Immigrants speaking English: Why do you care, anyway?

[roguenuke]

Well, you're wrong, it is a lot to ask any adult to learn a new language.

Not if you're planning on living in the country for an extended period of time.

 

[Redress]

Beyond cultural practices that are illegal... why?

And what exact culture are you referring to?

I'm not saying it's the case in your particular case but I often find the hidden meaning behind that phrase is simply "Come to agree with things I think are right" politically more than anything else.

America, if it is a free country as so many suggest, has no requirement to assimilate or submit to any "culture".

The American culture is constantly changing anyway, can't really set a standard for what they are expected to assimilate to. Besides, the reality is that assimilation is a two way street.

 

[Summerwind]

Well I would be if I moved to Mexico or Germany and got pissy if anyone expected me to learn their language.

I've never met anyone who got "pissy" about learning another language. Maybe defensive because they find it as impossible as you do, but not "pissy" just because they want to remain unilingual. You put a lot of intent into your judgment of others without actually knowing their intent, and totally ignoring what your own intent would be given similar circumstances. You wouldn't be of the wrong language in another country out of spite or hatred or demanding to remain ignorant of the language, but because you CAN'T at your age and ability learn it. However if people of that country got hostile about you not knowing their language I am reasonably sure you'd become defensively hostile in return, sending exactly the same erroneous message you claim to be honing in on with others.

 

[Jetboogieman]

Ok, fine.

We'll make America bilingual. English and Spanish.

Oops... you know we have a lot of Asians and Indians. Guess we'd better add Vietnamese, Cambodian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and... oh crap, India has over a dozen official languages... sigh, Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Nepali and Kashmiri at least...

Well **** if we do that we'll have to add Arabic and Yiddish at the very least. Better throw in Portuguese for folks from Brazil.

Where does it end??

Are we going to need street signs and government forms and official translators in every gov office in 100 different languages?

Oh stop being so dramatic.

First of all Tucker never suggested that.

These things only really tend to extend to a point of practicality anyway.

Practically speaking, I don't think you'd find it too hard to have a bilingual country like Canada, if it was English and Spanish.

But in South Africa for example, we have 11 official languages, this serves as more of a recognition of the various tribes rather than any practical meaning for everyday business and governmental usage.

For the most part you'd have to be served in Afrikaans, English, Xhosa or Zulu because it's the practical reality of the country... and most signs and businesses etc. operate in English as it's a common language that connects all others.

 

[X Factor]

Oh, the irony...

As in someone using the term when it doesn't apply?

 

[Goshin]

Oh stop being so dramatic.

First of all Tucker never suggested that.

These things only really tend to extend to a point of practicality anyway.

Practically speaking, I don't think you'd find it too hard to have a bilingual country like Canada, if it was English and Spanish.

But in South Africa for example, we have 11 official languages, this serves as more of a recognition of the various tribes rather than any practical meaning for everyday business and governmental usage.

For the most part you'd have to be served in Afrikaans, English, Xhosa or Zulu because it's the practical reality of the country... and most signs and businesses etc. operate in English as it's a common language that connects all others.

Fits my point exactly. Almost every nation has a "common language" of some sort. India has over 100 languages just from the native populations, but Hindi serves as the common tongue with English coming in a close second among the better educated.

A nation that expects to be anything like "one people" need to be able to talk to each other.


Humans have three primary modes of interacting with strangers: Cooperation, trade, or violence. Guess which one is the only one that doesn't require communication. At best, a lack of ability to communicate means we don't interact much at all, and that does NOT foster a sense of fellow-citizenship.

 

[roguenuke]

The older ones.

I know in Ireland, there are sections that speak Irish full-time and many of the old timers don't speak English at all. It still works. Turns out it's similar to teh fact that you probably cannot "talk" to a deaf person. Amazingly, the world survives.

