Someone defend the other side of this American argument.

[pffh]

I feel your pain man here in Iceland we have the same problem with Poles that just won´t learn the language even after staying here for 5+ years.
I even had to do some lab work with a woman that only spoke polish, do you know how hard it is to make someone understand that it's hydrochloricacid that you want and not hydrogenperoxide when you don't speak the same language?

 

[Logic 0]

I say if your coming to a english speaking country learn the language.

 

[Cakes]

What the fuck is wrong with YOU? Why don't you know Spanish? They did after all colonize here before the English.

Yes but now the national language is English so your logic just got fucked up the ass..... What the fuck's wrong with youz.

Stellar first post, new guy. You'll fit right in around here.
For the record:
Naughty words fly here, but being a dick doesn't.

 

[S-Unleashed]

I agree but It's still somthing you might want to learn.

 

[Cakes]

I say if your coming to a english speaking country learn the language.

Not everyone has the resources to do this.

 

[KapnKerfuffle]

I don't know if you honestly want to be enlightened or not, but here is my view.

Many immigrants DO try to learn the language if they want to truly get ahead. But many don't have to to get by in there area. In the early part of America's history, there were whole towns of people who did not speak English. These were not Spanish town either. These were European languages. And if you wanted to do business with them in their city, YOU had to learn their language.

I grew up in a farm community and there were a lot of hard working Mexican's who had 2 or 3 jobs to support themselves. It's not easy to take a night class for English. Your friends from Romania, Poland, Chile etc. don't really have a large community that speaks their language to fall back on. And migrant workers only need to come here to work and then leave for Mexico. It's pretty hard to learn English and it takes a lot of courage to try to speak it. Maybe he was too shy. Maybe he wasn't terribly bright. Or he could have contempt for all white people and not give a shit too.

People really ***** up a storm about illegals, but if they all left you would choke on food prices at the store. We would have to conscript all the lazy-ass teenagers in this country to go harvest our produce for minimum wage. THAT I would love to see.

If you live on a border town then you will just have to put up with it.

 

[VicunaBlue]

one, you Americans don't speak English, stop pretending that you do
b, this is something you have to deal with.

Might you care to explain how I am typing this then?

OT If we move somewhere, we are expected to learn the language. A friend of mine was asked to leave a store in montreal because he didn't speak french. I don't see why it is unreasonable to want immigrants to become functional members of society.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

-Snip-
simply asking for this man to speak a language which is fairly simply to understand?
-Snip-

I stopped here because English is actually one of the hardest languages in the world to learn, because it's spoken backwards.

It's actually more forward than most western and mid-eastern languages (I cannot lay any knowledge to eastern). Most of the western languages involve phrasing akin to "this is the thing that he likes", as opposed to the "he likes this thing" that english offers, and are redundant out the waz, where different parts of speech can all say the exact same thing as the entire sentence. In spanish, Hacemos, for example, means "we are doing", but the phrase "estamos hacemos", if you translate it literally, comes up "us, we that are doing". English is by no means a more perfect language, but it does delete many of the redundancies, and it at least puts the sentences in a straightforward order. Turkish, Arabic, French, German, Latin (and subsequently Italian), and Spanish all act the same way, and English does what it can to stop people from talking like Yoda or a circuitous politician with a memory problem.

On topic, though, I'm right there with you, that English is pretty much the language spoken here, though we officially have no language (and the variations change for different parts of the country--some places have a stronger German influence, while others might have a nice big heaping portion of Italian. I do think that the bilingual program here needs to be reworked, though, since more often than not it just ends up limiting what they can effectively say in either langauge, instead of improving the base of one. Forcing bilingualism on us is a dick move, one that most of us don't want. Should we encourage it? Hells yes. Should we force it? Only if our goal is to reduce the actual interest and skill in being bilingual.

 

[quiet_samurai]

No it's not just you, alot of people feel that way. And I totally disagree with you and them. If sombody doesn't want to learn a language they shouldn't have to. And believe it or not English is actually one of the hardest languages in the world to learn because it is backwards compared to most others. Also, Spanish is the number 2 spoken language in the USA and the numbers are rising more and more every year.

Although I think learning more then one language is great, you shouldn't be forced to if you dont want. I also grew up learning both English and Spanish because my mother is Mexican.

 

[Superhyperactiveman]

I agree with your general point: Since they're the ones coming to a new country, they should take the time to learn the language, rather than forcing the people already here to bend to their will. That said, you have presented your arguement in a less than desirable manner. When you're making a case for something, you want to remain logical and unemotional. Even if you didn't mean it that way, which I'm sure you didn't, you kind of came off as throwing a temper tantrum. Generally that makes people who don't share your opinion already turn confrontational. If you remained calm and presented your case logically, you probably could've swayed the opinions of some people who didn't agree with you.

 

[Vuljatar]

IMO, it's just common courtesy to be able to get by in the most prevalent language in the country that you live or do business in. More than once I've encountered a situation at McDonalds that reminded me of that episode of South Park.

Me: "I'd like a large order of french fries."
Mexican worker: "...you wan chikin sanwich?"

 

[Nevar18]

Here in Australia it's almost the same thing, except that no-one can just jump a border to get here. so, since they have enough money to stay for longer than a vacation, they should English. I mean, a lot of them come here for schooling as well, they learn English by default, why can't the rest of them learn as well, even if it's one person in the family learning it, they should be able to teach the rest of the family.

 

[Nevar18]

also FLAME!!

 

[The_Echo]

I agree. If you're going to live in America, where English is pretty much the language (Though there is no official national language), you'd best learn it. It just seems a little obvious to me.

 

[John Stalvern]

one, you Americans don't speak English, stop pretending that you do
b, this is something you have to deal with.

Might you care to explain how I am typing this then?

He's not actually making a point, he's just being an ass.

 

[MaskedMori]

Because deep down I can see no logical, feasible, or actual reason as to why Americans should have the Spanish language shoved down their throats. I work at a popular store chain here in America, and I am deeply appauled at how many Mexican individual come over here and don't even bother to learn the language correctly. I was unable to communicate with this one man, was asked if I spoke Spanish, when I replied that I didn't he had his four year old daughter come over and translate between the two of us.

Now really, what am I missing here? Is there something morally wrong with me, as a citizen of the United States of America, simply asking for this man to speak a language which is fairly simply to understand? Is it just me or is this an insult to each and every person who had learned the language, made the attempts to respect the majority of the citizens in this nation and all, or whatnot...

It is not as if I am asking them to learn Chinese or Polish here. Spanish to English an English to Spanish are both very simple conversions which can be made. However, I am honest to God offended at the fact that many of the immigrants from South American countries actually believe America SHOULD be required to speak the language of Mexico and below...just because we're attached at the hip over at Texas there.

And by all means, I've met everybody. People from Chile, Poland, Denmark, Romania, and all. My Romanian friend once refused to order from a Quiznos because he was so offended at the lady not being able to speak English (this was in Las Vegas by the way).

Him: I take the time to learn this language, become a citizen, and this damn ***** doesn't even know a few simple words?

In all modesty, why do the majority of people from Mexico hold a constant disregard for this country when it comes to the language? Someone enlighten me here.

English is one of the hardest languages in the world. We have entire courses on it in high school, heck, you can get a masters degree in English at colledge. Any language that takes more than 10 years to learn is hard.