人们都说，美国人开朗、自信、勇敢、活泼；而传统的英国人内向、淡漠、彬彬有礼、诚实可靠、有民族优越感。英国人和美国人互不服气，英国人说美国人没有历史，美国人说英国人不懂未来。

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【文化点滴】英美文化的区别 BBC

英美文化有着千丝万缕的联系；同时又有着区别与不同。

纯正的BBC讲述二者之间的差别，为英语学习者点拨文化迷津。

（提供标准PDF文本，请在文件区下载）

用英文例举3个中西方文化差异

The Difference between Chinese and Western Culture

Different nations have different cultures during the long developing history. Various cultural factors resulted in different language forms. According to observation, analysis, and study, the discrepancies between the Chinese and Western culture include culture of allusions, of numbers, of colors, etc.. It is an important issue to understand and handle the relationship between culture and language while translating English idioms. Meanwhile, language is not only the culture’s important content but also the carrier of culture, so culture and language are a whole. Since different culture gives rise to alternative language structures, while translating, you must know its fundamental cultural obstacles, and then you can do translation more correctly and suitably.

I.What is cultural difference?

There are many meanings of the word “culture”. Sometimes, we say that people who know about music, art, and literature are cultured. However, for anthropologist, the word “culture” has a different meaning. To an anthropologist the word “culture” means all the ways that a group of people think, feel, art, and dress. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English gives such an explanation of culture: the customs, beliefs, art, music, and all the other products of human thought made by a particular group of people at a particular time.

Different nations hold different cultures. For instance, “full moon” symbolizes jubilation and reunion in China, and “a bright moon in the sky” makes people feel quiet and at leisure. Ideas of beauty differ from one culture to another. For example, the Flathead Indian of North America used to bind the heads of babies between board so they would have long sloping foreheads. In the Flathead culture, long sloping foreheads were beautiful. Other cultures might think that they are strange-looking and unattractive. For another example, when people die, different cultures deals with their bodies in different ways. Sometimes bodies are buried. Sometimes bodies are buried under the ground. In many cultures in the past, people were buried with food, weapons, and other things that might be useful in the next life. For instance, the ancient Egyptians buried people with little human figures which were from clay. This clay figures were intended to work the death person in the other world.

From these examples, we can see that cultures are quite different from one country to another. It is brief that different people do the same things or consider the same things in different ways.

II. Several aspects of the cultural difference in language

There are many different cultural differences in language, such as culture of appellation, culture of euphemism, culture of tourism, culture of colors, culture of numbers, and culture of allusions. It may influence the quality of translation, if you do not realize these cultural differences in language what I will discuss in the following paragraphs are the two aspects: culture of numbers and translation, culture of colors and translation.

Culture of numbers and translation

Numbers are used here and there so that culture of numbers has come into being.

Cultures are carried by language, and there are differences between the English and Chinese languages. The differences her I will mention is not the one of the figure’s calculation or arrangement, but the different phenomenon of idioms composed of numbers displayed in the two different cultures.

As far as Chinese culture is concerned, there are numerous Chinese idioms and idiomatic usages with “numbers”, we are familiar with them: 一目了然；一唱一和；三天打鱼，两天晒网；三长两短；七嘴八舌；三年笛里关山月，万国兵前草木兵（杜甫《洗兵马》），etc. If you want to translate these Chinese idioms into English literally, the version will not be accepted by western culture. For example, translate “ 一目了然” into “one eye sees it all clearly”; “七嘴八舌” into “seven mouths and eight tongues”; “三长两短” into “three longs and two shorts”; no one will understand what does it really mean.

And in English culture, there exists culture of numbers everywhere, which deals with many fields, showing that culture of numbers should be paid attention to, too. “seven ” is holy and mysterious number which is regarded as a lucky numbers, if “seven” or “nine” times any of the odd numbers, and your age is one of them: 21,27,35,45,49,63,81, you will be considered as the one who has a dangerous time. The seventh son of one’s seventh son is always accepted as an outstanding. And what is more, there are many idiomatic usages with “seven” in English culture. For instance, how do you translate this sentence into Chinese: Seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul. Some one will translate it like this: 我在内心深处考虑了多达七十七次，but the right one should like this: 我在内心深处不知考虑了多少次。Here “seventy times seven” can be translated into “很大的数目” which comes from the Bible: Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, until seven times: but, until seventy times seven.

From the above examples we can see that, either Chinese or English idioms with numbers, we should translate them freely for cultural differences exist everywhere.

有不懂的可以追问哦~

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