I'm not convinced that language is actually such an essential aspect. Cultural similarity seems like a much bigger one.
For example, I've seen Indians with great English struggle a lot more to fit in and acclimate than French students with poor English but more shared cultural touchstones. As an American, I've found it to be much easier to make friends with Europeans than with students from non-Western cultures—even after controlling for English levels.
I agree to this. As a Non western student I never had any American friends in Collage. After more than a decade living in the US I still don't have any. Primarily because I am introverted but culturally I care less about American sports and music (two big cultural domains).
Edit: Another important factor (at least during collage) is the financial one. As a student from a poor country I had far less financial resources to afford a life style that American students enjoy. For example, I couldn't afford to go out or have a Car.
> but culturally I care less about American sports and music
Culturally I do not even understand this fascination with sports; we watch football (soccer) when there is some worldcup on and our country is playing but besides that the whole highschool quarterback and rooting for your teams all seems like wasted time to me. That might be cultural.
But I always turned that into a strength when making friends. If most people do something like watch sports or listen to music I do not like, I find the people that do not; those will be a niche. But I do not seek them out in obvious places with all likeminded people; when I go to AUS or US (and certainly when I was younger and looking for (girl)friends more) I go to sports bars and or clubs (where they will play music I do not like); in those places there will be 1-2 people like me that were dragged along or went along with their friends and who will be bored. Those end up talking with me and sometimes become good friends (two American ex girlfriends and many good friends, some I still do business with like that).
I am American and could care less about football, it does limit a lot of guy relationships if you don't care about watching sports. Playing sports is so much fun though, and a way better way to meet people.
Yes, it is all taste etc; I like doing sports (I don't like ball sports, but that's just taste); weights/martial arts etc and I still make friends that way. But watching... I just don't understand it, but I won't argue it either; it's just not my taste. It does prevent a lot of interaction though as so many Americans & Australians are fanatical about supporting / watching and I just do not get it at all. I go to my own bar when the EK/WK (europe cup/world cup) are on but I just pass out in boredom after 10 minutes. It's just a matter of taste; I end up outside talking with spouses that came with others who cannot watch either. It's fine. It's opportunity; got permanent clients for my business like that more than once like that.
I'm a non-American native English speaker and "I could care less.." confused me until I had it explicitly explained to me. I took it as some kind of inversion of "I couldn't care less" which I had heard plenty. It still doesn't make any sense (if you could care less, it's implicit that you care to some degree, right..?) but at least I get it now.
That's true. I couldn't care less about televised sports and professional athletes. Watching a game on T.V. feels like watching someone else's vacation videos. I'd rather get outside and do both activities myself.
That being the case, guy conversations that start out, "Hey, did you see the game last night?" typically end in awkward silence when I say, "No."
you do know that many Americans don't focus heavily on American sports and music? As someone who was born in the USA and raised, I have zero interest in sports. Music, I have a fleeting interest due to it's global acceptance.
Financially, not all Americans are rich or come from 2 income households. Alot of 18yr olds+ celebrate independence by moving out, taking a crappy local job at a fast food or retail and still, make American friends.
Introvertness isn't an issue, did you actually try? There are so many clubs that allow anyone to join and be friends. From meetup.com to local bookclubs.
But, we're also forgetting the big issue. Being American isn't like most countries in the world where you're born into a homogenous society. If you've lived more than a decade in the USA, and are a citizen, congratulations! You're a citizen, if any of your friends who aren't native born but also become naturalized, congratulations they're Americans!
Of course, I, know nothing of your background, so the above is all assumptions.
But, I felt like having to write this, as I wrap up spending 6 months in Japan.
>After more than a decade living in the US I still don't have any. Primarily because I am introverted but culturally I care less about American sports and music (two big cultural domains).
I'm a white American guy. I don't give two shits about American sports (or any other sports for that matter). The very best you can do is talk me into watching hockey, maybe, but I haven't done that in years (and that's more of a Canadian sport anyway).
As for music, what kind? There is no "American music". People who like rap probably don't like country, and vice-versa, for example. Lots of Americans have zero interest in pop. When I was in college, I didn't like any of those three, only rock and metal. It did affect which friends I had at the time though. But rock and metal in particular aren't American, they're Western, as a lot of it comes from Europe and UK.
But yeah, it's kinda hard to keep a friend if you have nothing in common with them. And this doesn't just apply to relationships between people from different countries; even within the same country it makes it hard to find friends. Notice how divided rural and urban Americans are now, or how big the racial divide is between white and black people. And that's people who all grew up in America, speak the same language, etc. The cultural values are so different that they don't form many strong friendships across these boundaries.
Indeed. My experience as an Indian grad student in Seattle was a miserable one to say the least; now I think of Americans as pretentious jerks who spare no moment to talk about "diversity" & "equality" and all these things, when in reality they are biologically just as "racist" as the red-necks.
I realized after a while to understand that what people really meant (in practice) was only that they were against the public display of insult, that one ought to be treated with a modicum of politeness. After the pleasantries, most folk just ignored you as if you didn't exist (or would talk behind your back). Some folk stood out and were just outright obnoxious for no reason.
Oddly, I developed a dislike for meeting the same non-Indian people twice. Meh. I wasn't annoyed because of these differences - I do believe they're biological - but I wish the discourse was more rooted in reality, which would've led to me to make better choices. I may not like Trump supporters, but hey I think they're atleast being honest you know. I now think of liberals as being hypocrites who use words to break apart communities and atomize people (more true of India than the US - but that's another story).
This is not to say that Americans aren't decent people - that they are - but there is a lot of pretension in that society. India is by comparison more than tolerable on that metric (if you keep away from the Westernized lot).
About people being instantly friendly and then ignoring you later on, I've heard the exact same thing from french students in America. In France, people will generally be very polite upfront but not overly friendly. Friendship has to be build over time (nothing is valued more than decade-long friendships, it is the subject of many french movies). I think many other (western) European cultures are similar in that respect, so it might be an American thing (in the spirit "everything has to happen now or never").
Corporate America can be very friendly upfront and brutal to murderous once you're out of sight. It's not about race but position and how people decide to obtain and maintain it. In other situations they may not have spoken with you simply for lack of knowing what to talk about together. The first times a newcomer comes to any gathering they're usually quiet and less interacted with by the group. At least that's how I remember things going in school and gaming. Plus cities create their own brutishness over scarce resources.
I'd say that the cultural differences between Chinese and Japanese are easily as big as the cultural differences between Chinese and Americans or between Japanese and Americans. So, no they would not be hanging out between each other because of similarity of culture.
If it were the language barrier that was the issue then actually between Chinese and Japanese students while the spoken language is very different, they can sort of communicate between each other via writing.
It actually is but obviously varies from person to person and from one environment to other.
I am from Eastern Europe and did my degree in England. In the first year, I lived in university halls and out of 8 people in the flat (including me), 6 people were English. It was really really hard initially because I could understand only about half of what they were saying because of the accents, so it was hard to participate and much easier to just browse internet in my room.
However, I picked up the language really quickly since I was very often surrounded by native speakers so all was good at the end, just the initial couple of months were really tough.
For example, I've seen Indians with great English struggle a lot more to fit in and acclimate than French students with poor English but more shared cultural touchstones. As an American, I've found it to be much easier to make friends with Europeans than with students from non-Western cultures—even after controlling for English levels.