stereotypes of the 4 largest european nations Germany,France ,Italy and Spain are true (life, work)
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I find Italians to speak a lot less with their hands than French and Spanish.
I don't know, I think I use a lot more my face than my hands but I'm kinda northern european inside. That said it's mostly that in Italian many things can be said without even a word, entire dialogues, whereas in French gestures are mostly there to underline words. It is very rare in French to have gestures left alone.
There is that movie "La mortadella" directed by the great Monicelli in 1971 with Sophia Loren and Gigi Proietti where they are a couple in the story, and towards the end of the film they have an entirely silent conversation and it's great. I wish there was a video of this segment online.
At first when I lived here I think there have been timesI missed points in conversations because someone would say something with a gesture and I would not have the right interpretation or even understand that something had been said. Conversely in French it is common to make a noise with your mouth when you mean that you don't know. It is not understood in Italian.
Oh well as a whole, Latin people (French, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, etc...) as a whole use a lot of hand gestures when speaking and expressing themselves. They put much more emotion in what they say, making their speech more vibrant. For me it is the Italians who use more hand gestures, but we all differ in the way, we see things.
The Italians appear much more emotional to me than we are. But then I was in Prague once and the waiters at restaurants or the clerk at the hotel all seemed extremely robotic. A friend who was with me and who had travelled as far as Ukraine said that Czechs were still much more "emotional" than Ukrainians. I guess everything is relative.
I live in the Southwest. I disagree that this is "very true". I have never heard anyone here describe English as a "White language" in contrast to Spanish especially considering that many of the Spanish speakers in these parts are pretty White looking.
We call English speakers 'Anglo', not 'White'. Maybe you live in a very different part of the Southwest.
I live in CA and the conversation took place in the break room at my work. Maybe it says a lot about where i work.
1+7 = 8 for me, so if you wake up at 6 that's only 5 hours of sleep, that can be tiring after a few days.
Yep, it might be an unhealthy pattern if it's constant, but I don't know anyone who has to get up that early and be forced to work until so late that they would have to go to bed at 1AM every night, that's why I asked you, when do you think we go to sleep?
My sister lives in Spain (in Barcelona, sorry), and said that people usually go out at 10 during the week and rarely sleep before 1am, actually. Also, kids stay up late even when they are little. She puts her son to bed at 8:30 pm and all other kids are still outside playing until 10 even if it's like tuesday and they have school the next morning.
Many Mexicans are confused about their own heritage.
I think you're just against Mexicans. In my opinion, Mexicans are not confused about who they are. They well know that Spain is not Mexico at all, and that at one point Mexico was a Spanish colony in the New World. Many of the Spanish Conquistadors (colonists), when they came to Mexico intermarried with the native or indigenous people of the New World, and thus gave birth the great majority of the Mexicans we see today (Mestizos, not sure about the spelling). The Conquistadors were usually males, while their wives were from the indigenous people of that country. However, in the upper classes, there are many Mexicans who are predominantly of Spaniard blood or some other European lineage (Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, Irish etc...).
My sister lives in Spain (in Barcelona, sorry), and said that people usually go out at 10 during the week and rarely sleep before 1am, actually. Also, kids stay up late even when they are little. She puts her son to bed at 8:30 pm and all other kids are still outside playing until 10 even if it's like tuesday and they have school the next morning.
I can't tell if you're saying "Barcelona, sorry" not to be disrespectful towards independentists, lol.
*Sigh* What's gonna happen to my autonomous community if they leave?
Anyway, maybe that's the case with Barcelona since it's such a lively city. It's huge and full of activities.
The kids staying out until late is a shared trait, though.
I'm talking about little kids, mind you. Like 5 year olds. But then yeah, having nice weather for most of the year probably helps wanting to stay outside
Yet have produced dozens of world class and worldwide musical talent over the last 50 years, The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, David Bowie, The Clash, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath (Ozzie Osbourne), The Kinks, The Cure, ELO, Yes, Massive Attack, Eurythmics, The Verve, Small Faces, The Police (Sting), Rod Stewart, The Jam, Joy Division, Duran Duran, Moody Blues, Dire Straits Fleetwood Mac, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Stone Roses, Blur, Oasis, Def Leppard, Coldplay, James Blunt, Adele, Lisa Stansfield, Joe Cocker, Tom Jones, The Animals, Radiohead Kate Bush - there is no country in Europe in fact the world that can boast a list like that and in fact I could go on some more if I could be bothered? The British have a worldwide TV and film industry (most UK films get lumped in with Hollywood), from the James Bond Genre, to Harry Potter, It has the BBC, it has also given the world its 'major' sports, it has writers the calibre of Chaucer, Shakespear, Dickens, the Bronte Sisters, Jane Austin, Orwell, Tolkein more recently JK Rowling etc etc etc etc (again I could go on and on). Now I know I have missed out an awful lot but to suggest that the British 'lack creativity' is laughable!
Yeah, I got that too. Disastrous in creativity? What???
I'm talking about little kids, mind you. Like 5 year olds. But then yeah, having nice weather for most of the year probably helps wanting to stay outside
I know I know. I've grown up in Spain, you know?
I remember being very young, 3 or 4 years old at most since the place where I used to live in didn't have street lamps yet.
So it was maybe 9PM and I would go out to stargaze until dinner was ready.
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