Wait...What do you mean you don't speak *insert language here*

[Silver]

Wow. Really good point.

You miss a few things. A few pretty important things.


How easy do you think it is to learn a new language? Hm?

You need to find a teacher, and you need to be able to afford it. But that should be doable, right? Do you know how few people there are that teach English, or whatever native language you have in your country? Especially when you consider that these are adults, that need to learn quickly, to be able to integrate. When you consider that there comes more and more people to the country at all times, and how thinly stretched the resources for this are, you realise that these classes will restart several times over to cater to the new arrivals, and that the people who've already been there for a while won't get to advance and learn the language very well.

Sure, they could try to find private classes. Right? That's very expensive. And then there's the slight problem with that they can't speak english. Have you ever tried to sign up for a class in spanish in Spain, without speaking a word of it? I can bet you'd encounter some problems, unless you had the luck to find someone who spoke english. What about Japan? Korea? India? Could you go there, and sign up for a class in the correct language, and easily learn it?


No, I don't think you could. The fault doesn't lie only with the people coming to your country and speaking their horrible foreign. If they don't have a chance to learn to speak the native language, if they don't have any competent teachers, or resources, how would you suggest they go about it? The integration policies of most countries seriously suck. Normally, on other subjects I'd point out how much better it is over here, but it's just as bad, if not worse, than everywhere else. Unless of course you've got a lot of money, and already know how to get things done. Then you're done in a week.



And just for the record. English is very easy. If you think English is hard, try French. Try Chinese, try Swedish. Try German. French is difficult, because your spelling and your prononciation has nothing in common. Half the letters are silent. And the french language has VERY few words. You change the meaning just by changing your tone of voice. Chinese has the opposite problem. Forget trying to learn how to write it, at all, you won't succeed. Trying to speak it then, will get you into the same troubles as with the french, everything changes meaning. Swedish? Yeah, try to learn the grammar rules. German? Have fun with those verbs.

English isn't necessarily the easiest language around, and can probably be trouble, but compared to other language, it's not a hard language to learn. It's connected with several language groups, so almost all of Europe will have an advantage trying to learn it, since it's familiar. It will of course get harder to learn, the further you get away from those language groups, but it's still not a very hard language to speak.



Oh, and just pointing it out there. America does NOT have English as an official language. It works like one, since practically everyone speak it, or is supposed to, but it is NOT official.

 

[sky14kemea]

i kinda agree but i kinda dont, yeah if they're in an english speaking country they should learn a few phrases to help them, but when most english or american people go on holiday they dont bother to learn any phrases, they go to the english speaking hotels instead
whenever i went to spain id always order my food in spanish, same when i was in germany on an exchange trip

German? Have fun with those verbs.

nooooo, not the verbs >_< they sent my grade down

 

[lapan]

As long as they are not talking to me in their language i don't mind. Who am i to dictate which language one should speak with his family and friends?

 

[Daye.04]

and English, out of all the languages in the world, is probably the hardest to learn. Well, according to some of my language teachers it is.

I agree with Silver. English must be the easiest language I've ever tried to learn (Appereantly I've succeded =P). It is remarkably easy. Wich is good, since it's one of the most important languages in the world. Also. About that comb/bomb example of yours. That's nothing like in norwegian. Try to get foreigners to pronounce kj, tj, skj, k correct (Al of those have sounds that sound very similar. But have a very big diffrence in how to pronounce). Impossible. Even native norwegians have problems with that -.-

Here's a thought: What if someone posted a thread in their own language, with no English?

Ja det hadde jo vært fucka til de grader........
i totaly get what this thread is getting across and yes its fucked up if u cant speak you own language in your own country

Why is it that every time I figure someones nationality via their posts, it's usually norwegians? =P

Here's a thought: What if someone posted a thread in their own language, with no English?

Ja det hadde jo vært fucka til de grader........
i totaly get what this thread is getting across and yes its fucked up if u cant speak you own language in your own country

You have struck my curiosity, now I have to know what that first sentence meant.

I did'nt like this example. It's not norwegian enough. As you can see, it's "fucked" only "ed" has been changed with the norwegian way of saying it. But on the other hand. It is also very good, because it's very norwegian in the set up. It's something in norwegian that can't be said the same way in english. But this is what I'd translate it to: "Yes, that would by far be fucked indeed........". Something like that.

Spoiler: Just a tad off topic. Never mind this

Here's a thought: What if someone posted a thread in their own language, with no English?

Most of us would probably ignore it, due to not speaking the language.

Here's a thought: What if someone posted a thread in their own language, with no English?

Ja det hadde jo vært fucka til de grader........
i totaly get what this thread is getting across and yes its fucked up if u cant speak you own language in your own country

You have struck my curiosity, now I have to know what that first sentence meant.

See if he has his country listed on his profile, then babelfish it.

EDIT: I agree that if you go to a new country and you plan to stay, you should at least learn the language.
Also, I live in Florida. Most everything south of here is in Spanish and English.
Thank god for living just far north enough to escape the majority of it, because I don't speak anything other than a bit of classroom Spanish. Too many pretty girls were taking it at the same time.