Actually, there are some issues that pop up from working with a deaf person who can't speak to you, can't read lips, and no one at the job knows sign language. When the person can minimally read and write, and gets dropped off and picked up at certain times of day, it is worse. It can work, but it is a disaster waiting to happen at times.

 

[Kal'Stang]

Why do people care so much if an immigrant is speaking English or their native language? I hear people piss and moan all the time about having to "press 1 for English", for example, as though they are somehow victimized by having to press a button. What the **** difference does it make to you? Are you harmed in some way? Does it wound you?

Because, as far as I can tell, the only person who suffers when an immigrant fails to learn English is the immigrant his/herself. It limits their ability to find jobs, it limits their ability to access services and receive assistance, etc.

It seems to me that people whining about immigrants speaking something other than English is nothing more than victim-mentality nonsense, but I could be wrong. so please enlighten me: How are you harmed? Why do you even care?

I don't care all that much. But I do think that if you go to a country, plan on living there for the rest of your life, then you should learn to speak the dominate language of the country. Just for the simple fact that it is the polite thing to do.

Claiming harm is btw nothing more than a strawman. No harm is actually done by someone not learning the native language of a country...unless you want to go to extremes then I'm sure some type of harm or other can be shown. But for the average everyday person no harm is ever going to happen and no one, except extremists maybe, has ever claimed that they were being harmed by someone not learning the native language of a country.

 

[Redress]

Fits my point exactly. Almost every nation has a "common language" of some sort. India has over 100 languages just from the native populations, but Hindi serves as the common tongue with English coming in a close second among the better educated.

A nation that expects to be anything like "one people" need to be able to talk to each other.


Humans have three primary modes of interacting with strangers: Cooperation, trade, or violence. Guess which one is the only one that doesn't require communication. At best, a lack of ability to communicate means we don't interact much at all, and that does NOT foster a sense of fellow-citizenship.

Please go back and read post 1 so you know what we are talking about in the thread. Right now you pretty clearly do not know what is being said.

 

[Reformedfindlay]

That is an extremely impolite way to behave. Why do you do that?

language barrier. There's no point in trying.

There's this beautiful thing called "Assimilation."

My dad and his entire family who came here from Ecuador did it, and so can the rest.

 

[Tucker Case]

Ok, fine.


We'll make America bilingual. English and Spanish.

Not a bad idea, since we are pretty much the only country that doesn't try to educate their children on different languages.Although I don't think we need to make it bilingual so much as we need to make learning a second language (any second language) in childhood a requirement.

oh crap, India has over a dozen official languages...

Yet they manage to be "'one people"?!?!?!?!

Well **** if we do that we'll have to add Arabic and Yiddish at the very least. Better throw in Portuguese for folks from Brazil.

I've never seen you go with full-on emotionality before, Goshin. It's quite nice to see it, to be honest. It humanizes you a bit. You're normally the most calm and collected person on the website. Like a super polite and rational ****in' robot :lol:

Where does it end??

Same place it always has. The thing is, people not learning English has been ongoing since day one of this Countries founding. Like I said earlier, Chinatown is not evidence of assimilation. Quite the opposite.

Are we going to need street signs and government forms and official translators in every gov office in 100 different languages?

We have government forms in pretty much every language, and that's a good thing because government forms should be presented in their most easily understood format. Most native speakers of English can struggle with government forms, what chance does someone who speaks English as a second language have trying to decipher the legalese?

 

[WCH]

It makes it more difficult and more expensive to educated them and their children.

It's a requirement for citizenship.

English is the universal language of business.

etc.

 

[nota bene]

The accommodations aren't for those who don't speak English, they are for those that DO, but not as well as they speak their native language. If you are dealing with the Police, for example, shouldn't you be able to understand everything that they are telling you? I know I would want to know everything. Legal documents, too. My mother-in-law speaks English very well, but every single time she's given the option for Italian, she takes it because she has to translate English into Italian in her head in order to understand it. It causes confusion sometimes and you do NOT want confusion wehn dealing with legal documents etc.

