English as the Official Language

[Unkotare]

You are really missing the point.

Really? Enlighten me, I'm begging you.

Don't beg.

Do you honestly imagine that having an official national language would involve the Language Police kicking in doors and administering random grammar tests? What exactly do you think would be "forced" and "punished"? And we already pay for many, many, many English classes (although the 'free' ones tend to suck). You knew that, right?

No they don't. They don't have a lot of people going to them, but they don't suck. People give up their time to give those classes, my neighbor is one of them and she's made a lot of friends from all over the world.

Making friends is not the same as not sucking.

 

[Unkotare]

Why in the fuck would a country that was built on immigration, and depends on immigration to sustain what's left of its agro-industry would FORCE people to learn a language? Honestly, that's the kind of shit that makes me laugh about Conservatives. They're all for keeping government out of their homes, unless it's telling them who to fuck and what language to speak.

It's not about forcing someone to learn a language, it's about not forcing us to provide them an interpreter. When my friend and I went to Japan, we sure as hell didn't expect them all to speak English. Heck even the people in our hotel didn't. We had a Japanese friend that made our reservations. We went on our own, without an interpreter and we did fine, but we sure as heck didn't expect them to cater to us in our language.

That's not really a good example to support your position. You had to have stayed in a seriously cheap-ass hotel if no one there spoke even a little English, and you can drive around Japan and take the trains and all that with English translations, transliterations, and romanizations everywhere you go. English speakers are accomodated so much in Japan that speakers of other languages (other than Japanese, of course) very often rely on English to get by.

Hey, good point!

 

[Unkotare]

Why in the fuck would a country that was built on immigration, and depends on immigration to sustain what's left of its agro-industry would FORCE people to learn a language? Honestly, that's the kind of shit that makes me laugh about Conservatives. They're all for keeping government out of their homes, unless it's telling them who to fuck and what language to speak.

It's not about forcing someone to learn a language, it's about not forcing us to provide them an interpreter. When my friend and I went to Japan, we sure as hell didn't expect them all to speak English. Heck even the people in our hotel didn't. We had a Japanese friend that made our reservations. We went on our own, without an interpreter and we did fine, but we sure as heck didn't expect them to cater to us in our language.

That's not really a good example to support your position. You had to have stayed in a seriously cheap-ass hotel if no one there spoke even a little English, and you can drive around Japan and take the trains and all that with English translations, transliterations, and romanizations everywhere you go. English speakers are accomodated so much in Japan that speakers of other languages (other than Japanese, of course) very often rely on English to get by.

Hey, good point!

Thanks, I thought so.