems, poor rural peasants in North Africa and the Middle East distrust volunteers from rich countries, recent experiences of colonialism increase distrust of other countries' humanitarian efforts in the Third World, Why do people think Peace Corps workers are spies, why volunteers are distrusted in third world countries
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April 6, 2012
Typical North African house with wall in a prosperous neighborhood
For the past several months, instead of putting the mail in our mailbox, our postman has often been just handing it to workers who are at our house doing some remodeling. One day, I caught the postman personally, and asked him to please not do that, but to put in in our box. This seemed to take care of the problem for a while.
Two days ago, I was upstairs in my home, when one of the workers came upstairs with some mail to hand to me. I asked him what he was doing with it and was upset that he came upstairs to find me. He said the postman handed it directly to him, and he wanted to be sure I got it. The postman had already left, so I didn’t have a chance to speak to him. I was upset and just really wanted to know WHY he the postman did this again!
After discussing possible senarios as to why the postman reverted to his former behavior, I commented to the worker that I had asked the postman to put it in the box before, and just could not understand why he was doing this again. The worker pointed out that the postman comes on a motorcycle. In order to put it in the box (which in my country is not out by the street, but is a slot through the wall), the postman has to park his motorcycle and bring the mail to the mail slot. Since the worker happened to be standing by the street at the moment he came, it was just laziness in not wanting to park his motorcycle and take a few steps to the mail slot. Mystery solved!
I asked the worker next time to not accept the mail from the postman, or if he insists, just to put it into the mail slot himself, rather than walking through my home and searching for me.
Readers, how would you react?
–Lynne Diligent
Tags:confusing intercultural behavior
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February 26, 2012
Anti-Immigration Plot?
Among some in the educational establishment in Northwest Africa, the idea is spreading that the new skills-based educational pedagogy is actually an “anti-immigration” plot hatched by first-world countries to “keep third-world workers in their own countries.” I even heard of a college professor of education who is teaching this to prospective teachers, who are asked to implement the new pedagogy.
What is actually happening with the new pedagogy, however, is the result of the new global communication revolution of internet penetration into third-world countries.
World Internet Users, 2011
In the past, as explained in The Globalization Paradox (2011), the Industrial Revolution spread from England, to the European countries, and to some of the New World (North America, Australia, and New Zealand), but not much further. These parts of the world had two distinct advantages (which up-and-coming third-world countries are now trying to do something about): 1.) they had enough educated and skilled workers to run the new factories, and 2.) they had good institutions–well functioning legal systems, stable politics, restraints on expropriations by the state–to generate incentives for private investment and market expansion.
Other countries had to depend on “importing” skills and institutions, and they used intercontinental labor mobility to do so.
Imported labor building American railroads
This era is now coming to an end. Internet communication and improved transport of goods via supertankers enables companies to move operations elsewhere, because it is more cost-effective, rather than the more expensive alternative of importing labor. Therefore, any country who wants those jobs must prepare its labor force.
This revolution is NOT happening because of a first-world PLOT designed by governments. It is an unanticipated effect of internet communications. Many, many individual companies are making these decisions on their own. Many are now forced to in order to compete with those who have already done so.
Forward-thinking third-world governments are now realizing this, and are beginning to create the conditions which will enable some of their citizens to obtain jobs in the new world marketplace, or to become entrepreneurs and create their own businesses.
Education in Libya, North Africa
For example, in North Africa, in just one decade, schools have been built all over the country, and for the first time, the majority of children are in school. Those who are graduating from college, having succeeded in their education, are now clamoring for jobs.
The only middle school in this rural area of Northwest Africa
Two problems exist. First, the countries are small, and the market size served by businesses is small (except in textiles, tourism, and agriculture). Therefore, the profitability of acquiring new equipment and technologies is small for the average business, which still remains family-based, and therefore provides limited opportunities for employment to average workers without family connections.
Tunisian college students
Second, most local college graduates are not from the elite classes (the elite usually send their sons and daughters to foreign universities). Many of these graduates feel that the elites are in cahoots with the local governments, and that these elites block improvements in others’ economic positions that would threaten their own power. This is a great part of what the Arab Spring movement is about. The newly-educated middle classes want a democratic meritocracy, rather than an oligarchy of the elites.
By implementing the new skills-based pedagogy, they are actually attempting to insure that what is being taught has some usefulness in the real world, as well. However, it is not only in the third-world where these pedagogies are being implemented; they are now de rigueur in much of the first world, too.
This trend has now been taken to an extreme, however, as was illustrated to me recently by a friend in England, “I was amazed to see how rigidly it is implemented these days in my daughter’s school. When you go to parents’ evenings, the teachers actually do have enormous A3-size spreadsheets with hundreds of tiny squares on a grid. Teachers find the student’s name, and move along the row, saying things like, ‘Uses adjectives to express emotion in a third party – level 4A;’ or in history, ‘deducing a specific social condition from a contemporary artwork – level 5B.’ It is all incredibly mechanical, and if you ask how they are doing overall, there is no such thing.”
A Page from the British National Curriculum
What is happening in third-world North African education is now no different that what is happening in Europe. It is not a plot. However, this trend in Europe appears to have gone much too far, into uselessness!
Is it something new that first-world countries are against importation of unskilled labor? Yes, and no. First-world countries are mostly interested in protecting the middle-tier of jobs, rather than those at the very top or the very bottom. These are the jobs that every country wants to reserve for their own workers, and that they do not want immigrants filling. This is nothing new.
