Random Culture Thread

This forum is to learn about foreign cultures and habits, because language skills are not everything you need as a world citizen...

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-01-14, 19:20

Rí.na.dTeangacha wrote:I've been on UL the same amount of time as you more or less

I didn't realize Naava had been here so long. :shock:
I don't argue so much with my IRL friends

:lol:

FWIW, I personally have a bunch of both friends and enemies here. Some of the users are among the closest friends I have ever had in my life. I'm not sure this has much to do with American culture, and I'm very sure it has nothing at all to do with Indian culture (well, unless you consider it a rebellion against traditional Indian cultural norms :lol:). It has everything to do with how hard it has been for me to find acceptance IRL because I live in the US, my skin looks like this, and my heritage culture is very different from mainstream American culture in many ways.

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby Naava » 2022-01-15, 16:12

Rí.na.dTeangacha wrote:I see you invited azhong to reply to you in the Random Culture Thread, I hope I'm not being nosey, rude or creepy by replying to you myself as I found this interesting and wanted to ask a follow-up question about this.

Not at all! I think it's interesting to hear how relationships form and work in different countries. :)

It's hard to compare how different Irish and Finnish cultures are since I've never been to Ireland. What I can say is that I've heard foreigners and even Finns themselves complain that Finns are distant and "impossible" to befriend because you'd need a reason to start talking to people you don't know, and your chat can die out pretty much immediately after you've got your answer to whatever you asked. Even when you manage to start a proper conversation, it's easy to get stuck at the "tuttu" or distant "kaveri" level where people talk to you but never invite you to anything or want to see you outside the context where you met. It takes effort and time to reach even that stage, and then getting over it and become real friends... It can be hard. IMO I don't think it's because people wouldn't want to have friends, but because they already have their own group so they don't feel like they'd have the energy or time to maintain even more friendships than what they already have. I've heard both foreigners and Finns claim that friendships in Finland are a life-long business that is taken quite seriously in a tone that seems to suggest that it's not necessarily the case in other countires. Now, I cannot really say how much stronger our regular friendships are compared to other countries or how easy it is to make friends elsewhere*, but I did find a thread were someone from South Europe was frustrated because nobody wanted to be like "a temporary friend" - hang out with them for the few months they're in Finland, and that's it. I don't think we really do that? It's hard to say what everyone else in Finland thinks, but at least I personally don't like to spend my freetime with people I won't stay in contact with. I mean, it feels odd to me that I'd see you regularly for five weeks and then just... stop? If I feel comfortable enough to spend my time with you, I'm not letting you go anytime soon! :mrgreen:

*I certainly do not mean to say that nobody has real friends anywhere outside Finland! :lol: That'd be silly.


In any case, we'd need people who've lived here and in Ireland (or in some other country) before we could really say anything about this for real. :hmm: It's such a subjective topic, and I don't think we can really trust the experiences and opinions of one or two people. That's hardly representative of the entire population... :D Also, how would you even measure something like the strength of a friendship or how easy it is to make friends? That was a rhetorical question, please don't tell me you have a scale ready at hand!

Lastly, I understand that what you said had a more specific context in that you were commenting on an interaction between azhong and woods - my comments above are taking your words in a more general sense, so if what I'm saying doesn't apply outside of the context of that discussion I stand open to correction of course.

It was definitely meant to be read in that specific context: how I myself see Unilang and people here. I suspected Woods had similar attitude because he had said somewhere something along the lines of "we're here to speak about languages, not feelings". I don't doubt others have made friends here, and I didn't mean to say I'd think it would be impossible that some of you could become friends to me in future (I already have made a friend, like I said! :D) My point was more like "I don't expect anyone to have a friend here because this is a language forum". I've joined here to talk about languages, not to find a friend. (I want to make clear that I'm not against befriending any of you. It's just not something I'm actively seeking here.) And because I'm here mostly to talk about linguistics and languages*, I haven't really thought I'd need to have any opinion about you guys or try to get to know you better than what you happen to reveal on your own. (As in, if you were my IRL friend and said you live in Ireland, I would ask you where you live there, how long you've lived there, do you like it there, who do you live with, and so on. I haven't felt like I'd need to know any of this to talk about languages though, so I haven't asked. And well... Finns are generally really good at thinking "none of my business" when you're not a friend yet.)

