If you’re all nice and friendly and you smile, you might be perceived as weak. In Paris, your first interaction would typically be a bit more formal and also a bit less friendly. Now, that might actually be perceived not as a nice, informal gesture – but as fake, and two faced because in fact you’re actually not happy with the situation and you don’t know them personally, so why are you being all chummy? But many times you’ll see or hear Brits being pretty friendly when dealing with people in impersonal situations. Often when Brits are unhappy with a service they will complain about it very directly. That’s how it goes much of the time – not every time of course. You’re nice to the person, even though technically they’re wrong and you’re sort of making a complaint. Could you have another look for me? Thanks!” You kind of talk to that person like you understand how you’re personally putting them out, but between the two of you there is a friendly understanding. Like “Sorry to bother you again! I went to the other post office and they told me the package is definitely here. In the UK my normal way of doing it would be to approach the situation in a nice way, using friendliness as a social lubricant to help things go more smoothly. So you have to go back and kind of complain and make them look again. if you’re going to the post office to collect a package which you’ve been told is there even though last time you went they claimed it definitely wasn’t there. One example of a difference between France and the UK is that generally in the UK our first interaction with people – especially people in service positions, e.g. But they’re just slightly different really. In my experience as an English person living in France, I find that it is definitely true that we have slightly different communication styles as a result of our cultural differences. The underlying cultural difference is that in the UK we have an indirect communication culture, particularly with regard to saying negative things, and tend to signal their disapproval, disappointment, disagreement or offence in other ways – either by minimising the negative part, or using euphemism, which may be hard to understand to the untrained ear. I think it’s based on communication and cultural differences between the UK and European neighbours. The infographic is sometimes entitled “What British People Say vs What They Mean” or the “Anglo-EU translation guide”.īasically the chart presents a list of utterances, which it presents as typical things the British say in business situations, and then two other columns which represent what British people really mean when they say those things, and then how other people actually understand them to mean something quite different.
Apparently some people say it originated in a Dutch company that had dealings with the UK, which is interesting because the Dutch are known for being very direct in their communication, so through their eyes the Brits might seem excessively indirect.
It may have first appeared in an article on the Economist’s website. A while ago I shared it on my Facebook page and it got a big response with thousands of people seeing it and loads of comments. People send this to me all the time, often accompanied with the question “Is this true?” It’s probably the infographic that I’ve seen more than any other. It’s shared on Facebook or Twitter, and people send it to me by email. This relates to several conversations I’ve had in episodes in the past, namely the ones about cultural differences with Amber & Paul, British humour with Amber and the one about language & culture with Alex van Walsum. I’m going to go through the graphic line by line, discussing the language, talking about the indirect communication style of British people and discussing to what extent this infographic is true and how much is a stereotype.
It is supposed to highlight the indirectness of British English speakers and the how people from direct cultures often misunderstand us. The next column has what, apparently, British people really mean, and then the third column shows us the perceived meanings of those sentences by foreigners. One with sentences typically spoken by English people. In the infographic there are three columns. In this episode I’m talking about an infographic which is often shared online called “What British People Say vs What They Mean”. It contains lots of thoughts about how direct and indirect cultures communicate with each other, and some samples of business English, with a few improvised scenarios too! Transcript available. This episode is based on a famous infographic called “What British People Say vs What They Really Mean” or “The Anglo-EU Translation Guide”. Examining British communication style and debunking a few myths about how British people communicate.