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In the area I live, it is pretty hard to find a single place that doesn't have one or more people who do not speak great English.
Oh, dear, yes that is awful. To patronize a place and find ONE or MORE people who don't speak GREAT English. Just awful.
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Originally Posted by Pikantari
I have to buy gas.
I haven't spoken to someone at a gas station in about 10 years. The people working there could speak Martian for all I care.
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Originally Posted by Pikantari
We go out to eat, I can't control who they hire.
No, you can't control who they hire, but if it bothers you so much, you can certainly control where you eat. Or, better yet, just eat at home.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pikantari
You can't get around it.
You certainly can. I never seem to have an issue. I, honestly cannot remember the last time I could not communicate with someone at all. ** Most of the time I find people who know the language, but their accent makes it difficult for me to understand. When that happens, I just politely ask them to repeat what they said. I've become much better at listening because of it, and I welcome the diversity!
** ok, I did remember an instance.....we found this hole in the wall Korean place in Annandale that we heard was excellent. When we arrived, we found that no one there spoke any English, and we certainly did not speak Korean. The menu, also, was in Korean. So, we were able to get a fellow patron to convey our order, which was just "bring us whatever is good!". One of the best meals I ever had!
Last edited by spencgr; 12-01-2013 at 01:30 PM..
Reason: remembered a time
In the area I live, it is pretty hard to find a single place that doesn't have one or more people who do not speak great English. I have to buy gas. We go out to eat, I can't control who they hire. You can't get around it.
I have never once had the employees speak so little English that they could not do the job they were hired to do. The janitor at my school speaks less English than anyone I interact with, and even still she and I have conversations daily. She is a sweet woman who does her job marvelously.
All this political correctness is quite nice, however, that attitude of so little expectation, so much tolerance, and a zealous willingness to cater to non-English speaking people is the reason most people who come to this country don't even make an effort to learn English. I am not against anyone coming here, but for crying out loud, DO attempt to learn the language. I wouldn't go to another country and expect the natives to know English to accomodate me.
I wouldn't go to another country and expect the natives to know English to accomodate me.
While you, apparently, wouldn't expect them to speak English, they likely can. English is informally known as the "world's language", because so many people are native speakers, or learn it as an additional language. It is the official language for international aeronautical and maritime communication. More than 500 million people in the world can speak English.
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Originally Posted by Dazed&Confused
. I am not against anyone coming here, but for crying out loud, DO attempt to learn the language.
There is no official language of the United States.
(Should this thread turn into a debate over whether there should or should not be am official language, I ask that it be moved to the Politics and Controversies sub-forum.)
All this political correctness is quite nice, however, that attitude of so little expectation, so much tolerance, and a zealous willingness to cater to non-English speaking people is the reason most people who come to this country don't even make an effort to learn English. I am not against anyone coming here, but for crying out loud, DO attempt to learn the language. I wouldn't go to another country and expect the natives to know English to accomodate me.
Yes, political correctness indeed. Keep in mind, some of us may be children of immigrants. One takeaway from my childhood that makes me smirk about such comments is that my mother came to this country with only a rudimentary grasp of English. As a child I remember her accent and I clearly remember some of my father's ADULT cousins (native Virginians) making fun of it. All in good fun of course, just some harmless ribbing that you should accept because you are in 'Merica.
I also remember as late as 6th grade being frustrated once that my mother could not play Mad Libs (yeah I'm dating myself) with me because she lacked an intrinsic grasp of lexical terminology. Fast forward to my adulthood: my mother would eventually have a by far superior command of the English language than my father, his cousins, and most native Virginians I have ever encountered. Half of her career (prior to retirement), she spent in supervisory roles over a lot of native English speakers and I can't say at any juncture I had ever heard anyone complain about her ability to communicate in a professional setting. About five or six years ago, she had an encounter with a neighbor of mine (who coincidentally was an immigrant from the same country as my mother) and until a more in-depth conversation broke out, this woman exclaimed she would have never have guessed that she and my mother were from the same country because my mother's speech, demeanor, and mannerisms were "so American" (my mother could have taken that as an insult).
I always like to throw out fun facts about African-born immigrants taken from the U.S. Census because so many people think that blacks are genetically inferior anyway so those directly from Africa MUST be from the bottom of the barrel:
And these are just African immigrants. In the U.S., African immigrants have the highest levels of educational attainment of any group followed by Asian immigrants and European immigrants. Many Latin American immigrants may not have this educational and occupational proficiency but a recurring theme seems to be that native born Americans complain about the lack of English being spoken by the immigrants serving them. Until of course these immigrants (and their children in particular) learn English and then we "natives" end up working for them! You would think with all of the complaining going on you would hope these immigrants DON'T learn English so they won't take "our jobs".
First, I don't get the purpose of your thread. Are you just complaining to complain? Do you think by you posting a rant in english, suddenly all those people you claim don't speak english will now be able to?
Second, what specifically haven't you been able to do because of this? Are you saying you went to the gas station and because the person didn't speak perfect english, you weren't able to figure out how to work the gas pump? You went to a restaurant and went home hungry? I don't get it.