* which I'm really passionate about, but for some reason my IRL friends find it boring when I try to give them an hour-long monologue on the etymology of some Finnish words. I can't understand what's wrong with them!

Again, I know that's not necessarily how others see this place - it's just my perspective, which I thought Woods might share with me.

Also, I think it's both easier and harder to make friends online. The rules are different, you can be more open and friend-like (but also meaner) with people you don't know than IRL because you're anonymous and faceless here unless you're like vijayjohn. If you decide to open up like that, it's easier to find people who've had similar experiences or otherwise feel like they'd enjoy being your friend. But it's also easier to leave out lots of information. You could share very intimate things about your sex life for example without ever telling your name, where you're from, your age, what your family is like, where you've studied, what your job is etc etc - stuff you usually get to know IRL before the sex facts. That's why I don't think that talking about personal stuff would necessarily lead to friendships, although I can see how it could happen. I'm not entirely sure what makes me think of someone as a friend though, like what do we have to do first before I'd feel were close enough to be friends. :hmm: I don't think it's as simple as how much I know about you, but idk. It's kind of a subconscious decision, in a way.

Anyway, I feel like one difference that we have (not sure if this is just personal or cultural) is how comfortable we are calling people strangers. I think that even to me, "stranger" in English sounds more like what you described: a person you've seen on the street but who you haven't interacted with. In Finnish, IMO "vieras" is the same as "a person I don't know [well]". There's also more "levels" than what I listed in that first post, like hyvänpäiväntuttu, literally 'a tuttu of a good day'. This is a person who's even more distant to you than regular tuttu, but closer than stranger. I think it's also good to know here that "tuttu" comes from the same source as "to know [someone]", because for some reason acquintance feels to me more distant than tuttu. :hmm: It could be that I just haven't seen people use the word in English as much as we do in Finnish.

As for not sharing your feelings - the post you made from which I took the above quote was quite emotional and personal, and is exactly the kind of thing that makes it seem odd to me to categorise you and other people here as "strangers". I reserve the word "stranger" for some person on the street I don't know and have never interacted with. I have many acquaintances (a term usually used for people you'd probably refer to as tuttu) IRL who I know far less about, have far less in common with, have "talked" to less (if you consider text communication "talking") than people on UL and have known for far less time.

It was much more personal than what I usually write here. I felt it had to be, although I don't think it was that emotional? :) It was just my impression of the texts azhong and Woods have written. I didn't really comment on what kind of people I think they are, how close we are, whether I personally like them or not, or anything like that. (I mean, I did say azhong seems like a kind person, but IMO it's a rather vague description. If I was asked what my personality is like and I said I was kind and didn't want to insult anyone, it wouldn't tell you much else than that I'm a decent human being. Not that I could've given a more detailed description even if I had wanted to because, going back to the start, azhong is pretty much a stranger to me. I know close to nothing about him.)

EDIT:
Rí.na.dTeangacha wrote:I found this interesting and wanted to ask a follow-up question about this.

Rereading my post, I realise I didn't actually ask any questions :P I suppose I just wanted to know what your thoughts are on what I said.

:lol:

vijayjohn wrote:
Rí.na.dTeangacha wrote:I've been on UL the same amount of time as you more or less

I didn't realize Naava had been here so long. :shock:

Me neither. My just-recently-got-here vibe is so strong it convinced even me that I haven't been here for very long.

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-01-15, 18:22

Naava wrote:The rules are different, you can be more open and friend-like (but also meaner) with people you don't know than IRL because you're anonymous and faceless here unless you're like vijayjohn.

Well, I can, too, because I don't even get to interact with many people IRL, especially these days! :lol:

azhong

Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby azhong » 2022-01-16, 2:45

Rí.na.dTeangacha wrote:
Naava wrote:For me, from my Finnish perspective, we're all strangers...