No, you don't or when discussing medical decisions with your doctor.

In answer to your question, I grieve for those who choose not to learn English despite having earned their citizenship because they miss so much. Sometimes their kids or grandkids aren't around to translate, and then they're lost.

Clearly, Americans have some sort of genetic deficit that prevents them from learning other languages. (I'm kidding.) But I can say that at least in my experience, staying for an extended time in a country in which another language is spoken, El Salvador in my case, had me actually thinking in Spanish rather than having to translate from English in about four weeks. Immersion, I guess.

I do think that when somebody has lived in the United States for over 20 years and still cannot speak English, it's time to turn off the novellas, but as you say, those who make that choice are only hurting themselves.

 

[X Factor]

I've never met anyone who got "pissy" about learning another language. Maybe defensive because they find it as impossible as you do, but not "pissy" just because they want to remain unilingual. You put a lot of intent into your judgment of others without actually knowing their intent, and totally ignoring what your own intent would be given similar circumstances. You wouldn't be of the wrong language in another country out of spite or hatred or demanding to remain ignorant of the language, but because you CAN'T at your age and ability learn it.

And in recognizing my limitations, I chose to remain here instead of moving to another country and demanding they accomodate me.

However if people of that country got hostile about you not knowing their language I am reasonably sure you'd become defensively hostile in return, sending exactly the same erroneous message you claim to be honing in on with others.

If I got defensive that I encountered frustration by others for me not speaking their common language that would be supremely self centered on my part. Can you imagine? Someone asks me or says something to me in Spanish that I don't understand and I'm in, say, Mexico, yet I get pissy they don't speak my language or that they expect me to learn theirs? That's funny.

 

[Jetboogieman]

Fits my point exactly. Almost every nation has a "common language" of some sort. India has over 100 languages just from the native populations, but Hindi serves as the common tongue with English coming in a close second among the better educated.

A nation that expects to be anything like "one people" need to be able to talk to each other.


Humans have three primary modes of interacting with strangers: Cooperation, trade, or violence. Guess which one is the only one that doesn't require communication. At best, a lack of ability to communicate means we don't interact much at all, and that does NOT foster a sense of fellow-citizenship.

Yeah but the point here is that even in these countries with hundreds of languages, English is winning out as the connector...

Why is this though?

Partially it's because English is extremely malleable... unlike say Parisian French or Japanese, even if someone isn't great at speaking English, you can generally understand what they're getting at, sometimes with every single word in a sentence mispronounced, plus it's adaptable because it borrows words from other languages without any issue which is another reason it is successful, it allows for evolution.

And so again as we've seen when a diverse array of languages exists, English if already seeded within the country becomes a dominant connector (India, Nigeria, South Africa etc.)

And so even if many people, from many different languages came to America (which they have already), English will be a language people will want to learn, use and conduct business in... or not at their own peril.

Therefore the "need" if we're talking in some sort of official requirement becomes redundant.

I mean don't get me wrong, there are some people on this site that could benefit from some sort of legal requirement taken to ensure they move from Gibberish to English but the whole thing seems not really necessary.

 

[Redress]

Not a bad idea, since we are pretty much the only country that doesn't try to educate their children on different languages.Although I don't think we need to make it bilingual so much as we need to make learning a second language (any second language) in childhood a requirement.

This is a big one. Learning a second language really enhances what a person can do. If we want to continue to claim we educate our children, then we might consider educating them in things that are useful.

 

[Ray410]

Individually, it probably doesn't matter if all they can speak is pig-Latin.

As a group, however, humans tend to gravitate toward those who are like themselves; common language, appearance, etc. So if you have a huge group that speaks a different language, soon you have another cohesive unit or culture within the larger framework of your country.

The more different cultures you have, the more cultural differences you have and the weaker the country becomes because it lacks commonality of beliefs, morality and behavior. Example: The United States of America.

Soon you have no real country.

