Culture affects Communication

In my opinion, language is the first problem for those students whose first language is not English here. When I first came to Canada, I felt a big culture shock. The environment around me suddenly changed and everyone who walked in the street was so strange to me. Even if I learned English as my second language in my high school in china, I still couldn’t express my ideas and thoughts so well that sometimes made others feel so confused.

Like the textbook mentioned “anyone who has tried to translate ideas from one language to another knows that communication across cultures can be a challenge”, if I want to say something to my friend, I will first think what I should say in Chinese and then translate it to English because these two languages have different grammar structures. What’s more, I feel so strongly that English is more like a direct language than Chinese or any other Asian language. For example, Chinese will use more euphemistical words when they want to negate someone’s idea like “I think it a good thought, but how about doing something like…” while Americans will say “I don’t think it a great idea.” to you. From the Chinese view, what Americans say don’t show any respect to others. On the other hand, Americans may think that Chinese are not of great resolution. The distinction between them is based on two extreme cultures and languages. So there is no right or wrong what Americans and Chinese express. In my point, culture affects a language. Since language is the main part of communication, culture has an effect on communication as well.