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If you are calling a bank with branch offices throughout the US, e.g. Citibank, they will likely have one voice interface...more cost effective. If the French speakers that used to dot New Hampshire and Louisiana were 100x as large and located in the major population states, then perhaps banks might include French as a third option.
Surely, the existence of that option does not bother you...so trivial...
Defaulting to Spanish? Specifics? I have never once experienced that.
Street signs in Spanish? Where are you? My mother lives in a neighborhood that has had a large Hispanic population in California for quite some time. Not a single sign in Spanish. Now, if you are in LA, San Diego, Vegas, Miami, etc. then perhaps one might see something like that. But it is not a national issue.
BTW, I am fervently against the idea of spending tax payer dollars on Spanish signs, foreign language ballots, etc. I am also against niqabs and burqas on driver's licenses or in areas in which dress codes are to be enforced. America will collapse under mandated exceptionalism.
That said, if you as a shop owner have clientele that can be better attracted via special accommodations, then go for it. And in fact, I think people are economically foolish for not doing so.
S.
What bothers me is I have to select English. It should be the default. Why does the majority have to go the extra step of selecting their language while the minority get the default?
It does bother me. When my grandparents came to this country, one of the things they did is learn the language. No one printed street signs in their native tongue. Telephone operators (they had them back then) were not bi-lingual (though bi-lingual people were certainly available for the job). Part of integrating was learning the language.
My brother is in California and says that they have street signs in Spanish. Here it's arabic. I see arabic bulliten boards on the sides of streets and I have no clue what they advertise. There are shops in the arabic part of town that don't even have an English sign so I have no idea what they sell. Yes, I find that annoying. It doesn't matter which langauge we're talking about. The message is clear. They come here but don't want to be part of us. Kind of feels like an invasion. I guess when their numbers are sufficient, we'll have to learn their language.
If I moved to France, I'd learn to speak French. If I moved go Germany, I'd learn to speak German. I don't get deciding to immigrate to a country and then expecting them to deal with you in your native tongue.
I don't think that the US is failing in the most important area which is innovation. I have been in global competition with both engineers and scientists for the better part of the last decade and can say with confidence when it comes to ideas we still come up #1.
I will say that teachers should be tested frequently and those that are not competent should be fired. The pay equity should reflect that of industry and good teachers should be given benefits. It isn't just poor teaching in science and math, it is acceptance of poor teaching in general and poor parenting that have put us in our current position.
Have you looked around? How many US based manufacturing companies are left? What good does it do us to innovate when products just end up made elsewhere? Do you think that adds to our GNP?
And how many Americans are represented here? What percentage are innovators? If you look, you'll find that number is few and how many of them actually come from other countries?
I don't think that the US is failing in the most important area which is innovation. I have been in global competition with both engineers and scientists for the better part of the last decade and can say with confidence when it comes to ideas we still come up #1.
But why has the US done so well here? Because it imports talent from other countries. Approximately 50% of the professors in the US are foreign born and not projects of our education system.
Also, its not really true that the US is the most innovative in terms of engineering. Asia competes rather well in Electrical engineering and Europe competes (in particular Germany) in other sorts of engineering. It may be true that the area you are working in does not have strong global competition, but that is not true in general.
What bothers me is I have to select English. It should be the default. Why does the majority have to go the extra step of selecting their language while the minority get the default?
I really don't know what you're talking about. The minority get the default? Any system I've called has either been in English with no options, asks for your language preference, or says "Press 2 for Spanish" (in Spanish of course) and using English if nothing is selected. I'm not sure how that is default to Spanish.
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Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
It does bother me. When my grandparents came to this country, one of the things they did is learn the language. No one printed street signs in their native tongue.
Your vision of the past is not that accurate, the degree to which Europeans grouped themselves by ethnicity is still very evident in many East coast/mid west cities. Hispanic immigrants are acting in the same fashion as the European immigrants acted before them. The children of immigrant Hispanic parents are perfectly fluent in English and their parents learn decent English after being here for awhile. The degree to which they learn it is usually related to their level of education and socio-economic status.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
My brother is in California and says that they have street signs in Spanish.
