This is a pretty funny phrase that I thought about the other day when I was in the car with my mom.

She’s a wonderful woman but her driving is sometimes a bit ridiculous. Add was sitting in the passenger seat (also known as “shotgun”) and I was in the back seat.

My mom drives differently than I would. She’s pretty safe but I feel a bit scared because I think that she always stops later than she should. Sometimes from the back of the car I will yell something like “slow down” or “stop” or “what are you doing!!!!!”

That’s called being a “back seat driver”. I’m not actually driving the car because I’m in the back seat. I’m a “back seat driver” in this case because I’m sitting in the back seat of the car and giving my mom instructions on how to do a better job driving. Everyone hates back seat drivers when they are on the road but I admit to being one sometimes.

I’m sure you’ve had or seen this experience sometime in your life. You might even see it everyday! Now at least you know what it is and what to call this kind of person.

I heard this term from a friend of mine the other day. I knew it but it’s one of those hilarious terms that I forgot about. It’s a good one and pretty easy to understand and remember.

It is a “black sheep”. Here is the idea. Most sheep are white but every once in a while it’s possible to find a black sheep.

If someone is “a bit of a black sheep” it means that they are unusual. They are different than what you would expect. This is not necessarily a bad thing to be, it just means different.

For example, imagine that a husband and wife had 6 kids. If 5 of the kids became doctors and one of the kids became a businessman, you could call the businessman, “a bit of a black sheep”.

Here is the way it could be used in a daily conversation:

A: All of Scott’s brothers and sisters are doctors. I wonder how he decided to start his own business.

B: I’m not really sure but I’ve always known that Scott has been a bit of a black sheep.

Even if you’ve never experienced it, culture shock seems quite natural and not very surprising. Culture shock is basically the feeling you get when you live with people from another culture. They think differently and act differently than you are used to, and it feels a little strange at first. You need some time to adjust. You expect to experience culture shock when you go live in another country where they speak a different language and have a totally different culture than what you are used to.

Reverse culture shock is more unusual. Reverse culture shock is the uneasy feeling you have when you return to your own culture after having lived away from it for a while. Obviously, the longer you’ve lived away, the stronger reverse culture shock is. When I first learned about reverse culture shock I didn’t give it much thought at all. I couldn’t even imagine that I’d ever have these feelings. I’ve since learned that reverse culture shock is much stronger and more unusual than I’d ever imagined.

Imagine coming back to your own country after living somewhere else for several years. You see your old friends and family and try to catch up (catching up means to talk to someone you haven’t seen in a long time. You need to make up for lost time and share all the stories that have happened since you last spoke). Things change slowly so you don’t really notice how you’ve changed over the years. After talking with your friends and family, you realize that things aren’t quite the same as you remembered. They seem to think differently than you do now. They talk about different topics than you do. They have a different understanding of the world than you do. It can be quite difficult to fit in with your old culture. I find that it’s a very weird feeling, especially since I never really believed it could happen to me.

Add and I are back in Canada for the summer. We’ve already been here for over a month. I’m starting to get used to life here again, but it was really hard at first. In some ways, I forgot what Canadians are like.

One of the biggest things that surprised me was how much people here talk about houses.  A lot of people are always commenting on how someone else’s house is really “sweet” (sweet is slang for amazing), and what they plan to do to make their own house even sweeter.  They love to make their house and yard look really nice.  I’m not saying it is a bad thing, but it’s something I’d never really noticed before.  When people start talking about this, I find that I’m quiet because I have nothing really to say about it.

Please share any of your own culture shock or reverse culture shock experiences.

This can be applied to making any improvement in your life but here I’m going to use improving English as the example.

A lot of people tell me they want to improve their English. I ask them how they are going to do it. They tell me something like, “spend more time studying”. Their intentions are good but they are likely to fail. Their plan is not specific enough. They don’t have a plan for how they will study and when they will study. You need to know exactly what you will do and when you will do if you want to be successful.

Let’s look at this plan: “I’m going to read for 1 hour every night”. Is that a good plan? It’s better than the first one but still not good enough. You need to know what you are going to read and when exactly you will read it. If you say you will read at 8:00-9:00 every night then if it is 8:05, you know that you should be reading. If you just say you will read for an hour every night, what is likely to happen is you will keep delaying the reading until you are too tired, and then go to bed thinking that you will just start tomorrow.

Here is an an example of a good plan: “I will listen to one English podcast everyday starting at 8:00 pm. I will then go on the China232.com forum and ask any questions I have about the podcast, and if I have no questions, I’ll practice writing by answering one of the other questions, or writing my opinion on one of the topics”.

Now you have a good plan that you can put into action. Use this plan or make another one equally specific for your English study. Make sure you write down exactly what you will do and when you will do it. Try it for 30 days. See if you can do it everyday for 30 days. Once it becomes a habit it will be easier to maintain.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Andy

Mutually exclusive is a term that pops up all the time in books I read. This is a mathematical term with a very precise meaning, but in general English it is used to mean that two things can’t happen at the same time.

For example, being in a relationship and being single are mutually exclusive. In other words, you can’t be in a relationship and be single at the same time. (unless you are a good liar. haha).

Often this term is used by saying that two things are “not mutually exclusive”. This means that the two events can, at least in theory, happen together.

Doing well in school and having a fun social life are not mutually exclusive if you know how to manage your time well.

Knowing how to use this term well will impress native speakers. I even know some native speakers who don’t know what it means.

Andy