It’s all about time

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I once heard that punctuality is the art of guessing how late the other fellow is going to be. Leaving individual characteristics aside, the concept of time has a lot to do with culture and time management can often lead to cultural shocks. In some countries, being on time means arriving 10 minutes early to an appointment, while in others it is still fine if you come 10 minutes after… different cultures understand time differently.

Chronemics or the study of time classifies two types of societies according to their view on time. People in monochronic cultures (such as North American and northern Europeans) try to do tasks in order of importance, one after the other, and try to make the most of their time effectively. On the other hand, for people from polychronic cultures (like Mediterranean and Latin Americans), following the scheduled plan is not as important as human relations; that’s why they prefer to be late to an appointment, if being on time means leaving a conversation unfinished. Time handling is not that strict in these countries.

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Stereotypes are even present in linguistic expressions and that is why we say something runs like a Swiss watch when it is in order, accurate and exact; but we don’t talk about Greek watches, even though Chronos was the Greek god of time. Greeks, as other Mediterranean cultures, are more well known for their approximeetings rather than being on the dot. This means that they make indefinite plans to meet and those plans are re-scheduled again and again via mobile phones as the meeting time is closer, because “I missed the bus”, “I met my old classmate in the street and spent half an hour with her” or simply because “time goes by so fast!”.

It’s the same with Mexicans who tell you “ahorita vengo” (I’m coming now) and this “ahorita” turns out to be in three and a half hours’ time. In fact, arriving one or two hours late to a Spanish, Italian or Arab party will avoid being all alone or embarrassing an unprepared host.

Stereotypes are always stereotypes and they don’t always reflect reality. There are obviously punctual people everywhere, regardless of cultures and countries. Anyway… just in case, here is a guide of “sorry-for-being-late” phrases in different languages.

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By Jurdana Martin Retegi, student of the MA Learning & Communication in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts at the University of Luxembourg. Study visitor at TermCoord.