Okay, change mandarin to tonal languages. I mention mandarin specifically because that is the native language of the quiet people I was thinking of.
I’m not saying all French Canadians are loud, but all the ones in the campground around me have been. I didn’t attribute it so much to being French Canadian so much as to being the minority language speaker. When no one around you likely understands what you are saying, perhaps you lose some of the tendency to keep it down so that you won’t be overheard. Just a WAG.
I was once in a Youth Hostel in Brisbane (Australia); also staying there was a load of Malaysians. They all arrived at 3 o’clock in the morning and proceeded to shout, nay, scream at each other in Malay for half an hour. They also pissed very noisily, too [you know, straight into the water, from what sounded - to a bloke trying to get some kip - like a height of 30 feet].
But whether they were so loud because they were Malaysian or whether they were simply a bunch or arseholes, I have no idea.
In my experience of America most people there seem to have conversations like they don’t care who is listening. People have a hard time understanding me, not because of my accent but because I don’t seem to project my voice like an average American does. In Ireland some people are really really loud some people are quiet and some people are just about in the middle.
It only seems that way because you don’t understand the other languages. It varies regionally anyway. Some English speakers (New Yorkers, e.g.) speak fast, others drawl. Some Spanish speakers speak fast (Panamanians), others speak slower (Ecuadorians).
I think the argument has to be defined as between tourists and residents. Tourists are not normal; their hearing is damaged from plane travel, their inhibitions damaged from too alcohol, their brains addled by heat and jet lag, and their dispositions ruined by rude hotel and airline clerks. Germans in Hungary are every bit as obnoxious as Americans in France.
I lived and traveled in Europe for seven years, in Africa for four years, and in Japan for two years. While the traffic noise is every bit as bad as anywhere else (or worse), I found the conversational levels of locals to be much lower than in the US. The thing that struck me upon my return to America (and which still annoys me) is the willingness to disclose every detail of one’s life to total strangers and at top volume. I could make an excellent living as a burglar just from sitting in restaurants and jotting down some notes.
If there is a difference in normal volume levels across cultures, then someone has to be at the quieter end of the scale; this thread is asking “is there a difference?” and “If so, is it me at the quiet end?”.
Cultures differ from each other in so many ways, it seems weird and unlikely that they wouldn’t differ in this way - I can’t help thinking there’s an unspoken undercurrent of political correctness at work - as if we daren’t acknowledge a difference in this particular regard.
That’s funny I was visiting a friend in Northern Ireland (I.m an American) and we were in a small local pub. This Australian group was sitting at the bar and they were loud. My friend even commented, “And I thought Americans were loud.”
I’ve noticed that, in different countries, people are loud in some settings and quiet in others and it can vary from culture to culture. In Jamaica, people chatting with friends out on the sidewalk can sound and appear (to an outsider) like they are having a shouting match that could escalate to a fist fight. But when you get closer, you see they’re just having a friendly conversation. But sitting on the bus, Jamaicans will be completely quiet and look annoyed when tourists speak out loud (“normal” US tone of voice) to each other.
It does seem to me that people in the US talking on cell phones are often shouting (in a I"m center of the universe way), which is really annoying to me.
