Why Aren’t You Speaking English?

[Anachronism]

PC, in both cases they may Learn English but they will never Master it, because they are not forced to use it exclusively.

 

[Two Thumbs]

when willl you people realise that speaking more than one language is easy for the brain and in fact has been proven to make your brain more functional.


There are cold hard studies that prove this.

By insisting for some dumb racists reason that Americans speak only one language you insist Americans hold their brain back.

Many in The rest of the world speaks more than one launguage

Then tell that to that disrespectfull asshole that refuses to learn the language of the land.


I was stationed in Italy. I was going to be there exactly 2 years. I didn't have to learn Italian, enough of the locals understood me that I didn't need it to get by.

BUT

Out of RESPECT for the host country I learned to speak Italian.

And you know what?

The prices of the things I bought went down the better my Italian got.

Respect, you should try it some time.

 

[Two Thumbs]

I think America should be bilingual. Latinos should learn English and English speaking people should learn Spanish. Communication is the first step to understanding and the lack of understanding is at the root of most of our problems in the world.

Why?

People living in Oregon may go thier entire lives and never come across a spanish speacking person.

We have Canadians that speak French. so by your logic, people living in Florida and Puerto Rico should learn French.

 

[Two Thumbs]

PC, in both cases they may Learn English but they will never Master it, because they are not forced to use it exclusively.

Speaking Gaelic in my greatgrand parents home earned you a beating.

My GGP struggled to speak english themselves, but {as the story goes] if they didn't know the proper English, they would whisper amoung themselves until they figured it out.

 

[hjmick]

From the article:

...Through his interpreter, Aguirre said Spanish is his "first language and since it is his first time giving testimony he would rather do it in Spanish."

So it would seem that Mr. Aguirre speaks English and his reason for giving testimony in Spanish is simple and quite understandable. He is more comfortable using his first language for such a task.

I get that.

Public speaking is a scary enough endeavor for many people, but to do so in a language that is not native to you makes it doubly so.

I hesitate to call this a case of intolerance and lean more to a case of impatience and misunderstanding. Like many of you I srongly believe that if a person moves to a foreign country, he or she should have the foresight to learn the language.

 

[Kiki Cannoli]

From the article:

...Through his interpreter, Aguirre said Spanish is his "first language and since it is his first time giving testimony he would rather do it in Spanish."

So it would seem that Mr. Aguirre speaks English and his reason for giving testimony in Spanish is simple and quite understandable. He is more comfortable using his first language for such a task.

I get that.

Public speaking is a scary enough endeavor for many people, but to do so in a language that is not native to you makes it doubly so.

I hesitate to call this a case of intolerance and lean more to a case of impatience and misunderstanding. Like many of you I srongly believe that if a person moves to a foreign country, he or she should have the foresight to learn the language.

Well USA citizens and Canadiens and Brits alike better put on their shame faces because, in my experience, the majority of whites living in Mexico for years can barely ask for directions nevermind conduct business or testify in court.

 

[Two Thumbs]

From the article:

...Through his interpreter, Aguirre said Spanish is his "first language and since it is his first time giving testimony he would rather do it in Spanish."

So it would seem that Mr. Aguirre speaks English and his reason for giving testimony in Spanish is simple and quite understandable. He is more comfortable using his first language for such a task.

I get that.

Public speaking is a scary enough endeavor for many people, but to do so in a language that is not native to you makes it doubly so.

I hesitate to call this a case of intolerance and lean more to a case of impatience and misunderstanding. Like many of you I srongly believe that if a person moves to a foreign country, he or she should have the foresight to learn the language.

Well USA citizens and Canadiens and Brits alike better put on their shame faces because, in my experience, the majority of whites living in Mexico for years can barely ask for directions nevermind conduct business or testify in court.

Really?

B/c ~80% of our crew in Italy spoke Italian. It was considered embarassing not to.

 

[Angelhair]

I think America should be bilingual. Latinos should learn English and English speaking people should learn Spanish. Communication is the first step to understanding and the lack of understanding is at the root of most of our problems in the world.

Sounds good - but - the problem being that THEY want us to learn THEIR language while they stay ignorant in ours.

 

[Kiki Cannoli]

From the article:

...Through his interpreter, Aguirre said Spanish is his "first language and since it is his first time giving testimony he would rather do it in Spanish."

So it would seem that Mr. Aguirre speaks English and his reason for giving testimony in Spanish is simple and quite understandable. He is more comfortable using his first language for such a task.

