Category Archives: Language
9 Tips on How to better communicate with Americans
Since I am an English teacher here in Germany, much of what I do is discuss intercultural communication. It is a wonderfully interesting topic that I one day would fully enjoy officially learning more about (and obtaining a certification in so as to appease the German culturist in me). This blog post, I feel, is about something we Americans and English speakers take for granted and that I often have to actually be reminded of anymore if I interact with Americans (especially one’s that are not used to German communication styles, as I find myself becoming more ‘German’ all the time in that regard), especially if I am on American soil!
The author makes some very good points with this post, otherwise I would not have reblogged it.
When first-time expatriates arrive in the United States they are often underprepared for the North American way of communicating. This is especially true for Central Europeans who tend to assume that
i) they learned enough about American communication patterns via literature and media consumption, and/or
ii) communication styles are very similar and thus, differences can be neglected. 
The trouble typically begins when expats do not detect or even ignore the transatlantic gap. Unfortunately, many Americans also lack the communicative fine-tuning to realize that their new colleagues from Germany or Austria share information differently. That’s when intercultural team building efforts can hit a roadblock. However, companies and their employees can prepare for these obstacles.
I compiled what I consider the 9 key aspects of the US-American communication style worth internalizing. You can get them as a FREE white paper over at my company website. Just leave your name and…
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Misunderstandings in communication
In between this year’s Christmas dinner conversations, our friends and I kept referring to many funny videos we had all seen in the past regarding language misunderstanding. Continue reading
The best thing in the world today…
And I am not even kidding!
Bad English
What we say, what we mean and what you hear…
When I was younger, the one single place I ended up meeting many of my random girl friends was in the line to the toilet. We were having a shared experience, especially when we seemed to be on the same wee cycle. It’s just what we do, we chat whenever given the chance, we’re just like that. If there is a moment to kill, why not. This is how Americans see it anyway.
Why Can’t Germans Say Squirrel?
There is a multi-volume historical dictionary of American slang?!?!?!
Somebody that I used to know.
Who the heck is Gotye? (pronounced “go-tea-yay”)
Sometimes English just doesn’t make sense…
I am sure that by now many of you have seen this text about why English can be hard to learn. If you haven’t the list is below followed by a special treat as an example why it is important to understand idioms, like this:
"He's all thumbs"