Oh yeah? You do realize that the vast majority of street signs are shapes and symbols right? The street signs are not in Spanish.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
Here it's arabic. I see arabic bulliten boards on the sides of streets and I have no clue what they advertise. There are shops in the arabic part of town that don't even have an English sign so I have no idea what they sell. Yes, I find that annoying.
Then you find America annoying, America is a melting pot of immigrants. It always has been.
Regardless, I just realized what thread this was on. Why is this even being discussed?
What bothers me is I have to select English. It should be the default. Why does the majority have to go the extra step of selecting their language while the minority get the default?
In the case of public goods, I absolutely agree.
However, in the case of private firms, I think it is up to them. Say a company has 99% English speaking clients. Assume further that there is no wealth differential based on language. The company puts up a phone tree with the default in Spanish. Should they do that? Not in terms of economics--death by suicidal incompetence. However, it is there right to suck at business.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
It does bother me. When my grandparents came to this country, one of the things they did is learn the language. No one printed street signs in their native tongue. Telephone operators (they had them back then) were not bi-lingual (though bi-lingual people were certainly available for the job). Part of integrating was learning the language.
I understand--although it does take a generation or two to assimilate culturally and linguistically--was true back then despite the revisionism of memory.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
My brother is in California and says that they have street signs in Spanish.
Hold on partner...Do you know the history of California? California settled by the Spanish in the latter half of the 18th century. It was Spanish until 1810-12 when Mexico gained independence and then Mexican until 1847 when the US fought a really nasty and terribly unethical war to essentially steal the Western US.
For this reason all the major cities are in Spanish: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose, San Diego, etc. I'll defer to your brother, but I have never once seen a directional sign in non-Anglicized Spanish such as "proxima salida" in the place of "next exit." However, I would admit, it has been several years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
Here it's arabic. I see arabic bulliten boards on the sides of streets and I have no clue what they advertise. There are shops in the arabic part of town that don't even have an English sign so I have no idea what they sell. Yes, I find that annoying. It doesn't matter which langauge we're talking about.
Bulletin boards are private ads that are rented. No law against trying to pay to attract business.
If an Arabic shop has signs in Arabic that ignore a significant part of their potential client base, then they are foolish. But yes, you would miss out. And yes, I would be a little annoyed. But...what a great opportunity to learn a few words and break the virtual firewall between you and that community.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
The message is clear. They come here but don't want to be part of us. Kind of feels like an invasion. I guess when their numbers are sufficient, we'll have to learn their language.
Here is where it gets interesting. As long as the public aspects of language remain firmly English, the onus is on the immigrants to learn the language, our laws, etc.
This is why it is SO important to distinguish between the private and public sphere. Where America is failing is in her elected officials placing the almighty $$ ahead of the integrity of the country.
So if the incoming population gets large enough, they might seek to use public $$ to further their private claims. Here is where the buck must stop. This nice gestures that now cost California the hundreds of millions of dollars are the result of the inability of lawmakers to distinguish between the private right of free choice and the public need for a system under one set of laws.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
If I moved to France, I'd learn to speak French. If I moved go Germany, I'd learn to speak German. I don't get deciding to immigrate to a country and then expecting them to deal with you in your native tongue.
That used to be true, although the combo of European stupidity *** political correctness and the influx of former colonised groups that produce babies at an alarming clip has created HUGE foreign ghettos that speak little to no German, etc and who face unemployment rates of up to 50%. Scary.
A hardline on the public line will accelerate assimilation. End bilgual ed as presently constituted in the US (a joke) and instead facilitate immersion learning.
At the same time, let's be sure to affirm the rights of all individuals and companies to use the language they prefer. From what I have seen, the heated nature of the immigration debate willingly blurs the lines and chooses the easiest and most despicable path: racism.
Unsurprisingly the US is lagging in Math and science.
It does not help that the national education association appears to not understand basic economics. To explain why Math and Science instructors should not get paid more than other less difficult subjects to staff they have this to say:
"Simply being a teacher of a hard-to-staff subject does not equate with effective instruction, and therefore, should not be rewarded in-and-of-itself through a salary differential," the organization says in a position statement."