I've been to other countries where I don't speak the language, but have been able to go into restaurants, grocery stores, pump gas and purchase things. Buying stuff really isn't that difficult.
Last edited by spleuchan; 12-01-2013 at 05:16 PM..
All this political correctness is quite nice, however, that attitude of so little expectation, so much tolerance, and a zealous willingness to cater to non-English speaking people is the reason most people who come to this country don't even make an effort to learn English. I am not against anyone coming here, but for crying out loud, DO attempt to learn the language. I wouldn't go to another country and expect the natives to know English to accomodate me.
The vast majority of immigrants would leap at the chance to be fluent in the language. I recently spent two nights in hospital with my baby, do you have any idea how helpless it feels to only be able to understand 30% of what was going on? I study my butt off daily but it takes years, even decades to absorb a language into a level of fluency, and that's assuming you are literate in the first place. Some find it easy because they studied English well before coming, others may not have had that opportunity.
The point is that most are attempting to learn, because being cut off from so many things sucks. After a few times of people walking away from you at grocery stores or government offices, believe me, you crack open the language books and try.
As for the bolded, we get American tourists a lot here, and I'm afraid none of them can say much more than a "merci" and sputter that they don't speak any French. I have never heard one attempt French. That's fine - they are tourists, we expect that, but very few English native speakers abroad abide by their double standard (yes, I am a native English speaker!).
Not sure why people wouldn't get the purpose of my thread. Yes I am complaining. Yes I am allowed to voice my opinion about the area on a public forum.
I am glad many of you have not experienced the same problems as I have.
I have learned other languages, but that was long ago, and I have not spoken them in more than twenty years. I did not think it would be a requirement for me to live in the United States. I have been speaking English since I learned it. That has never gone away.
Living here, I can see why English isn't the official language. It is, however, the language that all of my federal forms are in, that all of the street signs, highway signs, etc, are in.
There are too many nationalities here for people born as American English speaking citizens to learn to speak to everyone.
My next door neighbors did about $500.00 in damage to my vehicle a year ago. I could not talk to any of the adults there about it. Why? They didn't speak English. Their kids had to translate.
I can't imagine going to a foreign country where signs are in their language, people speak their language, and I speak my language. If I were going to move to such a place, I would certainly learn the language before doing so.
Oh they want to move here and give their kids a better life? That is great. Be able to speak to their kids teachers. Many can't.
One poster has wonderful conversations with the janitor in her school. That is great too. I have had wonderful conversations with some elderly Chinese patients of mine. It was hard, but we each got acros what we needed to say for the situation.
They knew nothing about their insurance, nothing about scheduling appointments or tests and I was happy to help them with that.
The thing with that situation is that I spoke English. Is that not the spoken language here? I don't care if it is "official" or not. When we go into any business, we speak English.
Yes, just as in my OP, that is my rant and I am complaining. Thinking I should just move? I would love to. I can't at the time.
Again, I am allowed my opinion just as the rest of the bunch. My opinion is that if you work in the United States, you need to be able to speak/read/understand English.
I have been living here for almost 10 years and have not had a single occasion where I had any difficulty conducting business because of a language barrier.
Not sure why people wouldn't get the purpose of my thread. Yes I am complaining. Yes I am allowed to voice my opinion about the area on a public forum.
I am glad many of you have not experienced the same problems as I have.
I have learned other languages, but that was long ago, and I have not spoken them in more than twenty years. I did not think it would be a requirement for me to live in the United States. I have been speaking English since I learned it. That has never gone away.
Living here, I can see why English isn't the official language. It is, however, the language that all of my federal forms are in, that all of the street signs, highway signs, etc, are in.
There are too many nationalities here for people born as American English speaking citizens to learn to speak to everyone.
My next door neighbors did about $500.00 in damage to my vehicle a year ago. I could not talk to any of the adults there about it. Why? They didn't speak English. Their kids had to translate.
I can't imagine going to a foreign country where signs are in their language, people speak their language, and I speak my language. If I were going to move to such a place, I would certainly learn the language before doing so.
Oh they want to move here and give their kids a better life? That is great. Be able to speak to their kids teachers. Many can't.
One poster has wonderful conversations with the janitor in her school. That is great too. I have had wonderful conversations with some elderly Chinese patients of mine. It was hard, but we each got acros what we needed to say for the situation.
They knew nothing about their insurance, nothing about scheduling appointments or tests and I was happy to help them with that.
The thing with that situation is that I spoke English. Is that not the spoken language here? I don't care if it is "official" or not. When we go into any business, we speak English.
Yes, just as in my OP, that is my rant and I am complaining. Thinking I should just move? I would love to. I can't at the time.
Again, I am allowed my opinion just as the rest of the bunch. My opinion is that if you work in the United States, you need to be able to speak/read/understand English.
Not a single thing you wrote here is Northern Virginia-specific. You should complain and rant about this in a more appropriate sub-forum.
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