Language is culture

If you look closely, you can see the rainbow!

The other day I was observing an islander while he taught how to fill out visas forms in English, providing all the information that governments like to know before someone officially enters their country. And suddenly it struck me again—this is all cultural! 

Let me give you an example: addresses. Here in the islands, the closest I have to a physical address is telling the neighborhood I live in and the house owner’s name. A person who is looking for me has to come to my neighborhood and ask the neighbors where I live or where that particular house is. It’s like saying “I live at Daniel’s mother’s house, near the golf course.” Try plugging that into a GPS!

Running through town singing after a soccer win

Or here’s another one: names. In the US, the most confusing it normally gets is when someone either has two middle names or none. Here, the first name is your given name, the second name is your father’s name, and the third name is the grandfather’s name. And most people have a family name that isn’t written down anywhere. Now try explaining that all of these names have to go in particular places on a form—you can’t just write them all together on the same line. 

Or explain to a group of students what the question “what’s up?” means. And why do we respond the way we do?

Anyway, these are things you start discovering as you work through teaching English as a foreign language. Fun! And hard!