Way to miss the point! Whether the teachers are more effective instructors is irrelevant if the current pay is not enough to attract them. Of course, the real reason so many are against it is because it may lower the salaries of over supplied subjects like History, English etc which (sadly) make up the majority of the teachers at your typical high school. Self interest, gotta love this country. Everyone wants free cheese.
Wow, I agree. I love math, but I would never be a math teacher due to salary. If the salary was higher, then I might be one.
EDIT: Something I thought I should mention. Every day in my math class while we are taking notes more than half the class will constantly ask the teacher "when in our life are we ever going to use this?" or "why do we have to learn this?" or "why do you hate us?". They complain the whole time and then get mad when they realize they didn't do so good on their test.
I'm not really that old but my high school days happened 45 years ago.
This does not apply to all public high schools because this country has some great high schools with excellent teachers but there are far to many that... well.. I don't know what it is they do but they don't educate.
We get a lot coming in applying for work and all I can think about to many of them is "you poor, poor stupid boy. How did you manage to completely waste the last four years of your life?"
Four years of high school and the hand writing looks like something I did in third grade. Second grade. A pitiful crayon like print. Sad, just sad.
Seems to me we lost it somewhere over the last 20 years. Is it the "No idiot left behind" program?
The US used to have an educational system second to none in the world. What happened?
I do a lot of work for two universities so this old man is on campus more often than you might think.
I see both having excellent hard science and math programs but but when I see students streaming from these buildings I almost think I am in China or Japan with the American students coming out of the schools of journalism, sociology and find your inner banana schools like dramatic arts and who knows what.
When I went to high school they didn't have "special programs" we had college prep and regular. It was understood college prep was going on to college while the others were going to do whatever they would do.
I took the college prep but the draft got me before I started. In my four high school years I took Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II and finally Trigonometry. It wasn't special half the school did it and yes, it took a lot of study but that was a given. I got mostly B's and C's and was happy to get them.
For science we took Basic Science, Biology, Chemistry and finally Physics with the programs meshing with the level of math we were taking.
So what I want to know is am I imagining things or has the high school curriculum been dumbed down?
The fact is that students in countries like India and China are really focusing on school. In India at least end of year tests are given starting from 1st grade. Students travel miles to find tutoring. Classes can contain upwards of 50 students, and studying up to three languages are compulsary.
Wow, I agree. I love math, but I would never be a math teacher due to salary. If the salary was higher, then I might be one.
EDIT: Something I thought I should mention. Every day in my math class while we are taking notes more than half the class will constantly ask the teacher "when in our life are we ever going to use this?" or "why do we have to learn this?" or "why do you hate us?". They complain the whole time and then get mad when they realize they didn't do so good on their test.
Well, most subject are not used in later life. At our school at least there is a huge double standard. The teachers complain when our class had a 65% average on a test, yet she was the one who wrote the test, she knows where the class is at and what we have trouble with, so why is she so surprised at a 65% average ?
EDIT: Something I thought I should mention. Every day in my math class while we are taking notes more than half the class will constantly ask the teacher "when in our life are we ever going to use this?" or "why do we have to learn this?" or "why do you hate us?". They complain the whole time and then get mad when they realize they didn't do so good on their test.
I really don't blame them, mathematics is taught in an extremely boring and pathetic manner in most high schools. Its equivalent to teaching music without ever hearing music or playing music.
TIMSS Results Place Massachusetts Among World Leaders in Math and Science
EAST BOSTON - Massachusetts' fourth and eighth graders outscored the nation, and most of their international peers, in math and science on the world's largest study of student performance in those subjects, Governor Patrick announced at the Manassah E. Bradley School in East Boston on Tuesday.
According to the results of the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Massachusetts 4th graders ranked second worldwide in science achievement and tied for third in mathematics; the state's 8th graders tied for first in science and ranked sixth in mathematics.
This was a few years ago, but it seems relevant to the conversation. Interestingly enough, about a quarter of this cohort group scored in the "warning" category on the state's standardized test that year. Some states have high standards that are world class.
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