Exactly. I can't imagine there are any other ways to teach foreigners that are fair like that.orangeban said:
You are in the U.S please speak English
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The United States has the second largest population of Spanish speaking people in the world. We have no official national language.
Here's a question I've been wanting to ask most people in this thread, so I'll point it at you good sir.DragonLord Seth said:
One of my very good friends has a cousin who has a disability that means she can only learn one language (or is it that she learnt a language then got the disability? Not too sure about the details)
The short of it is, she speaks Spanish and can never learn another language. If America operated under your law, could she not get in? Would she be treated to a big TOO BAD as well?
My family is Hispanic. My grandparents are/were in their eighties, spoke almost entirely Spanish, and yet still spoke their broken English to people who didn't understand Spanish. Might I mention they started a school in New York together?
I have a sister in law who has lived since about three years ago in Dominican Republic. She's now a part-time worker and full-time mother. And still she's teaching herself English. I myself am starting to forget my Spanish, so I find it a bit helpful. I used to walk to a doughnut shop every day, and I could tell by the accents that the family owning it were foreign; they looked and sounded to be Asian. I actually found the way the woman would say "glazed" (glai) to be rather cute.
None of them were FORCED to learn English, and yet they did so, because they wanted to communicate with others. As an American with foreign family, I find this a bit insulting. No foreigner has to learn English, but generally they choose to. Even the ones who speak their native language most of the time still learns the country's language just a bit. I'm assuming that you don't know that many foreign people due to this comment.
I have not met one foreign person in the U.S. that did not speak English. Most foreigners make an effort to learn their country's language, and to assume otherwise is rather stupid. People who act like this are part of the reason I wonder if I would be better living back in Dominican Republic. Oh, just so you know, I was born in New York.
I have a sister in law who has lived since about three years ago in Dominican Republic. She's now a part-time worker and full-time mother. And still she's teaching herself English. I myself am starting to forget my Spanish, so I find it a bit helpful. I used to walk to a doughnut shop every day, and I could tell by the accents that the family owning it were foreign; they looked and sounded to be Asian. I actually found the way the woman would say "glazed" (glai) to be rather cute.
None of them were FORCED to learn English, and yet they did so, because they wanted to communicate with others. As an American with foreign family, I find this a bit insulting. No foreigner has to learn English, but generally they choose to. Even the ones who speak their native language most of the time still learns the country's language just a bit. I'm assuming that you don't know that many foreign people due to this comment.
I have not met one foreign person in the U.S. that did not speak English. Most foreigners make an effort to learn their country's language, and to assume otherwise is rather stupid. People who act like this are part of the reason I wonder if I would be better living back in Dominican Republic. Oh, just so you know, I was born in New York.
Aye, that's annoying and just plain rude in my opinion. Especially when they are loudly and blatantly gossipping about people around them. Otherwise, if they're just on holiday, then it's all good.SirBryghtside said:
I keep getting the impression that for people coming here it's alright for them not to be able to speak English but, say, if I was going elsewhere, then I'd be expected to speak the language. Or rather, that's what emanates from everyone from here so I suppose it rubs off somewhat. Mind you, of course I'd try to learn the language if I was planning on moving to another country, I'd definitely be trying to learn the language.
I've noticed that for a lot of English speaking countries, they don't tend to teach other languages to kids at really young ages. I mean, I only started French when I was 12, Spanish when I was 13 and on and off with Finnish from about 13/14ish. It's so much more difficult when one's older so I would sympathise with people in those circumstances, provided they're trying.
Heh. It's funny actually. A friend of mine had gone to Germany a while back and he said he'd been speaking with the locals. He was talking away to them in German, however, some of them I think caught on that he was actually an English speaker so they started to speak to him in English. He wanted to practise though, so he just let on he didn't understand what they were saying to him. The same friend has started learning Polish because of people coming into his opticians and being unable to speak English. He's incredibly linguistic and has an adoration for all languages mind you so he's alright with that I guess.
