Today's CultureQuiz: Doing Business with FRANCE!
How Much Do You Know About Working with French Culture?
Yesterday, I shared an article I wrote about how culture has shaped the different ways that French and US-Americans think, in both day-to-day business, and in the workplace. If you’re doing business with French colleagues, or even if you simply travel to France for pleasure, I am sure you’ll recognize similarities between your own experiences and mine, so feel free to share your thoughts with me here about your own cultural “lessons learned”! In the meantime, test your knowledge about French business culture with today’s 5-question CultureQuiz, below! Easy? Hard? (You can immediately access all the correct answers by subscribing, which, if you haven’t already done, you can do right here, right now!) Bonne chance!
You texted your colleague, Paul, in Paris that you were still waiting for his response to your earlier email, that requested his response by 03/08/22, and that it was now several weeks past that date and you still haven’t heard from him. He texted back that he still planned to respond to you by your deadline. What’s going on?
a. Paul is being difficult, as usual.
b. We don’t use “/” in dates in France, we use “.”, and Paul doesn’t understand what you mean.
c. Americans use the “month/day/year” date format, and the French (and most all of Europe) use the “day.month.year” date format.
d. You should have followed-up your original email request with a written correspondence.
“Systeme D” in France refers to…
a. the unique French internet that developed in the early 1980’s.
b. the informal network between people that one can depend upon in order to get things done beyond, or in spite of, the “official”, bureaucratic, way.
c. the unique hand gesture used to attract a waiter’s attention to your table.
d. the system by which young schoolchildren are taught handwriting in France.
“Le Bac” refers to…
a. The rigorous test that one needs to pass in order to “graduate” from the equivalent of most French “high schools”.
b. an expensive cut of beef.
c. a group of trendy neighborhoods on the outskirts of Paris.
d. a derogatory term used to describe older, former radical hippy types, who have now settled into gentrified, bourgeoise lifestyles.
Female colleagues at work might greet each other with an “air kiss”, which in France usually involves…
a. only one air kiss.
b. two air kisses on the same cheek.
c. two air kisses on alternating cheeks.
d. three air kisses on the same cheek.
“Cartesian logic” refers to…
a. a form of deductive thinking, emphasized in French education, and originated by Descartes, a great French philosopher.
b. a form of inductive thinking, emphasized in French education, and originated by Descartes, a great French philosopher.
c. a form of deductive thinking, emphasized in French education, and originated by Cartesia, a great Roman orator.
d. a form of inductive thinking, emphasized in French education, and originated by Cartesia, a great Roman orator.
So how did you? Here are the answers, below….
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