I get that.

Public speaking is a scary enough endeavor for many people, but to do so in a language that is not native to you makes it doubly so.

I hesitate to call this a case of intolerance and lean more to a case of impatience and misunderstanding. Like many of you I srongly believe that if a person moves to a foreign country, he or she should have the foresight to learn the language.

Well USA citizens and Canadiens and Brits alike better put on their shame faces because, in my experience, the majority of whites living in Mexico for years can barely ask for directions nevermind conduct business or testify in court.

Really?

B/c ~80% of our crew in Italy spoke Italian. It was considered embarassing not to.

Afraid so and I share this after exstensive travels, extended durations and full-time living across the country. Maybe Italy commands more respect than does Mexico?

I agree, if you are going to live somewhere take responsibility for your life and to do so you should probably have the ability to communicate.

I just wanted to plant the seed that what we preach as appropriate behaviours within the USA may not be the impression our copatriots provide abroad. Food for thought.

 

[Big Black Dog]

I have a friend who is a Chicago policeman. He says the harder you slap a Mexican, the better English he speaks. He said he slapped one so hard one time he was talking like a Harvard PHd in English.

 

[Anachronism]

Speaking Gaelic in my greatgrand parents home earned you a beating.

My GGP struggled to speak english themselves, but {as the story goes] if they didn't know the proper English, they would whisper amoung themselves until they figured it out.

Similar to my GGP's, Two Thumbs. As I stated earlier, they spoke 8 other languages in addition to English but refused to use any of them in public or in front of their children. It was an English-only home.

 

[Angelhair]

I think America should be bilingual. Latinos should learn English and English speaking people should learn Spanish. Communication is the first step to understanding and the lack of understanding is at the root of most of our problems in the world.

Why?

People living in Oregon may go thier entire lives and never come across a spanish speacking person.

We have Canadians that speak French. so by your logic, people living in Florida and Puerto Rico should learn French.

I think Mexicans should be bi-sexual!

Bilingual education was a total failure. We have 2 generations of people who never mastered either one!

 

[PoliticalChic]

PC, in both cases they may Learn English but they will never Master it, because they are not forced to use it exclusively.

Well, it's my second language and I have to work at it all the time. It depends on what you mean by 'forced.'

 

[Sarah G]

Moi?

 

[Epsilon Delta]

From the article:

...Through his interpreter, Aguirre said Spanish is his "first language and since it is his first time giving testimony he would rather do it in Spanish."

So it would seem that Mr. Aguirre speaks English and his reason for giving testimony in Spanish is simple and quite understandable. He is more comfortable using his first language for such a task.

I get that.

Public speaking is a scary enough endeavor for many people, but to do so in a language that is not native to you makes it doubly so.

I hesitate to call this a case of intolerance and lean more to a case of impatience and misunderstanding. Like many of you I srongly believe that if a person moves to a foreign country, he or she should have the foresight to learn the language.

^^^ Well, it seems somebody here reads the article before commenting. How refreshing. And then they even take the time to form a thought-out opinion on it.

---

Well, call me ol' fashioned, but I can't for the life of me find anywhere in the Constitution or the laws of the land that you must speak English, while testifying, or conducting official business, or anywhere. =\ So I must assume he can speak in whatever the fuck he wants.

Pero, diay, puede ser que el compa este quería burlarse de ese monton de guevones en el senado. Dejarlos bien jodidos y bateados, usando una lengua exótica como el español. C'est la vie, mes amis. Sayonara.

 

[Anachronism]

Well, it's my second language and I have to work at it all the time. It depends on what you mean by 'forced.'

It's not an easy language to learn as a second language. There are more exceptions than rules. There is no real structure to anything, like there is in most other languages.

By "forced" I mean not having that other option to fall back on. Knowing that whenever you go out in public, or deal with a public matter you are going to have to use English. Whether it's to order pizza for dinner, deal with the doctor's office, get a loan at the bank, or renew your driver's license. When people know that there's an option to have a translator or to fill out a form in some other language there is much less of a NEED to learn the language.

One of my elementary school friends lived in one of those "Italian/English" speaking arrangements I mentioned earlier. He went off to the Vo-Tech High School in town and did very well in their Electronics program. He also did fairly well in the academic program. Well enough that he had a shot to get into a pretty nice apprenticeship program with a computer technologies company outside Hartford. They loved his essay. Unfortunately he lost out because his interview was a total disaster.... it seems that he had a hard time not slipping into Italian when faced with stressful situations because he never used it outside of public places; and that didn't impress the people at the company very much.

