A1 English Listening Practice - Cultural Customs

Hey English learners, welcome to this A1 English listening practice video. Today

I'm gonna talk about some different customs in the US and in Mexico. I've lived in both of these countries

and I have a lot of experience with the different customs in these different

cultures. So hopefully you find this topic interesting. Uh many people like hearing about my experience living in Mexico

uh because it's interesting to live abroad and experience these differences in culture and in customs. So that's what I'm going to

talk about today. And remember that if you want my help to understand fast

English, make sure to sign up to become a listening time member so you can watch

my listening practice seminars in which I help you understand English when

people speak fast. So that link is down below. Okay, let's talk about some

different customs in the US and in Mexico. The first thing I want to talk

about is meals. Uh, eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. These are meals.

Let's talk about the different uh meal times in the US and in Mexico. Uh in the

US uh lunch is usually between 12 and 100 p.m. usually and it's usually not the biggest meal of the day. So sometimes

people eat a lot, but often it's not a heavy meal, it's a light meal. Uh so

perhaps someone might just eat a sandwich for example. Uh but people can

also eat a hot meal maybe. Uh, it depends on the person, but lunch usually

isn't the biggest meal of the day. And sometimes people eat lunch at their

office while they're working or in their car uh on their lunch break uh when they

have a break from work. Uh, so this is different in Mexico. In Mexico, lunch is

later in the day. It's usually between 2 and 4 p.m. So maybe around 300 p.m. on

average. Uh, and it's usually the biggest meal of the day. This is usually

when people eat the most. People might go to restaurants

uh around this time. So, you see a lot of people at restaurants at 300 p.m.

3:30 p.m. This is very typical. It's common. uh in the US uh you don't see as

many people at restaurants at that time because that's too late for lunch in the

US and it's too early for dinner, right? Um, in the US, dinner is typically

around 6, 6:30, 7 p.m. Dinner is usually served around that time. Uh, and dinner

is usually the biggest meal of the day. This is when people eat the most.

And when I was a kid, I always ate dinner with my family, my parents and my

sister, and we ate almost every day uh at the same time. Um, we ate dinner

around 6:30 p.m. and we sat down together and my mom uh cooked a

big meal for us. This was the most important meal of the day for me and my

family when I was growing up. And this is when restaurants are the busiest. You

see many people at restaurants around dinner time in the US. In Mexico, dinner

is later. Uh it's usually between 8 and 10 p.m. maybe. And usually it's not too heavy. It's not a really big meal

because lunch is typically the biggest meal. And for example, my wife's family

often eats sweet foods for dinner. Um, not everyone does that,

but uh they uh often eat snacks and sweet foods uh for dinner. But uh there

are many different things people might eat for dinner in Mexico. Uh, and it's a

little strange for many of us to think about eating dinner that late. It's hard

to imagine eating dinner at 900 p.m., for example. That's not typical in the

US. All right, let me talk about another custom. uh the custom of arriving on

time or arriving late. In the US, most people think that it's normal to arrive

on time for events, parties, appointments, etc. They don't want to be late. It's not good to be late. In the US, of

course, sometimes people arrive late. It's not always a problem, but in

general, people think that it's good to arrive on time to things. In Mexico,

this is less strict. Many people arrive late to different

events or appointments, meetings, uh, parties. And often the other people don't get

mad. And I remember uh arriving at a birthday party in Mexico that started at

6:00 p.m. or they told us that it started at 6:00 p.m. and we arrived at

6:00 p.m. and nobody was there. and the host, the person who was having the

party, they weren't even ready for us to come inside yet. And this shows the

difference in culture. In the US, if someone says that uh a birthday party is

going to start at 6:00 p.m., it's going to start at 6:00 p.m.

If you show up at 6:00 p.m., you arrive at 6. That's normal. But in Mexico, it's

normal for people to arrive late. and sometimes very late to parties. I

remember that uh at that party uh people came at like 700 p.m. or later even uh

but the party was uh supposed to start at 6 p.m. So, uh, some people like, uh,

when, uh, a culture, um, is less strict about arriving on time. Uh, some people

like punctuality, meaning they like when people are on time. People have different opinions about this and you probably prefer one

or the other. Um, I like being on time, but that's just me. All right. One other

custom I want to talk about is greetings. When you say hello and

goodbye to people in Mexico, it's common to give people a kiss on the cheek. Uh,

usually you don't touch your lips to their skin. Uh, but you make the sound,

you touch your cheeks together. And women do this with other women. Men do

it with women as well. Um, and people do this even if you don't know the person

very well. Even if you don't know them that well, you probably still greet them

with a kiss on the cheek. It depends. Sometimes you don't do this, but I did

this many times when I lived in Mexico. This was new for me. It was something

that I had to adapt to when I lived in Mexico because in the US, this is not a

common greeting. Some people do this, but usually it's people who they're very

close with and typically older people might do this. It's not common to see

young people give a kiss on the cheek. I don't remember seeing that uh in the US.

So this is not a common greeting in the US and so it can be a little strange

when someone from the US goes to Mexico and uh people greet them like this. Uh

you have to uh realize that this is a very different custom in the two

countries. In the US, it's common to give people a handshake in some

situations or uh it's also common to give a hug.

Different types of hugs uh depending on the situation. It depends on how well you know the other person. If you know them really

well and you're really close to them, um, you might have a different type of

greeting than someone who you don't know well at all.

There are different types, different ways to greet people in the US, but

normally people don't give each other a kiss, especially if they don't know each

other well. But it depends. Like I said, there are many other examples of customs

that are different in the US and in Mexico, but those are a few that I

wanted to talk about. Hopefully, this video was helpful for you. I know it was

probably challenging for some of you. I don't only use A1 language in my A1

videos because the purpose of an A1 listening practice video is to challenge

you and help you get to the next level to A2. So there are some things I say

that are challenging, but that's okay. If you are at an A1 level, you should

listen to things that are above that level. Okay, thank you for watching and

remember that you can check out my listening practice seminars that will

help you understand fast English. If you want those, you can go down below and

click on the link to sign up. All right, thank you so much for watching this

video and I'll talk to you in the next