lost in translation

One of the great things about the university I attended was it's multiculturalism. There were students there from over 100 different countries, so we were learning just as much from the other students as we were from each other.

In one of my international communication classes we had a lot of interesting discussions about the ways that different cultures communicate differently, not just in terms of speaking different languages, but also non-verbally, and in the way that we hear sounds.

Babies in different countries cry differently, based on the language in the country where they are born. When asked what sound a dog makes, the students from North America answered with some version of "ruff ruff", while a girl from Thailand described it as a completely different sound.

While it is possible to generalize words from one language to another, there are many words from other cultures that have very precise meanings that there is no English equivalent for. I always love to learn about words like this, even if I can never remember them later.