Comment on My culture also loves music, dancing and telling stories
skisnow@lemmy.ca 2 days agoI’m not actually sure. I’ve always answered it at face value, but I’m not a native speaker. I’ve probably been committing a faux pas, like disagreeing with a British person when they say “lovely weather today”.
merc@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
English has a rote greeting in “How are you doing?” But, you can respond with anything from “great!” to “oh, okay”. It would be a big faux pas to take that as an opportunity to launch into all your medical issues. Maybe in Chinese it’s ok to respond honestly, but just not to assume someone is actually asking you if you want to eat something.