 

[Angelhair]

One can speak 50 languages but if one of them is NOT english you will get nowhere!

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"It is insulting to us," Sen. Harris fired back. "It is very insulting. And if he knows English, he needs to be speaking in English."

Insulting to whom?

I can see how some on the left might construe this as racism.

It should be for all legal and governmental activities, whether spoken or written.

That was declared un-Constitutional by the Arizona supreme court:

In analyzing the English-only amendment’s constitutionality, the [Arizona] supreme court cited precedent that demonstrates "practically universal agreement that a major purpose of [the First] Amendment was to protect the free discussion of governmental affairs." The English-only amendment would defeat this purpose in two ways, the court found: by depriving "limited- and non–English-speaking persons of access to information about the government when multilingual access may be available and may be necessary to ensure fair and effective delivery of governmental services to non–English-speaking persons," and by "depriving elected officials and public employees of the ability to communicate with their constituents and with the public."

The court also held that the English-only amendment violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that "[n]o state shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The court recognized that the English-only amendment impinged upon the right to petition for redress of grievances, a "fundamental right" guaranteed by the First Amendment, as well as on a corollary right of all citizens to participate equally in the political process. Since the English-only amendment impinged upon the fundamental right to petition the government for redress of grievances, it was subject to a "strict scrutiny" analysis, the court reasoned. Under this analysis, the defendants had the burden of establishing the amendment’s constitutionality by demonstrating that it was drawn with narrow specificity to meet a "compelling state interest." Concluding that the defendants did not meet this burden, the court found the amendment to be in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

Finally, the court rejected the Arizona attorney general’s proposal that the sections of the amendment found to be invalid be severed from the remaining portions. The court held that the amendment was not capable of such "judicial surgery," since it contained no severability clause and there was no evidence that Arizona voters would have enacted "such a rewritten and essentially meaningless amendment."

Ruiz, et al. v. Hull, et al., 191 Ariz. 441, 957 P.2d 984 (1998); cert. denied, Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, __ U.S. __, No. 98-167 (Jan. 11, 1999).

Ruiz, et al. v. Hull, et al.: Certiorari Denied in Appeal of Arizona Court Ruling Declaring English-Only Law Unconstitutional

Jurisdictions may establish English as the ‘official language,’ but must also accommodate non-English speakers with regard to official government business.

 

[José]

The issue is particularly painful for many older Mexican-American Texans who recall being punished for speaking Spanish in school in the 1950s. Many said the policy that was used at the time, of mainstreaming students in English, made them feel ashamed of themselves and their heritage.

Speak English, not Spanish, demands Texas lawmaker | Reuters

 

[Polk]

If he spent that 23 years living amongst the Hispanic community he will not have to learn English.

Which is why I have little to no respect for people of his ilk.

My great-grandparents learned English BEFORE they came to the United States from Germany in 1910. They came here to become AMERICANS, not German-Americans, not Germans living in America; AMERICANS. So far as I'm concerned anyone immigrating to this country should have 12 months to learn passable English. If you can't, won't, or don't do it.... SHIP THEIR ASSES BACK WHEREVER THEY CAME FROM!!!!

when willl you people realise that speaking more than one language is easy for the brain and in fact has been proven to make your brain more functional.

There are cold hard studies that prove this.

By insisting for some dumb racists reason that Americans speak only one language you insist Americans hold their brain back.

Many in The rest of the world speaks more than one launguage

This is not an issue of what one CAN do, it's an issue of what one SHOULD do. The great-grandparents I mentioned above.... When they came here, he spoke 7 languages and she spoke 5. You know how many they spoke publicly after arriving here.... ONE. They also refused to teach a single word of the 8 languages other than English they combined to speak to any one of their children. THAT is the mentality we need to promote in this country.

You realize that was pretty atypical, right?

I think America should be bilingual. Latinos should learn English and English speaking people should learn Spanish. Communication is the first step to understanding and the lack of understanding is at the root of most of our problems in the world.

Why the hell would I ever speak Spanish? What would be the usefullness for me to learn Spanish? I would love to know how that would improve my life, except to possibly give me early warning that I'm about to be mugged or ripped off in a store.

So everyone who speaks Spanish is a thief?