One must "speak a culture" as well as its language in order to effectively communicate. Cultural gaffes--rather than language inadequacies which are more obvious--are what tend to provoke hard feelings. Fortunately, one can consciously learn the communication norms specific to a target culture. This allows one to cross into and reap the rewards of another cultural world--like Alice stepping through the looking glass.
Crossing cultures is the story of my life, and includes both mishaps and successes. I wrote my first book on intercultural communication to explain the rules to myself so that I could more effectively use them. Three generations of my family lived on the small island of Aruba, where I was born. Aruba was then a place of burros and trade winds, before the advent of tourism. When I was ten years old we moved to Brazil where I attended schools taught in Portuguese. I obtained my B.A. and M.A. degrees in the United States. I lived and worked for many years in Tahiti.

THREE Obstacles of Perception 2 6
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Cultural Environment
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SEVEN Some MexicoUnited States
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EIGHT DaytoDay Cultural Interaction 12 4
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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ABOUT
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Successfully communicating with people from another culture requires learning more than just their language. While fumbling a word or phrase may cause embarrassment, breaking the unspoken cultural rules that govern personal interactions can spell disaster for businesspeople, travelers, and indeed anyone who communicates across cultural boundaries. To help you avoid such damaging gaffes, Tracy Novinger has compiled this authoritative, practical guide for deciphering and following "the rules" that govern cultures, demonstrating how these rules apply to the communication issues that exist between the United States and Mexico.
Novinger begins by explaining how a major proportion of communication within a culture occurs nonverbally through behavior and manners, shared attitudes, common expectations, and so on. Then, using real-life examples and anecdotes, she pinpoints the commonly occurring obstacles to communication that can arise when cultures differ in their communication techniques. She shows how these obstacles come into play in contacts between the U.S. and Mexico and demonstrates that mastering the unspoken rules of Mexican culture is a key to cementing business and social relationships. Novinger concludes with nine effective, reliable principles for successfully communicating across cultures.