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This guy must be enjoying his 15 mins of fame. This also points to a problem where a majority of Americans speak only English. In just about any other country, people speak 2 or more languages.
This guy must be enjoying his 15 mins of fame. This also points to a problem where a majority of Americans speak only English. In just about any other country, people speak 2 or more languages.
I would like to see some relevant studies on that statement, I speak 3 languages well enough to get by besides English, (Russian, Serbo-Croatian, French), 3 more I can order a meal, get a room or find the bath, (German, Italian, Japanese), and a half dozen other's I know enough to get a beer or proposition a lady.
Many of my friends are about the same, some more fluent, some less, although I will say out of a circle of around 30 friends I've traveled and worked with, only 2 of those have more than a passing knowledge of "Spanglish" from being stationed in Puerto Rico for a while.
I know what a cerveza is, and what a banyo is, but beyond that, I have had very little exposure to Spanish. French and Italian, yes, but I haven't ever found the need to speak Mexican Spanish.
This guy must be enjoying his 15 mins of fame. This also points to a problem where a majority of Americans speak only English. In just about any other country, people speak 2 or more languages.
Ah but for a lot of these people English is their second language. We already know English.
The thought that someone would think an American mayor would not be able to read English is pretty scary.
What scares me is the English-speaking people who don't evidently comprehend the articles they are reading.
The article said the meeting includes border-city mayors, on BOTH sides of the border. If you're sending an invitation to BOTH Spanish-speaking and English-speaking mayors, then it's logical to print the invitation in both Spanish and English.
Go to any of the other non-English speaking countries in the world and demand they conduct business and social discourse in English. Get back to me and tell me were they told you to go.
I would like to see some relevant studies on that statement, I speak 3 languages well enough to get by besides English, (Russian, Serbo-Croatian, French), 3 more I can order a meal, get a room or find the bath, (German, Italian, Japanese), and a half dozen other's I know enough to get a beer or proposition a lady.
Many of my friends are about the same, some more fluent, some less, although I will say out of a circle of around 30 friends I've traveled and worked with, only 2 of those have more than a passing knowledge of "Spanglish" from being stationed in Puerto Rico for a while.
I know what a cerveza is, and what a banyo is, but beyond that, I have had very little exposure to Spanish. French and Italian, yes, but I haven't ever found the need to speak Mexican Spanish.
I speak 2 languages other than English (Spanish/French), can get by in another somewhat (Italian), but I use Spanish much more frequently than the other non-English languages in the US, here in Northern California.
I've had Spanish-speaking roommates, neighbors, customers when running a business, contractors, etc. And no, none of them are illegals, to my knowledge. And of course, Spanish-speaking friends -- all mostly of Mexican heritage. And in my experience, when I became friends with them individually, I ended up becoming friends with their whole family.
So I definitely have had the opportunity to use my Spanish here in the US -- even if I get teased for having a Bogotá accent.
Latinos *are* part of the US culture, and most of them originate from Spanish-speaking roots. I think the US misses out on a lot by shunning that. Learning each new language made me look at myself and everything else from a fresh perspective. It gave me more insight on even the English language.
And that's just with languages within the same family, which aren't even too dissimilar from English compared to many other languages.
I want to learn Mandarin next (maybe Cantonese instead though, since that's more commonly spoken here in the Bay Area than Mandarin). I can only imagine how much more that will shift my paradigm.
Sorry, I've gone way off-topic. But my point is, there is value in learning languages other than just English.
Last edited by ohhwanderlust; 08-12-2016 at 02:55 PM..
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