Know the unwritten rules
How can we understand cultural differences? It is important, because communication is very much influenced by culture. If you think that you can communicate with someone from another country just because you know their language, you must re-think. Communication is about so much more, eg to know the unwritten rules of ones culture. What works in one place may or may not work in another. A psychologist named Dr Geert Hofstede has done research and thousands of interviews on this subject, which ended up in a model of cultural dimensions that has become an internationally recognized standard. I use these dimensions in my analysis.