Understanding Language

Most of the time we do not second guess anything that we say or do. Everything that we see or do has been taught to us since a young age. Little did we know the way we do things in the U.S. is not how other countries do things. When we try to say something there is a pre-set idea of our own language and how to interpret it. In other places in the world they may not have our set of language "rules." For example in the U.S. giving the sign of "ok" with your hands means just that, but in other countries it could mean an obscenity. We don't usually second guess how our language could possibly be different, because we are so used to it. We have been taught what to do for so long that anything else seems unusual to us. I'm sure that this holds true for people in other countries who see what we do here. This holds true for me. When I see someone walking and they do something out of the ordinary like sing very loudly, or skip, or even fall I always kind of look at that person with confusion. It is just something out of the ordinary, and that is how other cultures view people that do things in a "strange" way. Because they are not used to it, it seems strange and that is how our mental languages are different from other cultures.