I see you invited azhong to reply to you in the Random Culture Thread, I hope I'm not being nosey, rude or creepy ...

Oh, I must be very arrogant, too; I thought you will wait for me to start this discussion here. How can you run in advance while I was still busy PMing with Naava? :D :D
► Show Spoiler

EDIT after reading related posts above:
1.
I have a rough feeling that Rí.na.dTeangacha, an Irish, said UniLangers are more close than "strangers" because we share more than just languages, while Naava, a Finn, somewhat keeps the term "stranger" because she thought we were here just for language-learning. (And Vijay said, sad to hear that, it was hard for him to make friends in his real life in the USAmerican because he is an Indian-American.)
A cultural message: in general, the distances between Chinese people might be closer than Irish. (But I am not saying my reactions to Woods are typical for Chinese people.)

I personally do expect to have some possible sincere friendship here, which I don't know if it reflects my Taiwanese/Chinese culture or just my personal loneliness. (Maybe you can ask Oldboring's comments, too.) That said, I consider difficult for me to make friends here as an Easterner with poor English. However, I just keep myself being as sincere and nice as I can.

2.
Now, after reading Naava's post above, I understand even better how she (and perhaps Woods, too) got shocked by my questions asking about "how do you see me" etc. She had a misunderstanding that I was being angry when i writing down those questions because they all sounded so unusual for her. I was not angry at all. And I guess Rí.na.dTeangacha will agree with Naava in some way; I still remember he told me it's impolite to step into a personal thread and throw questions like that because it's a personal thread when I also had a similar reaction earlier in May, 2021. I've roughly recalled now what he said.

I won't say such close questions are of Chinese culture. I think it's of psychology, of the courage of inner power; it's cross-cultural. Or you can just say it's Azhong's personality and I'll agree.

Actually, I also received another comment which I think you'll agree with and which I also think reasonable. Because it's a PM so I just summarize it in my own words , so as to state here that some other UniLanger said my reactions were improper: "It takes time and place and preparation to do such work. Also, it's not everybody who can help you with it. It needs to be someone you trust. And this is a subforum, for language learning but not for exchanging feelings or something."

3.
Somehow I still feel the style of Naava's texts is far distant from Woods's. If they do share the same culture, I will conclude their personalities are very, very different.

4.
Rí.na.dTeangacha said
As for "needing" each other for language learning, I really think this forum is more about sharing a passion for language learning than it is about actually helping each other in some sort of practical way.

That's definitely not my case! I want to say thank you to not a few helpers here, you included since you named Ciarán12.

5.
I want to answer a question from Naava:
But now I'm curious - would it be possible to ask if someone had a bad childhood without sounding rude in Taiwan? I know nothing about the culture there, but I'd like to learn more. :)

I don't think you will receive such a question in Taiwan even you are Taiwanese and are talking to your Taiwanese colleagues or classmates. Let me quote Woods's impression about Taiwanese he has met, assuming he was not saying so just intending to attacking me or winning an quarrel:

So, according to his impression, the way Taiwanese express opinions are "a lot softer" compared to his culture. This was obviously not my style in Woods's thread. I try exptrssing my opinions very clearly and directly even I was using a foreign language. Maybe they're a bit too direct and clear that made Naava think I was being angry.

I want to share a concept, not from my Taiwanese culture but from my religion Buddhism:
If situations can be improved, why should I get angry? And if situations can't be improved any more, what would it be helpful to get angry?
and this one:
If it's not my fault, why should I get angry, regarding that the emotion will hurt only myself? And if it's my fault, what right do I have to get angry?
Last edited by azhong on 2022-01-16, 12:56, edited 5 times in total.

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-01-16, 7:16

azhong wrote:Somehow I still feel the style of Naava's texts is far distant from Woods's.

To be fair, unlike Naava, Woods is not Finnish. He's Bulgarian but just happens to live in Finland. That being said, I'm not sure I've ever met anyone quite like Woods before.

