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When I arrived in the United States, I certainly wasn’t expecting a culture shock. Yet, it was very real. I had started working on my English, but I quickly realized that beyond the language, there was a whole culture to learn.
The codes between an American and a French person are completely different. You can speak the same language, but still not understand each other. That’s when I realized that learning a language inevitably involves learning the culture that goes with it.
A very simple example: the relationship with the “no”. An American has a lot of difficulty saying the word no. They’ll skirt around it, qualify it, and often use “I’m not sure”. For a French person, “I’m not sure” simply means that you don’t have the answer or made up your mind yet, so you keep asking the question until you get it. The result : total misunderstanding. We speak English, but the other person ends up saying “I’m confused” because he doesn’t understand our insistence.
Over time, living here, I’ve learned to decipher these subtleties. Today, I can bridge the gap between a French client and an American counterpart. I understand what the American really means, even if it’s not explicitly stated, and I know that the French person wouldn’t have grasped it.
Now that I’m well-versed in American customs, working with the French is particularly interesting. We share the same cultural references, and I can save them a tremendous amount of time by preventing misunderstandings, which is capital in business. That’s often what makes the difference in my collaborations : I speak their language… and the language of the country they’re arriving in.