 

[X Factor]

This is a big one. Learning a second language really enhances what a person can do. If we want to continue to claim we educate our children, then we might consider educating them in things that are useful.

And yet you think it's wrong or racist or mean or whatever to expect to expect others that intend to live here to learn the common language?

 

[Superfly]

¿Qué?

:lol:

 

[Tucker Case]

That makes no sense. Of course it accomodates those who won't learn the language. If you won't even acknowledge that, I don't think there's too much more to say.

It's not there to accommodate them. It's there to accommodate anyone who is not a native speaker. Your mom might have preferred to have legal documents in German regardless of how well she mastered English, simply because her command of German was certainly greater than her command of English. And it appears she was truly proficient at English. For someone, like yourself, who struggles with languages, they might be decent enough to get by in English, but would prefer to use their native tongue. That's the person those accommodations exist for. If you get rid of them to screw over those who refuse to learn, you will screw over those who deserve to have such accommodations.

If there was some way to only accommodate those making an effort while refusing to accommodate those who aren't, I'd support it, but that doesn't exist.

Yes, you should, which is why it would be a good idea to speak the language the cops do, but as you've already stated, if a non English speaker cannot make themselves understood, that's their problem and their problem alone.

You got it backwards. It's not making themselves understood, it's understanding the directions being given by the police while minimizing any chance for error. You don't speak another language, so obviously you are at least somewhat ignorant of what it is like trying to comprehend a non-native language in a moment of stress, but I can tell you from experience, it's very ****ing difficult. Maybe you saw it with your mother. When she got angry did she revert to german a little bit? Did she stutter? I've seen numerous people who do these things in those moments.

Right, and here's where you encounter the frustration (which you condemn) of those who do want all parties to, gasp, actually be able to speak to each other. Racist bastards.

Why the **** would you need to talk to my mother-in-law? Would that help her understand legal documents?

 

[Tucker Case]

Actually, there are some issues that pop up from working with a deaf person who can't speak to you, can't read lips, and no one at the job knows sign language. When the person can minimally read and write, and gets dropped off and picked up at certain times of day, it is worse. It can work, but it is a disaster waiting to happen at times.

So should we force them to speak English?

 

[Redress]

And yet you think it's wrong or racist or mean or whatever to expect to expect others that intend to live here to learn the common language?

I said that? Can you show me where?

 

[Fletch]

Why do people care so much if an immigrant is speaking English or their native language? I hear people piss and moan all the time about having to "press 1 for English", for example, as though they are somehow victimized by having to press a button. What the **** difference does it make to you? Are you harmed in some way? Does it wound you?

Because, as far as I can tell, the only person who suffers when an immigrant fails to learn English is the immigrant his/herself. It limits their ability to find jobs, it limits their ability to access services and receive assistance, etc.

It seems to me that people whining about immigrants speaking something other than English is nothing more than victim-mentality nonsense, but I could be wrong. so please enlighten me: How are you harmed? Why do you even care?

If you were going to answer your own question in the OP, why did you ask it?

 

[Tucker Case]

I don't care all that much. But I do think that if you go to a country, plan on living there for the rest of your life, then you should learn to speak the dominate language of the country. Just for the simple fact that it is the polite thing to do.

Should, sure. I think everyone agrees on that. But who gives a **** if they don't?

Claiming harm is btw nothing more than a strawman.

Harm is required to justify the degree of anger some people have about this isssue. In the absence of harm, their anger and concern over this issue is wholly unjustified.

No harm is actually done by someone not learning the native language of a country...unless you want to go to extremes then I'm sure some type of harm or other can be shown. But for the average everyday person no harm is ever going to happen and no one, except extremists maybe, has ever claimed that they were being harmed by someone not learning the native language of a country.

I completely agree that there is no harm. Which is why I don't get why this is such a big issue for some people.

 

[Redress]

If you were going to answer your own question in the OP, why did you ask it?

To invite debate maybe? What an odd thing to do on a debate site...