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby Eireannach » 2022-01-24, 8:56

I see my fellow Irish are out in force ahaha.

I am unsure if it's been said already, but a very culturally Irish thing is just using the phrase "Yer Man" which is used when you can't remember someone's name but you are talking about them to someone they know, or just to set up jokes.

Then there is the legend of the miracle cure of flat, hot 7-up
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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-01-24, 15:24

Wait, what even is "flat, hot" 7-Up? :shock:

I think I've heard that it's also common to use himself or herself to refer somewhat disparagingly to someone in a context where everyone knows who you're talking about, but I suppose that's more Random Language Thread material than Random Culture Thread material.

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby Rí.na.dTeangacha » 2022-01-24, 16:02

vijayjohn wrote:Wait, what even is "flat, hot" 7-Up? :shock:


7-up that has been allowed to go flat (i.e. no longer effervescent) and warmed up. Although, I never had it warm, it was just flat 7-up and dry toast in my house whenever I was sick.

vijayjohn wrote:I think I've heard that it's also common to use himself or herself to refer somewhat disparagingly to someone in a context where everyone knows who you're talking about, but I suppose that's more Random Language Thread material than Random Culture Thread material.


Yes, although it's not always disparaging. Like I might say "Where's herself tonight?" when meeting my brother in reference to his girlfriend without meaning it as a slight in anyway.

Eireannach wrote:I see my fellow Irish are out in force ahaha.


Just the two of us I think. Fáilte chuig an bhfóram! :)
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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby linguoboy » 2022-01-24, 16:14

Eireannach wrote:Then there is the legend of the miracle cure of flat, hot 7-up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb2bz39fXSQ
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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby Rí.na.dTeangacha » 2022-01-24, 16:42

:lol: That wooden spoon gave me flashbacks...
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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby Rí.na.dTeangacha » 2022-01-24, 18:25

Naava wrote:Not at all! I think it's interesting to hear how relationships form and work in different countries. :)

It's hard to compare how different Irish and Finnish cultures are since I've never been to Ireland. What I can say is that I've heard foreigners and even Finns themselves complain that Finns are distant and "impossible" to befriend because you'd need a reason to start talking to people you don't know, and your chat can die out pretty much immediately after you've got your answer to whatever you asked. Even when you manage to start a proper conversation, it's easy to get stuck at the "tuttu" or distant "kaveri" level where people talk to you but never invite you to anything or want to see you outside the context where you met. It takes effort and time to reach even that stage, and then getting over it and become real friends... It can be hard.


That does all sound somewhat more distant than would be the case in Ireland, though obviously it varies from person to person.

Naava wrote:IMO I don't think it's because people wouldn't want to have friends, but because they already have their own group so they don't feel like they'd have the energy or time to maintain even more friendships than what they already have.


IME, this is an immigrant thing. If you up sticks and move your whole life to a new country, you're going to need to be open to meeting new people and building a network of friends once you get to where you're going, whereas the people who have already been living there their whole lives already have that network and aren't necessarily looking to add new people to it. I've heard immigrants here say similar things about Irish people, and I've experienced it myself as an immigrant in other countries. It makes perfect sense when you think about it.

Naava wrote:I've heard both foreigners and Finns claim that friendships in Finland are a life-long business that is taken quite seriously in a tone that seems to suggest that it's not necessarily the case in other countires. Now, I cannot really say how much stronger our regular friendships are compared to other countries or how easy it is to make friends elsewhere*, but I did find a thread were someone from South Europe was frustrated because nobody wanted to be like "a temporary friend" - hang out with them for the few months they're in Finland, and that's it. I don't think we really do that? It's hard to say what everyone else in Finland thinks, but at least I personally don't like to spend my freetime with people I won't stay in contact with. I mean, it feels odd to me that I'd see you regularly for five weeks and then just... stop? If I feel comfortable enough to spend my time with you, I'm not letting you go anytime soon! :mrgreen:


This again feels like an immigrant thing. I've hung out with people temporarily like that, knowing they were probably going to go back to their home countries within a few months, and obviously these friendships are totally different and generally much shallower than ones you have with people you know for years.

