Imagine you observed an exchange student having this conversation in the US:

Exchange student: So, how many people are in your family?
Gary: Well, I’ve got a large family. I grew up with four brothers and sixteen cousins. Of course, that was before ‘Nam…so things are very different now.

How likely would it be that the exchange student would understand Gary’s reply? Even if the exchange student knew every word in the sentence except for “Nam,” would they know what’s actually going on? How likely is it that they could continue the conversation in an appropriate and respectful manner?

Most likely an exchange student who asked about the size of Gary’s family and heard his response would follow up with the natural question, “What’s very different now?” That question follows the thread of the conversation quite well, and yet it would be exactly the wrong question to ask. Anyone who grew up in the US would recognize that Gary is intentionally being vague here and, knowing what ‘Nam is, would delicately steer the conversation in a new direction.¹

Why would an exchange student most likely not know to do that? The challenge in this moment for the exchange student is a blend of language, history, cultural knowledge, and social etiquette.

• Language. Do they know that ‘Nam is short for Vietnam? If they do, do they know that he’s not referring to a country at this moment, but an event?
• History. Do they know what time period “before ‘Nam” refers to? What event is being referenced?
• Cultural knowledge. Do they know what impact ‘Nam had on US culture? Can they guess how it would have affected his family?
• Discourse. Do they recognize that Gary’s vagueness is a subtle cue to not continue that part of the conversation?
• Social etiquette. Do they know how to respond appropriately to Gary’s cue?

Most exchange students wouldn’t know all of these things and thus they wouldn’t know to redirect the conversation away from a topic that makes Gary uncomfortable. The reality is, though, that most expats don’t know these things either.

See, it’s not enough to learn a language. You have to learn a culture, a culture’s history, and how to use that language in a culturally appropriate way.² Language and culture are so intimately connected that you can’t effectively learn one without the other.³ Even if that were possible, it wouldn’t be desirable, for there are things that everyone knows in a culture. Without that cultural knowledge, your ability to use your language, understand culture, or make meaningful friendships will be severely limited.

The topic introduced here is complex and large, and I won’t attempt to address it thoroughly. Instead, I want to consider one narrow component of learning a language and culture—that you should have a goal to know the things which “everyone knows” in your culture.

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Why you must gain this cultural knowledge

One of the biggest challenges for people at a higher level of language fluency is that, increasingly, the barrier to understanding a conversation isn’t knowledge of the language, but knowledge of the culture. You can see this exemplified in a small way if you’ve ever attended a family reunion of a friend or even of your spouse. Even if you have the same mother language as the other family, you can quickly find yourself lost in the conversation because, while you understand the words everyone is using, you can’t understand the references everyone is making. References to family members, inside jokes, family history, common sayings, etc., all get in the way of understanding. Why? Because everyone in the family knows those things, they can reference them without explanation and everyone understands. As an outsider, though, you don’t know those things and so, even if you’re fluent in their language, you’re unable to understand until you learn what everyone else knows.

It’s no different when you enter a new culture. Actually, it is different because when you enter a family reunion, the things you don’t know are fairly small and relate just to that family. When you enter a new culture, the things you don’t know are massive and relate to everything about life in that culture and country. Without knowing the things that everyone knows, your ability to communicate, let alone form deep and meaningful relationships, is greatly hampered.

Sure, you don’t need to know these things if your goal is just to buy groceries or take a taxi. But if you want a meaningful relationship with locals, then you need to know what everyone else in your host culture knows.

How to learn what everyone else knows

This isn’t easy, nor will it happen quickly, and you’ll probably never reach a point where you know everything that local people know. Still, the goal is to learn more and more each day, week, month, and year, so that the gaps become increasingly small.

Importantly, though, how you learn a language can either help or hinder this process of learning about culture. If the way you’re learning language is primarily in a classroom and reading a textbook, you likely won’t learn much of this cultural knowledge. Not only does studying in this manner typically isolate you from local culture (in a sterile classroom with one local and a bunch of foreigners), but schools often base their teaching on what they think foreigners want to know, which is rarely a full spectrum of local culture and may or may not be what locals actually know or say.⁴ Further, textbooks often require government approval to publish and thus contain a limited amount of cultural knowledge.

Alternatively, if you’re learning in a more native environment—either exclusively or in supplementing your classroom study—then you’ll have greater amounts of context to learn language and culture more naturally. Instead of the school teaching what they think you want to know, you can guide your conversation using the methods below to get a more natural context of language and culture.

For example, one of my favorite parts of my language learning journey was a phase when I asked my helper to tell me a story that everyone in his culture knows. He proceeded to tell me fables, stories behind idioms, stories which parents use to correct their children’s behavior, and more. It was fascinating, not just for the new language content that the stories contained, but for the lessons about culture which I learned.

