#144: Reverse Culture Shock

Have you ever heard of, or even experienced reverse culture shock?

Many people who have lived away from their place of birth, or culture they grew up in, experience this when returning to their mother land. It is the experience of returning home but everything feels foreign.

In this lesson me and Justin discuss what reverse cultural shock is, and some of our personal experiences readapting to our own countries of origin.

Free Download

Learn more about the RealLife Radio Power Lesson course
(40+ podcast transcript lessons with Anki vocabulary file)

Words You’ll Learn:

  • Rockin’ – coming from the word rocking, meaning to be cool and exciting
  • Hold down the fort – to maintain, continue and protect something while someone isn’t present
  • Novelty – the quality of being new, original, or unusual
  • Wear off – when the effect of something starts to go away
  • Culture shock – the experience of feeling surprised and shocked at the customs and behavior of the new culture
  • Nipple twisting – a painful situation, using the pain of someone twisting and pulling your nipples as a comparative example
  • Wet willy – a childish game of licking your finger and putting it into another person’s ear
  • Pinky finger – another name for the smallest finger
  • Pat – to tap something with your hand – Brazilian’s often pat your belly to say hello
  • Touchy feely – when a person communicates touching the other person a lot
  • Burp – noise of air from the stomach coming out of the mouth
  • Fart – to pass wind, have flatulence
  • Blow your nose – to blow clean your nose with a tissue or napkin
  • Serving size – the general size of plates of food served at a restaurant
  • In bulk – in a large quantity and volume
  • Wholesale – the business of selling of goods in large quantities and at low prices, typically to be sold on by retailers at a profit
  • Awkward – to be an uncomfortable social situation
  • Make out – to kiss someone passionately on the mouth
  • Warming up to something – to slowly become more accustomed to something
  • Weirded out by something – to react to something that you find really strange
  • Cut in front of me – to push in front of someone instead of getting in a line
  • Free for all – a situation when there are no rules
  • Overly polite – more polite than is necessary
  • Wide spread – found or distributed over a large area or number of people
  • Supply – a stock or large amount of something
  • Nostalgia – a strong sentiment towards something you are missing
  • Wipe out – to eliminate
  • Homogenous – a mixture of two things to create a new singular thing
  • Grim – dark and depressing

Links mentioned in this episode

Connect with us

  • Follow us on Youtube: We have hundreds of fun, exciting RealLife lessons!
  • Follow us on Twitter: receive daily tweets about phrasal verbs, slang, grammar exercises, quotes, jokes, and music videos with lyrics.
  • Like our Facebook Page: receive the daily expressions and other great English tips.
  • Join our Facebook Group: join the daily English discussions with tens of thousands of teachers and learners from all over the world. 

Help us Spread the Movement

If you’ve found the podcast at all helpful or entertaining, we’d love if you could visit our iTunes page and give us a positive review (this makes it easier to find us)

This will help us to get more listeners and invest more in the podcast! If you know some ways we can make it better, please send us an email: [email protected]

How to Leave an iTunes Review

This will help our ranking and more people will see the podcast. Aww Yeah!

Song: Hindi Zahra – Stand Up

  • Yanglish says:

    Reverse Culture Shock – is a great idea.

    ==
    @@Yanglish:disqus

  • Marcel Motta says:

    Thank you guys for this wonderful job!

    Regards from Brazil

  • aldhiez says:

    Haha.. OMG cringe so hard when Chad trying hard to describe the word “nipple” but at the same time i laugh so hard!!! Hahaha..

    Quick question guys! Wet willies or Wedgie?! Pick one! #LOL

    Always love your podcasts guys!! Good thing i subscribe to you on iTunes so i would know whenever new podcast is live.

    • hey there Aldhiez, thanks for the comment and the support. They’re both pretty gross hahaha thanks for listening and keep it real!

  • Kitty Nguyen says:

    Well. I really want to have PDF transcrips
    VERY GOOD!!!

  • pablo mtz says:

    Hi Guys, I dont know if it is only on my computer but I hear a lot of noise-chorus in all the episodes. How can I listen the podcast a litle more clean?
    Thanks, the idea behind the podcast is great.

    • Hey Pablo, Thanks for letting us know. I just checked and it sounded pretty clean to me, so I’m curious, what device/ channel are you listening on? Have you checked other podcasts/ episodes?