Beated on the finish line again. How the deuce are you able to do that? =P

 

[Crystal Cuckoo]

Wow. Really good point.

You miss a few things. A few pretty important things.


...


Oh, and just pointing it out there. America does NOT have English as an official language. It works like one, since practically everyone speak it, or is supposed to, but it is NOT official.

I think what the OP is saying is that if you come as a foreigner to a country, you should learn its primary language. After all, why should said country mould their society just because you can't be bothered to learn a few phrases?

And just for the record, no, English is not easy to learn. Perhaps this is because it was your first language. French is SO much easier than English. Well, in my opinion it is. I grew up on both. Besides, language difficulty is largely subjective.

For example, in English there are many, many expressions that will mean completely different things when taken both literally and figuratively...

Just saying, is all.

 

[Scarecrow38]

I think, not being racist or intolerant, that people should be learning the languages of the countries they are moving into. It's okay if there are large families where the younger generation learns the language (let's just stick with English and the USA) but the grandparents only speak their own. It just seems logical to learn the language of your new home and I think Americans/ the "native" (in the broadest, incorrectest sense of the word) people should not be inconvenienced in their daily life by a language barrier in their own country.

 

[GothmogII]

Gotta laugh at that a little, considering that not only is 'American' not (at least not in the sense you're using it) a native tongue, it's not even a language. Though go ahead and use American English if it makes you feel better In fact, I'm pretty sure you'd all be speaking German if it had only got a few more votes.

But I'll grant that what happened to the actual natives is now history and at best an easy way to satirise modern America whenever the topic comes up heh. And yes, English being the current official language in the US, means that anyone coming there, and more importantly seeking to live and work there should learn at least a modicum in order to integrate efficiently.


As for my own country...it's kind of a weird issue. In Ireland, the majority speak, work, live, in english. Yet in most primary and secondary schools students are still taught Irish. It's one class though, much in the same way as Spanish or French would be, it is however mandatory barring an exemption. It's frankly a little stupid. As a cultural artifact in remembrance of our heritage and all that, great. But as a mandatory class, with almost marginal international significance much less any actual real value in real life, it's a load of crap.

You know, for secondary level, they even give out extra points for doing your final exams in Irish, a nice bonus if you're fluent, but not many people actually take it heh.

Well, I'm not going to dwell on the fact that I can't see any part of my post where I referred to America as a language, so I've dismissed that part of your post. I wasn't making this thread about the U.S.A. anyway. I was just saying in general and I'm using the United States as a point of reference since ya know...I live there. I never said English is the language of the world either...so moving on.

Its interesting that Ireland holds on to Irish in that way. I never would expect to see anything like that to be honest. Its actually pretty cool.

I have been thinking lately about the sheer amount of people who don't know how to speak the native tongue of the land they are in. For example, if you walk through New York City, you will hear many MANY languages being spoken, and more often than not, that is the only language they actually know how to speak.

I think this is a problem since if you have come to this country *In this case, lets just use the United States*, shouldn't you be the one assimilating with us? Not the other way around? I feel that it will ultimately lead to an even greater schism amongst the people living in this world than there already is.

As far as private conversations go, I'm fine with people speaking their own language amongst eachother, but when you walk into a store, and are getting flustered because the man/woman behind the counter does not speak whatever it is you speak, you have no right to get upset. I've seen this actually happen a few times, and to say the least...its just wrong. I understand that not everyone has access to places where they can learn to speak a certain language, and English, out of all the languages in the world, is probably the hardest to learn. Well, according to some of my language teachers it is.

I think that here in the U.S.A., we harbor these languages more than we try to ease them into our society by learning English.

Is this detrimental to society in the long run? Or am I just talking about some problem that I just made up? I feel like it will need to be addressed at some point, and what better place to have a discussion about it than here.

Sorry, I misread you slightly, what I was referring to, is the notion that while not un-reasonable in this day and age, that the thought that people should accommodate their hosts by for example learning the native tongue of their country. The funny part being that amongst other things, the current common tongue, in both the US and several other countries is not the native one.

However, it really doesn't matter, as it's still the the one in current use regardless of how that came to be, whether in the case of US where it came about after the actual natives were subjugated (and even before then I don't think there was strictly one language) and the settlers bringing their own languages over, or like Ireland where while the populace was mostly subjugated and gained independence later, where the the native tongue then fell out of use by the general population.

 

[orifice]

This is slowly happening in Britain now and it is becoming increasingly annoying when someone walks up to you talking in a foreign language, you raise you eyebrow and they storm off.
Seriously, I went to Germany a few years back and I spent a good amount of time between booking the holiday and going on the holiday learning German.
If you want to live in our country, speak our tongue, we're not going to cater for you, you live in England, you speak English, you cheeky fucking bastards.

I live in the Midlands, and I concur!

 

[Elurindel]

Me, I think that if you're going to live in , you should speak . If you're just visiting, then at least make an effort to be courteous, but no country should have to change its language just because the immigrants to its country are offended otherwise.

 

[Revernd Awesome]

I am going to have to let qdb.us do my talking for me this time.