Naava wrote:*I certainly do not mean to say that nobody has real friends anywhere outside Finland! :lol: That'd be silly.


In any case, we'd need people who've lived here and in Ireland (or in some other country) before we could really say anything about this for real. :hmm: It's such a subjective topic, and I don't think we can really trust the experiences and opinions of one or two people. That's hardly representative of the entire population... :D Also, how would you even measure something like the strength of a friendship or how easy it is to make friends? That was a rhetorical question, please don't tell me you have a scale ready at hand!


My assumption is that Finns have friendships of all the same kinds Irish people do, you just have a bunch of different terms for levels of friendship, whereas we don't have so many. That doesn't mean we consider everyone we call a "friend" to be equally close, it just means that you'd have to ask more questions of the person to find out how close they are. Like, I might feel about one "friend" they way you do about a "tuttu" and another the way you do about a "kaveri" but I don't differentiate in speech between the levels unless it's important.

Naava wrote:I don't doubt others have made friends here, and I didn't mean to say I'd think it would be impossible that some of you could become friends to me in future (I already have made a friend, like I said! :D) My point was more like "I don't expect anyone to have a friend here because this is a language forum". I've joined here to talk about languages, not to find a friend.


The thing is, though, that I'd probably call a person with whom I only talked about languages a "friend" of sorts. Like, I have "work friends" or "college friends", you can have friends who are only friends in certain contexts. The word "friend" doesn't really imply some deep emotional bond necessarily, it's kind of just someone you know who you like talking to sometimes (or at least that is sufficient to be deemed a "friend", at least in my idiolect) .

Naava wrote:I haven't really thought I'd need to have any opinion about you guys


I think I form opinions (though not immutable ones) about people passively, without necessarily knowing much about them. You form the opinion as you receive more information on them.

Naava wrote:or try to get to know you better than what you happen to reveal on your own. (As in, if you were my IRL friend and said you live in Ireland, I would ask you where you live there, how long you've lived there, do you like it there, who do you live with, and so on. I haven't felt like I'd need to know any of this to talk about languages though, so I haven't asked.


All of that stuff kind of sounds like small talk though. The language discussion IS what "proper friendship" would usually entail for me, not the banalities of my life circumstances. To be honest, this very discussion we're having now (which you'll note is not language-related) seems more personal to me than the kinds of things you mentioned.

Naava wrote:Also, I think it's both easier and harder to make friends online. The rules are different, you can be more open and friend-like (but also meaner) with people you don't know than IRL because you're anonymous and faceless here unless you're like vijayjohn. If you decide to open up like that, it's easier to find people who've had similar experiences or otherwise feel like they'd enjoy being your friend. But it's also easier to leave out lots of information. You could share very intimate things about your sex life for example without ever telling your name, where you're from, your age, what your family is like, where you've studied, what your job is etc etc - stuff you usually get to know IRL before the sex facts. That's why I don't think that talking about personal stuff would necessarily lead to friendships, although I can see how it could happen. I'm not entirely sure what makes me think of someone as a friend though, like what do we have to do first before I'd feel were close enough to be friends. :hmm: I don't think it's as simple as how much I know about you, but idk. It's kind of a subconscious decision, in a way.


So, this feels like a terminology issue again. It sounds like "friend" to you specifically means that you need to have seen their face, and know some facts about their lives, and that even if you know quite personal, intimate information about their opinions and feelings, that doesn't count unless you know what they do for a living and if their married etc. It sounds like you've equated "friend" with a specific category in the Finnish, finely-defined relationship hierarchy and that it requires those things, whereas in English (for me at least) it's a much broader term that covers almost everyone I know at all. To me, "friend" almost just means "person I know who I don't hate" :P

Naava wrote:Anyway, I feel like one difference that we have (not sure if this is just personal or cultural) is how comfortable we are calling people strangers. I think that even to me, "stranger" in English sounds more like what you described: a person you've seen on the street but who you haven't interacted with. In Finnish, IMO "vieras" is the same as "a person I don't know [well]". There's also more "levels" than what I listed in that first post, like hyvänpäiväntuttu, literally 'a tuttu of a good day'. This is a person who's even more distant to you than regular tuttu, but closer than stranger. I think it's also good to know here that "tuttu" comes from the same source as "to know [someone]", because for some reason acquintance feels to me more distant than tuttu. :hmm: It could be that I just haven't seen people use the word in English as much as we do in Finnish.


