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I'm in...Mexico now. I'm surprised by the low level of English
1. Because Spanish sounds better.
2. No one is obliged to speak your language (the language of the people who owned U.S. 200 years ago)
3. Because...despacito (spanish song holds no 1 views on youtube and not robbie williams or lady gaga).
1. Because Spanish sounds better.
2. No one is obliged to speak your language (the language of the people who owned U.S. 200 years ago)
3. Because...despacito (spanish song holds no 1 views on youtube and not robbie williams or lady gaga).
Interesting we can ask the question what is the average English comprehension in Mexico vs the average Spanish comprehension in US?
Do the average Baja California resident have better English comprehension than the average Alta California residents Spanish comprehension?
If we count the figure excluding gringos/expats and Mexican Americans living in Baja, As well as residents of Hispanic origin in Alta California what would the answer be?
To the many people who come here just to add this comment, the OP already addressed it in his post. He was wondering why compared to Europe and Asia English is so poorly understood and used in Mexico. Whether you agree with his assessment is another matter, but comments about Americans not speaking Spanish are irrelevant to his point.
Asian cultures value education more than Latin American cultures. It's just a fact.
Really? How does that explain that until recently, China's literacy rate in 1950 was about 20%?
Or that India's literacy rate was about 50% around 1990?
I guess there's a difference between valuing it and actually providing for education.
Thankfully, things have improved greatly. China's is now about 96%. India's is around 76% (with regional variations - Kerela is around 94% (the most literate), while Bihar is about 63%.
In Latin America, Cuba is at 99%.
Frankly, I think the "cultural explanation" isn't very useful. It's more about policy and how much the countries invest in education. China may have had the so-called Confucian influence but for much of its history, the bulk of its population wasn't educated.
Of course people shouldn't have to read every post before replying, but they should at least read the first few. If more people had done that this thread wouldn't grow to 32 pages.
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