I'm having my fingers crossed for visiting Finland next year and they are officially bilingual with Finnish being the main language of course, Swedish and English. I really want to practise my Finnish but they're definitely going to catch on that I'm an English speaker, no thanks to my inability of rolling my "R"s properly, argh!
Reminded me of this:
http://satwcomic.com/not-english
So true!
x
I'm sorry, but I can't see any reason why they would want to do this if they expect to live a good life in the U.S. Like you said, they would just be shooting themselves in the foot. Unless they decide to live with people who can speak English and are willing to help them.orangeban said:
Well, the point isn't why someone might refuse it, the point is some people may very well do so, for whatever reason and they should still be allowed in.scorptatious said:
I mean an example I mentioned in a different post is my friends cousin who has a disability that means she is stuck with Spanish, can't learn any other language.
There are very close ties between language and culture, that I think that those here in America that don't want others to speak other languages than English are more or less afraid of loss of original American culture. If Spanish speaking people don't make an effort to learn English in the US, then we have the problem of Spanish speakers developing their own closed-in subculture within the overarching culture. The reason this is a problem, is because it promotes social dissonance. Being unable to understand cultural minorities only furthers the perception that "they aren't like us", and that "they shouldn't be here".
Regardless of language barriers, BOTH sides should be making efforts to communicate. Spanish is very prevalent in this country, and English speakers should make an effort to learn the language, and Spanish speakers should make efforts to learn English.
Regardless of language barriers, BOTH sides should be making efforts to communicate. Spanish is very prevalent in this country, and English speakers should make an effort to learn the language, and Spanish speakers should make efforts to learn English.
While I'm sure this is true, my own experience with this, is that the Germans I we tried communicating with preferred that we spoke in English, since they already knew it, and we didn't really know German all that well.WhatIsThisIDontEven said:
True story bro
Most people only learn languages when they need to. The argument of the ancestors coming to Ellis Island and learning English is only partially true at best: most grown, first generation immigrants didn't learn much more than broken English, if any at all. That said, English is the predominant language here, and learning it is more or less a prerequisite to establishing a comfortable life here. Immigrants may not have to learn English - and even if it's a so called requirement, few will ever learn more than very basic english - but it's still a good idea. The notion that anyone should be compelled to learn a whole different way of communicating is silly.
Pero, como un obseso de linguisticas, y porque me interesa mucho otros idiomas, tengo que decir que es más que un buen idea para aprender idiomas, es muy divertido. Con mi español, por ejemplo, habría tenido conversaciónes muy interesantes con obsesos de anime de America Latina, y hasta un estudiante de español en Sweden que no hablaba nada inglés. そして、ぼくの日本語がわるいです、でも、日本語で話すはおもしろいだとおもいますね。
Pero, como un obseso de linguisticas, y porque me interesa mucho otros idiomas, tengo que decir que es más que un buen idea para aprender idiomas, es muy divertido. Con mi español, por ejemplo, habría tenido conversaciónes muy interesantes con obsesos de anime de America Latina, y hasta un estudiante de español en Sweden que no hablaba nada inglés. そして、ぼくの日本語がわるいです、でも、日本語で話すはおもしろいだとおもいますね。
Actually, I think this is a much bigger problem in Ontario than anywhere else (except maybe Luxembourg because they have the highest immigration rate next to Canada). In my high school alone, there are around 102 students out of 1566 that cannot speak English. [HEADING=1]102![/HEADING]
Worst of all, that's just in the schools, just imagine that ratio of people in everyday life that cannot speak French or English while living in a country that clearly states that those are its two mandatory-to-learn languages. It makes school and work extremely difficult when we are forced to interact with each other.
Worst of all, that's just in the schools, just imagine that ratio of people in everyday life that cannot speak French or English while living in a country that clearly states that those are its two mandatory-to-learn languages. It makes school and work extremely difficult when we are forced to interact with each other.