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(Picture of Home Depot sign: Buscamos empleados/Now hiring)
Yah. I'm surprised that the Spanish was first - Was the picture taken in a predominantly Spanish-speaking area? & of course, the English is there too (which belies the English speakers need not apply.) However, more horrors do await inside the store - their signage is usually in English first, then in Spanish (& if it were Canada, the second language would be French). & so it goes. Home Depot simply wants to sell everything they can to everyone they can. Lots of department & big-box stores do the same, & lots of packaging & product instructions come in various languages - basically, whatever sells.
Yep, for common carriers, I agree. In the US, drivers should know English, well enough to understand their fares & get around, @ least.
As to the music video - well, we - the US - import ores, food, meat, fish, products low- & high-tech, from all over the World. We also attract people from all over, either through normal commerce, students, relocation of families, immigrants, refugees, people fleeing wars or governments. We've outsourced a lot of production for cheap labor. Did we really think that all this back & forth of money & trade & people would never impact language & culture?
English is a latecomer to the Americas anyway. First it was the Native Peoples, then Vikings, then various European fishing expeditions & explorers, then Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch & so on. Spanish uses mostly the same alphabet, reads left to right, top to bottom, & has a lot of cognate vocabulary with English. It could be much worse, & just wait until we actually get interplanetary alien visitors who hang around long enough to meet & greet in WADC.
We are not talking about the Americas as whatever societies inhabited this land mass--we are talking about the United States as a sovereign nation in its current form. Viking outposts in the year 1000 were not the United States, neither was New Amsterdam in 1650 or anything west of the Mississippi before 1803.
Were taxi companies getting complaints from passengers about drivers who could only speak English? If not, the only impetus for this is to make it easier for non-citizens to get these jobs. They aren't thinking about their customer base. It used to be that if you desired a certain job, you acquired the skills necessary to perform that job. Now we're going in reverse--dumbing down requirements to make the job fit their applicant pool. How long before they decide you only need a license in your native country and not one issued by the state of NY?
We are not talking about the Americas as whatever societies inhabited this land mass--we are talking about the United States as a sovereign nation in its current form. