People use cultural knowledge and beliefs to understand theirown experience and to guide their own actions and behaviour.when people share a culture, this generally means that they havea shared language and communication style as well as shared cus­toms, beliefs, attitudes, and values. this shared knowledge islearned and is passed on from generation to generation.culture learning is a challenge. people are not completely awareof their own culture and won’t always be able to explain it to you.culture learning takes time and patience, just as language learn­ing does. when you first started learning english, you probablydidn’t expect to become fluent in a few weeks or months. l ike­wise, culture learning takes months and even years. understand­ing how different groups of people act and behave is a challeng­ing task.when americans describe their culture, they may describe anideal and not a real culture. for example, the following are oftengiven as values of m ainstream american culture: -independence equality of all peoplehard work directness in communicationhonesty (frank, open, friendly)because people are largely unconscious of culture,, they oftendescribe an ideal when they talk about their culture. they oftendescribe what they think their culture should be like (ideal cul­ture) and not what it is actually like (real culture.) it is a greatchallenge to learn the real culture of a group of people.a cultural description is rarely true for all people in a group.that is, even if these people share some aspects of a culture, theywill not share other aspects.in culture learning, it is necessary to make general observa­tions about groups of people. if you decide that something is“american” on the basis of what only a few people do, you maybe making overgeneralizations, called stereotypes. they often cre­ate a false view of another culture. a stereotype is a general de­scription of a group of people which does not point out differencesamong individuals in that group.words such as “all,” “no,” “always,” “never” usually indicatean overgeneralization or a stereotype.“i’m tired of trying to do things the way americans do themi’m tired of trying to adapt to american culture. i want to dothings my own way! and i’m tired of speaking english! ”culture learning, like language learning, is hard work. it canbe tiring, at times fru stra tin g . this tired feeling, or culture f a ­tigue, is a normal part of adapting to a different language andculture. people use cultural knowledge and beliefs to understand theirown experience and to guide their own actions and behaviour.when people share a culture, this generally means that they havea shared language and communication style as well as shared cus­toms, beliefs, attitudes, and values. this shared knowledge islearned and is passed on from generation to generation.culture learning is a challenge. people are not completely awareof their own culture and won’t always be able to explain it to you.culture learning takes time and patience, just as language learn­ing does. when you first started learning english, you probablydidn’t expect to become fluent in a few weeks or months. l ike­wise, culture learning takes months and even years. understand­ing how different groups of people act and behave is a challeng­ing task.when americans describe their culture, they may describe anideal and not a real culture. for example, the following are oftengiven as values of m ainstream american culture: -independence equality of all peoplehard work directness in communicationhonesty (frank, open, friendly)because people are largely unconscious of culture,, they oftendescribe an ideal when they talk about their culture. they oftendescribe what they think their culture should be like (ideal cul­ture) and not what it is actually like (real culture.) it is a greatchallenge to learn the real culture of a group of people.a cultural description is rarely true for all people in a group.that is, even if these people share some aspects of a culture, theywill not share other aspects.in culture learning, it is necessary to make general observa­tions about groups of people. if you decide that something is“american” on the basis of what only a few people do, you maybe making overgeneralizations, called stereotypes. they often cre­ate a false view of another culture. a stereotype is a general de­scription of a group of people which does not point out differencesamong individuals in that group.words such as “all,” “no,” “always,” “never” usually indicatean overgeneralization or a stereotype.“i’m tired of trying to do things the way americans do themi’m tired of trying to adapt to american culture. i want to dothings my own way! and i’m tired of speaking english! ”culture learning, like language learning, is hard work. it canbe tiring, at times fru stra tin g . this tired feeling, or culture f a ­tigue, is a normal part of adapting to a different language andculture.