You guys seem to have a dazzling array of fine-grained relationship levels :)
Again, I doubt that Finnish people develop emotions towards people fundamentally differently from how other people do, it seems more likely that it's a terminology thing (or maybe a little of both...).

Naava wrote:It was much more personal than what I usually write here. I felt it had to be, although I don't think it was that emotional? :)


You're right, I think I meant "personal" rather than emotional.
Last edited by Rí.na.dTeangacha on 2022-01-25, 6:39, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-01-24, 22:42

Rí.na.dTeangacha wrote:7-up that has been allowed to go flat (i.e. no longer effervescent) and warmed up. Although, I never had it warm, it was just flat 7-up and dry toast in my house whenever I was sick.

Interesting, when I was young, my brother decided that the best thing to eat before you throw up is toast with grape jelly because it tastes better than anything else when you do throw up. :P

In Kerala, I believe people who are sick are supposed to eat rice with the water it's cooked in mixed with salt, or barley cooked in a similar way. During the rainy season when people are especially likely to get sick, it's common to also add a lot of medicinal herbs. My dad says the version with the herbs tastes terrible.

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-02-09, 15:50

Posting this here instead of the racism thread since it isn't really related to racism:
azhong wrote:BTW, Vijayan, during the hours I hanged out with you, I remember nothing at all which will support you to describe yourself as an introvert. You actively recommended me your special way to enjoy the noodle, actively introduced a lot of topics, your roommate for example, and also actively told me many English I didn't know, tissue paper for example.

I'm curious, why do you keep calling me Vijayan now? You're the only person I know who does that in English. :P In Malayalam, if you were talking to me, you'd say Vijaya (Vijayan is nominative case; Vijaya is vocative).

I'd say "...during the hours I hung out with you, I remember nothing at all that would support your self-description as an introvert...to enjoy noodles...many English words I didn't know..." Also, I wouldn't say tissue paper, just tissue, I think. :hmm:

Anyway, in Taiwan, I didn't have a kitchen, so I had to go out every day just to eat. Here in the US, I live with my parents and almost never even step outside. It's a completely different situation, and COVID isn't helping. The way people react to COVID here is the exact opposite of what I saw in Taiwan! For example, in Taiwan, wearing masks has always been normal even before COVID broke out. Here, people think wearing masks is a threat to their freedom. :roll:

azhong

Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby azhong » 2022-02-10, 0:21

vijayjohn wrote:I'm curious, why do you keep calling me Vijayan now?

Oops, sorry for my typo, Vijaya.
I am just trying to remember your name by repeating it, from John to Vijay to Vijaya. I think I am getting close to the pronunciation of it in your mother's language? :)

Yes, in Taiwan we are used to wearing masks in winter to keep warm even before Covid-19, possible because a lot of people ride scooters here. There is no mental resistance about this policy. But it also introduces a new phenomenon: After Covid-19, it's more usual now to find used disposible masks thrown by the road.

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-02-11, 0:56

azhong wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:I'm curious, why do you keep calling me Vijayan now?

Oops, sorry for my typo, Vijaya.
I am just trying to remember your name by repeating it, from John to Vijay to Vijaya. I think I am getting close to the pronunciation of it in your mother's language? :)

If by "mother's language" you mean 母语, I would say mother tongue or, more likely, native language.

