Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheasare
How many large cities have Chinatowns? When I go to a Chinese restaurant I have never encountered a Chinese server or host talking to me in Chinese. We have large populations of Asians, Africans and Europeans who speak hundreds of languages and they all manage to learn English. (My cousin-in-law is German and when she and my cousin moved back to the US she learned to speak English by watching the news.) Precisely because this is a nation of immigrants we need to have a single language that everyone can use to handle day to day business and functions. Native Spanish speakers who do not learn English are limiting their opportunities.
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IN NYC, there are many people who only speak Chinese (who work with the public). In my neighborhood, there are many stores that hire girls who only speak Polish. There are many cabbies who speak Farsi... and so on an so on. So it's not just a hispanic thing.
Even with total immersion, it takes time to learn a language. And if you are older than 20, it takes longer to learn a language. Children learn faster. In the meantime, one needs to make a living. The problem one runs across, is that people need to make a living, they don't speak the language, they get a job that does not require language skills, and so they don't have the opportunity to learn the language. It's a sick cycle.
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