When someone mentions Paris, you likely envision fashionable art museums, sidewalk cafes by the Eiffel Tower, maybe romance. Similarly, the name "New York City" probably conjures images of crowded subways, the bright lights of Times Square, and bustling city streets. But would we feel the same way about these places if they still went by their old names? Would [...]
Cultural differences are impactful because our instinctive "obvious common sense" can in fact be "complete nonsense" in a different culture. These differences are often hidden in plain sight, and rather than debating which is "right," the important thing is simply to recognize that they are there. Consider your initial reaction to the idea of a man eating chicken stew [...]
Food is a subject nearly everyone holds dear, but expressing our love of food in different languages is not so easy. Most people are proud of a particular food or dish from their culture, and eager to share it with a visitor. Similarly, most of us are excited to sample exotic new dishes or even try our hand at [...]
Language is one of our world’s most powerful tools, and throughout history, governments and large organizations have used different forms of language planning as a way to control that power. In a broad sense, language planning is an organized effort by a major entity to change a society’s language. These efforts can be, and usually are, done for the [...]
From the moment we learn to control our mouths, lungs, and vocal cords as infants, we yearn to speak. As babies, we babble and attempt to copy words, and with no formal instruction at all, we can typically grasp the basics of speaking in under a year and begin to communicate. Neurolinguists have shown that our brain’s superior temporal [...]
“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare’s Juliet famously asked, and the answer depends on what culture you are talking about and what language you are speaking. Our names are uniquely personal and individual identifiers, yet they often represent the lives, aspirations and beliefs of an incredibly large group of people. In some cultures, names are steeped in tradition and passed [...]
Picture this scenario: A young German executive from a semiconductor manufacturer is sent to pitch a proposal to a high-level business partner in Japan. The German executive knows his company’s products are superior, and he spends days preparing different documents, case studies, graphs, etc. as evidence. At the meeting he gives these mountains of handouts to the Japanese businessman, [...]
