Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Do you speak, say, Urdu? Do you seriously think someone, whether government or private, should hire you to translate Urdu just because you’re an American?
No you're changing the goalpost. If your specific job is to translate, that's one thing. But if your job just requires you to communicate with clients and coworkers then English should be the only language requirement. If for example you are a public school teacher and your job is not to teach a foreign language then you should only have to speak English and no translators should be a requirement either.
When this continent was discovered by whom? Where do you think the Native Americans came from? And you do know that the first European explorers to stake claims in what is now the USA didn't speak English... right?
The Amerindians came over the Bering Strait. They weren't native to this continent anymore than the European settlers were. They were all immigrants.
Doesn't matter who spoke what language at the time the fact is that we adopted English as our national de facto language not Spanish nor any other European language. Why does that seem to bother you and yours?
I would hate to find out that my brain surgeon was allowed to do surgery on me just because he felt discriminated against because he was too lazy to go to med school.
If your job is to interact with someone who speaks a foreign language, then speaking that language is a necessary job skill. I used to live in a 40% Hispanic community. I spoke Spanish almost every day as part of my job. If I wanted to sell to non-English speakers, I needed to be able to communicate with them. If your future employer wants his products sold to non-English speakers, he doesn't expect the non-English speakers to learn English so they can buy his products.
You're comparing apples to oranges here. A surgeon wouldn't be able to operate on you without the necessary medical credentials. One can perform the basic "skills" of a job without being bi-lingual. So learning things more useful to you than a foreign language makes you lazy? I'd say that was being smart not lazy.
Why didn't all those Hispanics in your community know English also? Why did you feel the need to pander to them in Spanish? The same applies if an employer is selling his products here in the U.S. If he's going to pander to Spanish speakers then he should also pander to other foreign language speakers and at that point it starts getting ridiculous.
Yeah rather than all Americans needing to learn foreign languages to communicate and work in American. How about all non-English speakers need to learn English to communicate, live and work in America? If you don't speak English you are a foreigner who shouldn't be living, going to public school and working here, and need to leave on your own or by a boot to your butt.
According to liberals that would be waaasist! We are supposed to bend over backwards to foreigners and learn their languages even when these foreigners know how to speak English. It's incredibly stupid! We should learn their languages in order to gain employment in our own country and pander to them in everyway according to them.
You're comparing apples to oranges here. A surgeon wouldn't be able to operate on you without the necessary medical credentials. One can perform the basic "skills" of a job without being bi-lingual. So learning things more useful to you than a foreign language makes you lazy? I'd say that was being smart not lazy.
Why didn't all those Hispanics in your community know English also? Why did you feel the need to pander to them in Spanish? The same applies if an employer is selling his products here in the U.S. If he's going to pander to Spanish speakers then he should also pander to other foreign language speakers and at that point it starts getting ridiculous.
Do you own a business, or do you know anyone who owns one? To be successful, you have to cater to your clientele. If your target market is Spanish speakers, then that is whose needs you will want to meet. It's no different than catering to dog owners, people who rent their homes, people who live in one specific area, parents of young children, etc. If you have a small business and it operates in a community that has a large percentage of Spanish speakers, then if you want to be successful, you're probably going to need to hire staff that speaks Spanish. You probably do not need to hire staff that speaks Urdu or Norwegian or an indigenous language spoken in the mountains of Peru, because that would not be your target market.
It would not help if you had a business in an area where 40% of the population spoke only Spanish and you put up a sign that said "English only." You'd be losing a very large percentage of your income... not only from the non-English speakers in your community but also from others in the community who you angered.
I'm a small business owner and I do not speak Spanish; I don't have any Spanish-speaking clients (who don't also speak English) and the services I provide (marketing) can only be in English. I simply don't have the skills to provide them in Spanish; even if I learned Spanish, I would not be fluent enough to provide marketing services in a foreign language. There are other marketing companies here in the USA who provide Spanish marketing services, though. They're "pandering" to the Spanish speaking population because that is how they make their living. It's the same reason any company caters to its share of the market.
