What Travelling Teaches Us About Language And Time

Problem
Different countries view time in different ways. In New York and when checking in at the gate to catch a plane, you must arrive ten minutes in advance, ideally half an hour in advance. No matter what your excuse, the plane will go without you.

Answers
You have to be aware of local culture. The Spanish 'mañana' attitude applies in Spain and other hot countries. Malaysia and many Mediterranean, Arabic or tropical countries, a relaxed view of time is the norm.

In Singapore I try to arrive half an hour to an hour before the open doors time, when networking starts, before what should be the not time start to the welcome speech to the meeting.

However, often I am amounts the first three to arrive, the first not counting those who open the door. Although I am late I am the first visitor to arrive.

What do different cultures think and say about time and language?

SAYINGS ABOUT LANGUAGE
It is said that
1 The English speak two languages, English and louder English.
2 A picture is worth a thousand words.
3 Actions speak louder than words.
England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
(George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, wrote Pygmalion in 1913, awarded the Nobel prize 1925.)

SAYINGS ABOUT TIME
USA
New Yorkers are punctual.
1 Time and tide wait for no man.
2 Time is money.
(Benjamin Franklin.)
3 Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. You may delay, but time will not. Lost time is never found again. (Benjamin Franklin.)

AFRICA
The clock did not invent man.
So little time, so much to do.
(Cecil Rhodes.)

CHINESE SAYING
The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is today.

LATIN AND THE ROMANS
The Romans used to say:
3 Carpe Diem. (Seize the day.)
Tempus Fugit. (Time flies. Full version is: Tempus fugue - Time flies and never returns)

GERMAN
Eternity was made to give some of us a chance to learn German.
Mark Twain

What problems have you had learning German?

INDIA
Time is free.

ITALY
He who goes slowly goes safely and goes far.

SPAIN
The 'mañana culture. Spaniards say:
Those who rush arrive first at the grave.
4 Tomorrow is the busiest day of the week.


UK
5 Better late than never but better never late.

More haste, less speed.

Measure twice; cut once. (Saying used by tailors, cobblers and carpenters.)

Time heals all wounds.

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Brutus in Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.

Time and tide wait for no man.
Geoffrey Chaucer.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

6 If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of run
Why then the whole wide world is yours
And what is more, you'll be a man, my son.
Rudyard Kipling


Tips
More amusing foreign phrases from:
http://www.fluentu.com/french/blog/french-proverbs/?lang=en


Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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