One day, he told me the story of “The Tortoise and the Hare.” In US culture, the moral of this story is “slow and steady wins the race.” The fable is a story of perseverance, of endurance, of slow and steady work that doesn’t stop. Throughout US American culture, too, the phrase “slow and steady” is common and reflects a part of American culture. In local culture, though, the same story is told, but this time the moral of the story is “Humility gets ahead while pride falls behind.” That phrase, too, is repeated all throughout the culture and represents cultural values.

So, here are some suggestions for conversations that can help you not only learn a language but also learn what everyone in your culture knows at the same time. I’ve tried to roughly divide these suggestions by level of language learning, but obviously feel free to adapt the “level” of the question to fit your particular skill level and interest.

Beginners

As much as you can, let local culture drive your questions when you’re in a more ostensive phase of language learning:

• Go to a local market and take pictures of the vegetables and foods you see there. Learn the names of those vegetables and foods, rather than asking for the names of foods you already know. Ask how locals eat them—you’ll learn lots.
• Take pictures or find drawings of a scene and ask what people are saying. For example, when a person leaves their house and meets a neighbor, what do they say? Don’t ask your teacher how to say “How are you?” because this assumes that’s what locals would say. Instead, present the situation and ask them what they would say. The Lexicarry has a lot of different scenes depicted that you can use, though these pictures sometimes already assume a certain cultural framework.
• Walk through a local’s house and ask what objects are called and how they’re used, rather than ask about objects in your house that locals may or may not have.

I detail more ideas for this stage in Context is King: Discovering Language through Life. If you do this beginner phrase right, allowing local culture to drive the questions you ask and the topics you study, you’ll be off to a great start in knowing what locals know. The deeper understanding, though, will happen at higher phases and so more time is spent there.

Intermediate learners

In this stage, your learning is more advanced and so you can dig into deeper parts of culture, though you still need a lot of context in order to understand an answer. A story is a great way to bridge this gap as it is concrete, with characters and actions, rather than some of the more abstract questions that I’m putting in the advanced learners phase.

Here are some questions to ask locals that you know at this phase:⁵

1. What are some fables/parables which most children know? Ask what is the “meaning” or “message” of those stories.
2. What are some stories that grandparents like to tell children? Ask why grandparents like to tell these stories or what the message of the story is.
3. If a child is _______ (negative character trait), what is a story that a parent might use to teach the child? For example, what story might a parent tell their child if the child is prideful, lazy, mean, angry, selfish, depressed, hot-tempered, impatient, bossy, rough, mistaken, arrogant, etc.?
4. If a child is _______ (positive character trait), who might a parent say their child is like? Is there another person in your culture known for being loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, gentle, faithful, self-controlled, disciplined, humble, selfless, etc.?
5. If a child does _______ (negative action), what is a story that a parent might tell to correct their child? For example, what story might a parent tell their child if the child lies, steals, cheats, breaks a promise, screams at a stranger, ignores his grandparents, sleeps in, goes to bed late, always plays games, doesn’t do homework, refuses to obey parents, etc.?
6. If a child does _______ (positive action, what story might this remind others about? Is there a story in which someone is also generous, returns what is lost, keeps a promise, cares for a family, is diligent in studies, etc.?
7. What are some sayings which everyone in your culture knows?

These questions, and others you can come up with, will go a long way to helping you learn not just language that is appropriate for an intermediate learner, but also many things which “everyone knows” in that culture.

Advanced learners

As your language ability advances, so does your ability to understand and converse about things which are more abstract but which “everyone knows” in the culture. As a higher-level learner, you also gain access to language resources in a culture that only a higher-level individual can enjoy.

Here are some sample questions you can ask. Some questions would be inappropriate to ask a stranger, some are for anyone—ask according to what you’ve learned about appropriateness in your local culture. Obviously, adapt them to suit your particular culture.

1. What is a book that everyone in your culture/country has read? Then go read it.
2. What is a movie that everyone in your culture/country has seen? Then watch it.
3. What is a TV show that everyone in your culture has seen?
4. What is a character from a movie/book/TV show that everyone in your culture/country admires? What is a character that everyone dislikes?
5. What is a person that everyone in your culture knows? Ask the local to tell his/her story to you.
6. What person has had great influence on your culture/country? Learn his/her story and why the influence was so great.
7. What is an event that everyone in your culture remembers? Ask them to tell you about it.
8. What are the most important things that have happened in your life?
9. What are the most important events that have happened to your culture/country during your life?⁶
10. What is something that happened where everyone in your country remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news?
11. Are there any events referred to merely by the date because everyone knows what happened on that date (e.g., 9/11)? If so, what are the dates and what happened on those days?
12. Are there any times of the year when everyone is sad or when you shouldn’t hold a party?
13. What are things that have happened in your culture/country which people don’t like to talk about?⁷
14. Are there dates of the year which are sensitive?⁸ What happened?

You’ll note that a lot of these questions relate to history, and there’s a reason for it: identity is inherently linked to memory. You can’t understand a culture without understanding its history, as I wrote about in Discovering the Past: How History Shapes Cultural Understanding.

