Have you ever gone to a different country and/or culture for the first time and thought, “man, I really know what I’m doing and totally blend in!”* If so, then you either don’t need to listen to this episode, or you were wrong. There are a lot of things we do and don’t think about that could be considered breaches of etiquette and faux pas in other cultures. In this episode, we take a look at a few general things to keep an eye out for before you travel, as well as zooming in on a few different cultures in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

*resorts don’t count!

In language news, “Baby it’s Cold Outside” is a hot (/cold) point of discussion these days. We weigh in and take a look at how both culture and language have shifted since it was written in the ’40s. Also: did you know that, in the original version, the male and female parts are switched in the second half of the song?? Betcha didn’t know that, did ya? Check out the first link below to give this song a full listen! (Or go to the consensual version below that for a nice laugh)

Check out some of the resources we used for this episode:

• The original “Baby it’s Cold Outside” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFJ7ie_yGU
• The consensual version of “Baby it’s Cold Outside” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJB9GP5gyAw
• The majority of our faux pas research came from our own brains and expertise, as well as a few Quora and reddit threads. If you would like to contest any of our claims, leave a comment and let us know if you didn’t agree with anything we said!
• For more information on this topic, check out our episode #7 on body language!

A huge thanks to Erica for sending us a Lost in Translation moment via the voice recorder in our contact section! Now it’s your turn, go do the same!

That’s it for 2018, folks! We’ll be back in the new year. Happy holidays!

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