Cross-cultural communication （127）　

127) Expressions used in everyday conversation in the US and France
This time, I will talk about the characteristics of everyday conversation in the US and France, where I lived and worked for several years.
First, let's start with the US, where I spent three years from the age of 28 to 31. Americans tend to use conversational expressions aimed at making the other person laugh. In that sense, they are a bit like people from the Kansai region. They exaggerate what actually happened by about 50% when talking. They have an abundance of adjectives for this purpose, such as “outrageous,” “unbelievable,” and “fantastic.” Even when talking about recent events in their lives, they often speak in an improvised, comedic manner. As a result, they use different voices for different characters. For example, when a female resident physician talks about a male senior physician she dislikes, she might speak slowly in a deep voice. Perhaps because they’ve been accustomed to this style of speaking since childhood, I rarely encountered people who were poor at individual conversations in the United States. As a result, after about six months of living in the United States and becoming more comfortable with English, I was able to engage in everyday conversations quite naturally using the Kansai-style humorous speaking style.

There is one word I hesitated to imitate. In conversations among male resident doctors, there are an unusually large number of four-letter words starting with “F” (often with “ing” added), which are considered taboo in print. In Hollywood movies, conversations filled with these words are a staple, but I didn't expect ordinary people to use them so frequently.?
Next, I spent two and a half years in France in my mid-40s. At the time, my French was still quite poor, and I couldn't speak with the same confidence as I did in the US, but I will share my impressions based on the insights of a Japanese friend who is fluent in French.

Americans love to talk, but the French take it to another level. However, there are clear differences in their speaking styles. As mentioned earlier, Americans tend to seek humor in their conversations, while the French are more likely to engage in self-assertive conversations where they calmly present their arguments in a logical manner. For example, when discussing whether to go to the beach or the mountains for vacation, someone who prefers the mountains might say, “The French Riviera is the epitome of the French coast, so it's crowded and chaotic, making it impossible to enjoy. On the other hand, the mountains are more spread out, with a moderate number of people, and it's cooler even in summer.” When someone is outmatched in an argument, French people, who are known for their strong sense of pride, won't admit defeat by saying, “I lost.” Instead, they might say, “Ce que tu as dit, c'est logique” (What you said makes sense). This logical style of conversation among French people may stem from the French education system. In France, even science students are required to take philosophy as a core subject in high school. They study everything from ancient Greek philosophy to modern philosophy based on the original texts, and of course, there are essay exams at the end of the semester.

Since I quit my office practice in 2016, I have resumed attending a weekly French night class. I had been attending the class for over a decade after returning from France in 1997, but had taken a break since 2013. Since spring 2020, the class has been held online via Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During a class in spring 2021, we discussed the characteristics of conversation between Americans and French people. The female French instructor, who had also taught French in the United States for several years, led a very insightful discussion. She mentioned that in one-on-one conversations, French people tend to keep a greater distance compared to Americans. In the workplace, for example, it is not common for French people to immediately ask their superiors to use their first names, as is often done in the United States. When I introduced the voice and tone of the American resident physician's mentor, she laughed and said, “I was also impressed by the Americans' conversational skills.”?

P.S. In the summer of 2022, I read Les Dix Philosophes (10 Philosophers) by Charles Pepin, a French philosopher. This book summarizes the ideas of 10 philosophers who changed the world, starting with Plato. In short, it is a philosophy exam preparation book for French high school students. However, even at my age of over 70, I was impressed by how much they learn at the high school level.

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