" Guy in line: English should be the national language, these immigrants should have to learn English when they come here.
Girl in line: Yeah
Guy: When you go to live somewhere, you learn the language they speak there. English is the language of the land.
Sarah Mac: (from behind in line) Excuse me, but -- osio sarah dawado.
Guy: What the hell was that?
Sarah: Cherokee."

You americans can not talk as you do not speak the "native" language. Same as if you go to california then whine because people do not speak english. Cali was taken from the mexicans so spanish is the native language.

However that aside I do agree. You go somewhere, you learn to speak that places language. No one should have to cater to your disability because you are too lazy to learn.
Same with religion and laws. You go somewhere you have no choice but to follow their laws. No one cares what your stupid religion lets you get away with back in "Mudhole, Iraq"

Of course, Spanish isin't the native language of Mexico, it is the native language of Spain who conquered Mexico and enforced their language on it.

 

[Silver]

Wow. Really good point.

You miss a few things. A few pretty important things.


...


Oh, and just pointing it out there. America does NOT have English as an official language. It works like one, since practically everyone speak it, or is supposed to, but it is NOT official.

I think what the OP is saying is that if you come as a foreigner to a country, you should learn its primary language. After all, why should said country mould their society just because you can't be bothered to learn a few phrases?

And just for the record, no, English is not easy to learn. Perhaps this is because it was your first language. French is SO much easier than English. Well, in my opinion it is. I grew up on both. Besides, language difficulty is largely subjective.

For example, in English there are many, many expressions that will mean completely different things when taken both literally and figuratively...

Just saying, is all.

Yes, I know what the OP is saying. That last part was directed at whoever it was that said English was the official language of America. Not the OP, the other things were.

And I maintain that English is easy to learn. Every language has expressions that mean different things literally and figuratively, that's a social issue more than a language barrier (if even that). And no, I don't find English easy because it's my first language. English isn't my first language. Swedish is, and while I think that Swedish should be a very easy language to understand (and not only because it comes naturally, but because the language is very simplistic) other people tend to disagree. French on the other hand, I find a very difficult language to learn.

The thing is, to fully learn a language takes a lot more work than to become understandable in a language. If you try to learn english and spell it phonetically, people will understand. If you spell French phonetically, no one will understand that you mean "qu'est-ce que c'est" when you try to write "kesst ke ses". If you try the same for english with "What is that" and get it as "Wat is dat" people will still understand.

The same goes for pronunciation. If you ask something in English, it doesn't matter what tone of voice you have. In French, if you pronunce things wrong, you change something from a question, to a statement, and back. And that goes for many other languages as well.

 

[Koeryn]

As a resident of south Texas, I very much agree with the OP. Though later posters are correct, the U.S. does NOT have an official language (It needs to be English, but...).

There's a lot of talk, especially in regards to California, of Mexico subtly and fairly effectively re-taking land it lost a couple centuries back. Of course, that's a bollocks theory, let's face it, their government's a little too... Ineffective of late... to be doing such a thing intentionally.

That's not saying it doesn't appear to be working, but... Hooray conspiracies. =D

 

[mrnelsby]

What do you call a person who speaks three languages?

Trilingual

What do you call a person who speaks two languages?

Bilingual

What do you call a person who speaks one language?

American


My point is that this whole "you need to assimilate" attitude in the US is just missing the point. As someone who grew up bilingual, I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to go to another country and be able to interact with them on their own turf.

The reality though is that learning a new language past a certain age is exceptionally difficult because the brain is literally wired differently once we pass that sponge-like threshold of early development. Drop a kid into a multi-lingual environment and they will soak it ALL up. Older folks however need to have a real knack for languages in order to pick them up...

Unfortunately, the original poster's attitudes seem to be the prevailing ones not only in political circles, but in educational ones. It's as if we are trying to change our motto to: America, stupid and proud of it.

Then again, you just need to look at our "debate" over evolution to realize that rational thought doesn't have much to do with policy around here...

 

[macapus]

Un momento, Pablo Ricardo Julio de la mesa triste. No hablas ingles y vives en los Estados Unidos? No hablas otro idioma? Pobrecito, va a la escuela espanol. Lo siento.

If you just read that and understood that, the sad fact is that america probably made the public school where spanish is the only language. Do you think other countries are so generous. Do you think China is so generous to virtually every immigrant. I doubt it.

One moment, Pablo Ricardo Julio de la mesa triste.(mesa triste means the sad table, but some hispanic names have a title on the end of their names, such as del fuente). You don't speak english and you live in the United States. You don't speak any other language. Poor thing, go to the spanish school. I'm sorry.

 

[fireice56]

sigh..... I live in south texas and i camt believe i dont know spanish yet HALF the population of my town are spanish and i still dont know spanish

 

[mackemsniper]

I'm a scholar of Arabic and Hebrew (and Greek, Latin, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Old English, and a tad of Irish) and I agree with the above poster.

Semitic languages are bed-wettingly difficult, at least for Germanic speakers (I'm English). English tone, axiom, and of course spellings are notoriously difficult to master, but most do okay.

In all my travels through world languages, none come close to making me cry more than Arabic (and that's why I love it the most ;p)

Edit - the poster above last.