Estoy completamente de acuerdo con tu teoría. Llevo un año y medio estudiando español y creo que me expreso muy diferentemente en español que en inglés. Digo cosas en español que nunca diría en inglés. Me siento mucho más abierta y libre. Empezé a aprender español para comunicarme mejor cuando viaje y porque el idioma me interesó pero terminó cambiando mi vida en muchas diferentes maneras. El aprender español es más que sólo aprender un idioma, es aprender sobre la cultura y conocer a la gente. Quizás mientras aprendiendo una lenguaje nueva, uno adopta la manera de pensar de la gente que habla esa lenguaje.

Gracias,
Karen

It is so useful and fun at the same time to get to know so much about Spanish / Latin American and North American culture through the Spanish learning programs provided by Dave Clark and the newsletters.
Me gustan mucho!
I am from Bulgaria and in my country we also wish ‘Health’ to the person who sneezes. We say “Наздраве” (in Bulgarian – in Cyrillic) which is actually also used (as is the case with Ireland obviously – seen from the above comment of James) when we make a toast with drinks.
Bulgarian culture seems to have a similarity with the Chinese culture as well as we very often believe that when one is sneezing someone is mentioning or thinking about this person.
I really find a lot of similar things between my own culture and the Latin American – a good example is the attitude towards the elderly family members – we normally look after them when they are retired and especially if they have serious health problems, they live with us or separately but we make sure that they have enough food and all the bills are paid, etc. So the family ties are very strong with us as well, but I would refer this to the fact that we (the Slavonic peoples) are defined as collectivistic societies, unlike, for example the USA, which has an individualistic society.
It is very enriching and much necessary to be aware of these cultural differences so that a person can be open-minded and tolerant in his/her communication experiences with people from other cultures, especially in our constantly globalizing world.

I was educated in Gaelic in Ireland in the 40s and 50s before I emigrated to Canada. The Irish were trying to revive a dead language. Only Israel succeeded in reviving a dead language — Hebrew.

I like this site.