Some tips when using these ideas

There’s a few tips I’d have when using these suggestions and I want to draw your attention to them.

1. Ask different kinds of people

Ask these questions of multiple people, not just of one or two. Ask people of different ages, different genders, different ethnicities, different generations, different political affiliations, different religious adherents, etc. Note what answers are the same and which are different.

2. Ask about culture and/or country

Note that, in many questions, I’ve written culture/country. Depending on which you ask, you may or may not get a different result. This is particularly true if there are multiple ethnicities in your country. Ask a majority person this question and they’ll likely tell you about national events. Ask a minority person this question, and they’ll more likely to tell you about events important to their minority culture. Adjust the question based on who you’re talking to and ask the question both ways to see if you get different answers.

3. Ask in culturally appropriate ways

Hopefully you’re aware of this, but it bears repeating in case you’re not: some questions I’ve listed may be inapplicable or even inappropriate. Make sure you’re asking an appropriate question in an appropriate way of an appropriate person at an appropriate time. Particularly with more sensitive questions (like what people don’t talk about), make sure you have an appropriate amount of trust established to ask the question.

A note for parents

A particular challenge for children of expats is that they often grow up with a partial set of things which everyone knows: partial for their parents’ passport country and partial for their host country. Thus, life in either country can be difficult because, even if they’re fluent in both languages, they’re not fluent about the things which everyone knows about in each culture.

So, as you ask these questions and answer them about your host culture, share what you’re learning with your kids. They also need to know these things that “everyone knows,” but they’re unlikely to pick up all this cultural knowledge just by osmosis.

Likewise, answer these questions for your kids about your passport country. They’re unlikely to “pick up” this kind of cultural knowledge on a trip back to your passport country for just a few months, yet it is part of the cultural knowledge they will need to be functional in your passport country as well.

Conclusion

Understanding what “everyone knows” in your host culture is an essential component of thriving and surviving as an expat. While mastering the language is crucial, it is equally important to grasp the historical, social, and cultural contexts that influence how language is used and understood. Without this cultural knowledge, even the most linguistically proficient expatriates may find themselves at a loss in conversations, unable to fully connect with locals or appreciate the nuances of their new environment.

So, as you learn your local language, make it a priority to immerse yourself in the cultural narratives, shared histories, and common values of your host country. This approach will not only enhance your language skills but also enrich your overall experience, making your interactions more meaningful and your relationships deeper. It is through a blend of linguistic proficiency and cultural awareness that you will truly become a part of the community, gaining insights that go beyond mere words. So, take the time to learn what “everyone knows”—ask questions, listen to stories, and observe daily life.

And as you explore what everyone knows in your local culture, please let me know what other activities or questions are useful in your local culture to uncover what everyone knows! Please share in the comments, share it on social media, or via email so that I can add them to this article and we can learn together!

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Footnotes

1. For my non-US audience: “Nam” is how many people refer to Vietnam which, in turn, refers to the period of US military involvement in Vietnam. The US’ involvement was complex and polarizing in the US, with over 3 million American men stationed in the country before the US left and nearly 60,000 US lives lost. If Gary says that he had four brothers and sixteen cousins “before ‘Nam…but things are different now,” it’s likely that a significant number of his family was killed in the war. Thus, US Americans would know to redirect the conversation to a different topic rather than ask Gary to keep discussing what tis likely a painful subject. ↩︎
2. I’ve written before about several of these topics. On understanding history, see Discovering the Past: How History Shapes Cultural Understanding. On why learning language usage is more important than learning meaning, see Context is King: Discovering Language through Life. ↩︎
3. Some linguists, in fact, refuse to separate language and culture as different components. Instead, they combine them and call it “languaculture.” ↩︎
4. I had an experience of this my first year studying the local language in which my school taught me how to say “How are you?” and “Nice to meet you.” The trouble is, locals don’t say either phrase. In fact, in 11 years now, I’ve never heard a local use either phrase. So why did the school have that as part of their curriculum? Because foreigners always wanted to know how to say those things, so the school started teaching these phrases even though they weren’t what locals say. ↩︎
5. Note that these questions are all oriented towards grandparents/parents interacting with children. Adjust this if another relationship is more cultural appropriate (boss-employee, husband-wife, etc.), but in general the parent-child relationship is a good one to start with because the relationship is a common one across cultures and on in which story-telling often happens. It’s less likely that a boss will tell an employee a story when correcting him or her. ↩︎
6. Note that this question imposes a bit of a worldview framework on the speaker—assuming that what matters most are country/cultural events—whereas the previous question lets the speaker determine what events are important. ↩︎
7. Make sure to have a high degree of trust before asking this question. It may be that people just don’t like to talk about sad events or it may be that certain events aren’t allowed to be discussed. Be extremely sensitive in asking this question, but don’t shy away from it because these are things you need to know! ↩︎
8. This is a more “neutral” or indirect way to ask the above question, which may be more helpful in sticky situations. ↩︎