Did you know why Americans love to win?
The text is in English only. After you read, you’ll find a few words and phrases translated into Polish.
The whole text is translated into Polish and can be found in an e-book #USAchallenge.
Did you know that Americans love to win? They love to win because it makes them feel good. They spend millions of dollars on self-help books, drugs and psychotherapy to… feel good.
California, the feel-good state, is where most activity of this kind takes place 🙂 Their reaction to any adversity is to look on the bright side of life. „If life hands you lemons, make lemonade!” You will hear them say.
Feel goodism is a widespread phenomenon and affects all aspects of private and public life. Awards are handed out to anyone with even a mediocre performance. You can hardly find an American who does not have at least one Certificate of Excellence, in almost anything from Management to Best Attitude 🙂
In American bookshops there are lots of shelves with tons of self-help books. „The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”, „I’m ok, you’re ok”, etc are only a few titles.
No wonder Americans are believed to be self-confident… Children are taught self-esteem already in elementary schools which urge them to feel good about their accomplishments (even if those accomplishments involve performing long divisions with a calculator…)
Some schools even stopped doing spelling tests because many kids couldn’t get the words right and the resulting failure damaged their confidence… and made them feel bad.
Come on… isn’t it exactly opposite here in Poland?
GLOSSARY:
self-esteem – poczucie własnej wartości
drugs – leki; narkotyki
adversity – przeciwności losu (learn more here…)
hear sb say – słyszeć jak ktoś coś mówi
Ta konstrukcja często powoduje błędy językowe. Tłumacząc z polskiego często mówimy:
I heard how he said… – słyszałem, jak on powiedział.
To błędna kalka.
Od dzisiaj pamiętaj, żeby mówić ładnie i poprawnie po angielsku: I heard him say… 🙂
widespread – szeroko rozpowszechniony
phenomenon (phenomena – plural) – zjawisko
affect sth – dotyczyć czegoś
award – nagroda
hand out – wydawać, rozdawać
mediocre – kiepski
hardly – prawie wcale/prawie nie
at least – co najmniej; przynajmniej
excellence – doskonałość
best attitude – najlepsze podejście
shelf (shelves – plural) – półka
to be believed to be… – uważa się, że ktoś/coś jest
self-confident – pewny siebie
urge sb to do sth – nakłaniać, namawiać, żeby ktoś coś zrobił
accomplisment – osiągnięcie
involve sth – dotyczyć
division – dzielenie
spelling – ortografia/pisownia
damage one’s confidence – niszczyć czyjeś poczucie własnej wartości
Tłumaczenie i ćwiczenia do tego tekstu, jak i inne teksty dotyczące USA znajdziesz w 30-dniowym kursie językowym #USAchallenge, dowiedz się więcej tutaj!
Tłumaczenie i ćwiczenia do tego tekstu, jak i inne teksty dotyczące USA znajdziesz w 30-dniowym kursie językowym #USAchallenge, dowiedz się więcej tutaj!
Hello, I’ve read about feeling goodism and I have to say I’m not an enthusiast of this theory. I think that people who don’t know they do sth wrong they can’t improve their mistakes, they stay in the same place , they don’t develop. This was my first comment in English and I’m afraid I made some mistakes.
ER