Musings from a child of globalisation.
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  • Language and national character

    Posted on October 5th, 2006 chivacongelado No comments

    After reading this book and some other materials for my intercultural management I’ve been able to slightly refine an old idea I had about how different languages express and modify the characters of the people that use it. Even though I’m not a linguist I think it’s relatively accurate for some, for others I might as well get grilled. Comments are more than welcome.

    • English: good for business and action-oriented. Also good for fantasising.
    • Italian: temperamental.
    • French: philosophical.
    • Finnish: communicate the largest amount of information in the shortest amount of words possible. Also good for creating words.
    • German: precise, pünktlich.
    • Portuguese: playful, but at the same time rather melancholic.
    • Spanish: baroque, but also depends on the speaker. Spanish speakers use it in a much more direct way than, say, Mexican speakers (because their culture is much more direct).
    • Dutch: I’m having my first class today, so maybe I’ll be able to tell you something in a year.

    Could a Japanese speaker please explain what does no mean?

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