Do you own a business, or do you know anyone who owns one? To be successful, you have to cater to your clientele. If your target market is Spanish speakers, then that is whose needs you will want to meet. It's no different than catering to dog owners, people who rent their homes, people who live in one specific area, parents of young children, etc. If you have a small business and it operates in a community that has a large percentage of Spanish speakers, then if you want to be successful, you're probably going to need to hire staff that speaks Spanish. You probably do not need to hire staff that speaks Urdu or Norwegian or an indigenous language spoken in the mountains of Peru, because that would not be your target market.
It would not help if you had a business in an area where 40% of the population spoke only Spanish and you put up a sign that said "English only." You'd be losing a very large percentage of your income... not only from the non-English speakers in your community but also from others in the community who you angered.
I'm a small business owner and I do not speak Spanish; I don't have any Spanish-speaking clients (who don't also speak English) and the services I provide (marketing) can only be in English. I simply don't have the skills to provide them in Spanish; even if I learned Spanish, I would not be fluent enough to provide marketing services in a foreign language. There are other marketing companies here in the USA who provide Spanish marketing services, though. They're "pandering" to the Spanish speaking population because that is how they make their living. It's the same reason any company caters to its share of the market.
Again, apples to oranges as most Hispanic-Americans now how to speak English so why do they have to be pandered to in Spanish by employers? Why would there be any areas of the U.S. where a large number of Hispanics only speak Spanish? They'd have to be here illegally then. But anything for a buck though, right?
Correct, but if you go to Miami, you're going to hear mostly Spanish being spoken. If you go to Chinatown, you're going to hear Chinese. And so on. English is spoken in most of the USA, but there are pockets where it is not the predominant language. Then there are even more pockets where it is spoken equally as often as another language, usually Spanish (but in some areas, that other language is French).
When I've gone to businesses (in the USA and abroad) where the employees speak something other than English, it's not a problem for me 99% of the time. Only one time in Chinatown in San Francisco, I had to ask for someone who spoke English because my daughter has an allergy and I needed to find out about the ingredients in something she wanted to try. Luckily I asked, because it contained shellfish, which she cannot have. If nobody there spoke English, though, I just would not have purchased it. It's really not that big of a deal.
I guess my question is, why do you find it offensive? You can simply choose not to patronize the businesses who you think are going overboard in their translations for those who don't speak English or those who don't translate for those who only speak English. Why do you have the desire to micromanage the languages that other people speak, assuming they are not your employee? It has nothing to do with you.
Where did I say it was offensive? I said it’s a matter of respect.
I'm a small business owner and I do not speak Spanish; I don't have any Spanish-speaking clients (who don't also speak English) and the services I provide (marketing) can only be in English. I simply don't have the skills to provide them in Spanish; even if I learned Spanish, I would not be fluent enough to provide marketing services in a foreign language. There are other marketing companies here in the USA who provide Spanish marketing services, though. They're "pandering" to the Spanish speaking population because that is how they make their living. It's the same reason any company caters to its share of the market.
Yes, business is about making a profit. If that means you learn Spanish, or hire people who speak Spanish, then you do what's necessary. Or you rethink your business plan altogether.
On a different note, I'm not sure that Spanish qualifies as a foreign language in the US. Except possibly Old Norse (Vikings) & maybe Portuguese, Spanish was the first European language in the Americas. Especially in Florida & what's now the US Southwest. & the US is home to the second largest population of Spanish speakers in the World, counting native speakers & people studying Spanish.
So banks and retailers should refuse to have customers who don’t speak English? I think it’s safe to say that won’t happen any time soon.
Did you ever wonder how immigrants were able to conduct business before they became fluent in English?
Answer: They brought a friend or a relative along with them to act as an interpreter.
Why do today's immigrants need more accommodations than prior generations needed?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
When this continent was discovered by whom? Where do you think the Native Americans came from? And you do know that the first European explorers to stake claims in what is now the USA didn't speak English... right?
We are supposed to bend over backwards to foreigners and learn their languages even when these foreigners know how to speak English. It's incredibly stupid! We should learn their languages in order to gain employment in our own country and pander to them in everyway according to them.
It's all Greek to me?