Middle-tier, white-collar desk jobs
No country minds importing workers at the very high skill end, where those skills don’t exist, and where they may benefit by learning those skills from the imported workers. Also, most countries continue to import workers for the very lowest level of jobs, such as migrant farm labor, or office cleaning at night.
What is new is that both Islamic terrorism has been increasing in Europe, and migrating groups have been attempting to impose ideological change on their host societies. This has definitely had a backlash effect on the general willingness to accept immigrants, both in Europe and in America, especially from Muslim countries.
This restriction on jobs is even true for me as a first-world immigrant to a third-world country, where I find most jobs are reserved for people who are citizens. As a non-citizen immigrant, I am only permitted to do for which it can be “proved” by the company I work for that a citizen cannot fill the position, or else I must be self-employed. I want to point out that third-world countries have equally strong anti-immigration policies as do first-world countries.
Northwest Africa has been implementing a new educational pedagogy the past few years, which requires teachers to mark each student on specific skills mastered (similar to my English friend’s experience, described above), as well as to use modern group activities and other interesting delivery methods.
Crowded classrooms in Northwest Africa
One of the reasons teachers have been striking for several years is that most teachers feel this is too difficult and requires too much work when each teacher has over 300 students each week ( compared with typical American teachers having up to 180 students per week). One middle school teacher I know says, “I teach 13 classes of 45 students each, with each class lasting once a week for two hours.” An incredible amount of material has to be covered. This teacher felt that if he had three classes of 15 students each, or even his own classroom (he has to move from room-to-room) he might be able to fully implement the new educational pedagogy.
Educational trends swing with the pendulum as much as other social trends do. We are still clearly in the upswing of this trend toward skill boxes. I predict that the current trend will continue for another twenty years before it is scrapped in Europe, and educational trends head in another direction.
–Lynne Diligent
Tags:anti-immigration plots against the third world, Arab Spring movement is about the newly educated middle classes wanting a democratic meritocracy and not an oligharchy of the elites, current education trends in Europe and North Africa, Dani Rodrik, effect of Islamic terrorism on immigration in Europe, effect of the push for Muslim values on immigration in Europe, forward-thinking third-world governments, increase or decrease in importation of skilled labor into Europe and America, increase or decrease in importation of unskilled labor into Europe and America, is the first world trying to keep third-world workers in their own countires, local North African college graduates are from the middle classes, most businesses in North Africa remain family-based, new schools built in North Africa, new skills-based pedagogy in North African countries, skills-based pedagogy in England and Britain, swing of the pendulum in educational styles, teachers using A3 spreadsheets with checklists of specific skillls for each student, The Globalization Paradox, the new Pedagogy of Integration in North Africa, why teachers have been striking in Morocco and North Africa, world internet users in 2011
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February 3, 2012
I’m sure this is a humorous list for the British, but for those of us who are not British, it’s a great guide to print out and keep on hand to understand what our British friends really mean!
This list certainly typifies in the pink column how Americans would understand the speech in the gray column. I worked for years in a company with both American and British employees, and these were exactly the type of misunderstandings we had going on for years. People often don’t realize what has happened until it creates a major misunderstanding such as joint partners going off in completely different directions without realizing they have done so, until a major problem occurs.
My thought is that when the British are dealing with each other, they will understand each others’ meanings. If they wish to be understood, British bosses and subordinates are dealing with other English-speaking cultures, they need to be careful to say clearly and plainly what they actually mean.
–Lynne Diligent
Tags:Explaining British speech and culture, miscommunication between native English speakers of various cultures, what British understatements really mean, why can't the British speak plainly and say what the really mean, why do the British often say the opposite of what they really mean, why the British need to stop speaking in riddles when speaking with members of other English-speaking cultures
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November 17, 2011
When connecting for the first time with a foreign female English speaker on Facebook, GOOD NIGHT, MADAM! was the momentarily shocking first greeting I received. I soon realized she didn’t speak English very well and thought she was being polite.
After speaking with her for some time, I suggested a better greeting the next time she spoke with a native English speaker would be something like, “Hello, how are you?” I explained that, in English, “good night” actually means “goodbye” and that a “madam” is a woman who runs a house of prostitution. I explained that I understood these were not her meanings, but suggested other greetings, nevertheless.
Madam Dee Flowers
She was quite surprised at this information. She asked me if “madam” in English is not the same as “madame” in French. Since she’s from a French-speaking country, women one does not know are always addressed the the single word “Madame…” as a form of politeness. She mentioned some very old-fashioned English novels (from mid-1800’s) which also seemed to use this form of address. I explained that those novels were just about the only place you might find that form of address used these days.
She said she’d never heard the other meaning of the word “madam.” I asked if she’s had an instructor who taught them to say that in English. She said no, that it was her own idea of what she might say to be polite.
She asked me if “madam” was not correct if there was a word she should use instead. I explained that we don’t usually use a word to replace madam, except when we actually know the person’s name, in which case we might add “Miss Green” or “Mrs. Green,” for example. She was surprised and thought that every language must use such a word to address anyone as a form of politeness. I did say that in the American South, they sometimes use “ma’am,” which is an abbreviated form of the old-fashioned word “madam,” but that it is mostly a regional usage.
This is a perfect example of how someone from one culture can go out of their way to be polite, yet achieve disastrous results. Someone else might have taken immediate offense and not taken the time to think about the speaker’s intention.
–Lynne Diligent
Tags:how NOT to address someone in English, Is madam a correct word to use in modern English, obsolete English expressions, why English-speakers should never be addressed as madam
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