Yes, that is correct in Malayalam. People usually just call me "Vijay" in English, though. I'm not sure whether I can really call Malayalam my native language or mother tongue because I was forced to stop speaking it and to speak English instead at a young age. I relearned it later, though. It was really hard.
Yes, in Taiwan we are used to wearing masks in winter to keep warm even before Covid-19, possible because a lot of people ride scooters here. There is no mental resistance about this policy. But it also introduces a new phenomenon: After Covid-19, it's more usual now to find used disposible masks thrown by the road.

I would say "yes, in Taiwan, we have been used to wearing...even before COVID-19, possibly because...disposable masks..." ("Covid-19" is also fine).

My dad seems to believe that wearing masks has been common in East Asia since the SARS epidemic and that that's why people in that part of the world are already used to wearing masks.

nijk

Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby nijk » 2022-02-21, 12:07

The way medschool works in the US is quite baffling to me. Why do you have to waste four years of your life to get a BA before being able to apply for medschool? Why can't you go directly from high school to medschool? Also, the fact that medschool is only four years is insane to me, such a short time for so wide a field as medicine.

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-02-21, 14:30

:hmm: I see that you can go directly to med school from high school in Italy, but isn't this difference kind of a technicality? It seems to me that students in the first three years of medical school in Italy study things similar to what American undergraduates study before applying for medical school.

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby linguoboy » 2022-02-21, 16:33

vijayjohn wrote::hmm: I see that you can go directly to med school from high school in Italy, but isn't this difference kind of a technicality? It seems to me that students in the first three years of medical school in Italy study things similar to what American undergraduates study before applying for medical school.

Yeah, most people who go to medical school in the USA are "pre-med" as undergraduates, which means their course of study is heavily focussed on biology, chemistry, anatomy, neuroscience, and other disciplines directly relevant to the study of medicine. It's widely considered one of the hardest if not the hardest of the undergraduate majors. (At my university, for instance, although the introductory organic chemistry sequence was theoretically open to anyone looking to fulfill their life science requirement, practically speaking it was dominated by pre-med students which made it extremely competitive and those with other majors were strongly discouraged from enrolling in it.)
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby nijk » 2022-02-21, 17:29

Thank you for clarifying! Most youtube doctors from the US that I happen to follow studied nothing related to medicine as undergrads so that was really weird to me.

More in general I think I don't fully understand how US colleges/unis work so yeah there's that too.

EDIT: I guess in order to be more precise I should actually say they don't have a BA that seems relevant to medicine, but if I understand correctly they might have studied subjects that are relevant to medicine. :?:
Last edited by nijk on 2022-02-21, 17:55, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Random Culture Thread

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-02-21, 17:33

linguoboy wrote:
vijayjohn wrote::hmm: I see that you can go directly to med school from high school in Italy, but isn't this difference kind of a technicality? It seems to me that students in the first three years of medical school in Italy study things similar to what American undergraduates study before applying for medical school.

Yeah, most people who go to medical school in the USA are "pre-med" as undergraduates, which means their course of study is heavily focussed on biology, chemistry, anatomy, neuroscience, and other disciplines directly relevant to the study of medicine. It's widely considered one of the hardest if not the hardest of the undergraduate majors. (At my university, for instance, although the introductory organic chemistry sequence was theoretically open to anyone looking to fulfill their life science requirement, practically speaking it was dominated by pre-med students which made it extremely competitive and those with other majors were strongly discouraged from enrolling in it.)

Yes. Some high schools even have coursework designed to begin preparing students for careers in medicine. Taking courses that early is not a requirement for doing pre-med as an undergraduate or entering med school, but it helps (they might be able to take more advanced coursework sooner as an undergrad, and certainly have a better idea of whether or not the medical field is what they really want, and perhaps an area of specialization).
So it is not like students who plan to enter the medical field don't start studying it until they begin med school, and so it's also not true that everything is a doctor needs to know is crammed into four years. They start as undergrads or even in high school, taking the required general ed courses that everyone takes simultaneously with specialized coursework that moves them closer to their medical degree. (This is typical of all undergrad majors: they are a mix of general education and degree-specific coursework.)
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri


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