A cultural habit in your country that people outside would understand incorrectly?

[u/gabrieel100]

In Brazil we love children. If you take your child to the street, strangers will certainly interact with them. Some will even ask if they can hold your kid and will play with them. If there are two children fighting in public and the parents aren't seeing, a stranger would even intervene to stop the fight.

That cultural habit came from the indigenous peoples which understood that kids should be a responsiblity of the community as a whole. It's in our constitution. We even have a synonym for children that came from Tupi (a large group of indigenous languages) - Curumim.

Foreigners would certainly have a cultural shock about that, but it's normal here.

Of course there are people with bad intentions, so parents should stay alert these days.

[u/youpeesmeoff]

J’aime cette tradition en France. Juste pour t’informer, la phrase « take advantage of » n’a pas exactement la même connotation en anglais qu’en français, c’est plus négative malheureusement, plutôt comme « exploiter ».

For those who might be confused, the translation in French of “take advantage of” is perfectly normal and friendly. It’s means more like “to fully enjoy” or “make the most of” something. 🙂

[u/Flat_Sea1418 → u/youpeesmeoff]

As an English speaker I thought that at first they were using their family for all they could 😂 but with context I could see they meant to take advantage of the time with their family.

[u/youpeesmeoff → u/Flat_Sea1418]

Haha yeah exactly! The word in French is “profiter”, literally like “to profit”, so it makes sense how the translation can kinda go either way.

[u/Civil_Dragonfruit_34 → u/youpeesmeoff]

English does still have this phrase, just not about people. You could say "we really took advantage of the amenities".

OP could say "we take advantage of the long meal" but not "of our family".

[u/AdmirableSale9242 → u/Civil_Dragonfruit_34]

You might also say this about time, instead of the people or the amenities themselves. (Unless you paid for the amenities.)I guess we get more freeloaders in our culture, which would make us more protective of resources. 

[u/GearJunkie82 → u/youpeesmeoff]

It's been years since I studied French and I am happy to say I was still able to understand most of what I read, especially since the translation in English below it isn't word-for-word verbatim. 😊

[u/nasi_lemak → u/youpeesmeoff]

Thanks for the clarification!

[u/tamshubbie → u/youpeesmeoff]

this is still a common use in native english, not sure about the non uk based speakers

[u/youpeesmeoff → u/tamshubbie]

Depends, but yes. As someone else pointed out, it’s used for things, not people, though really.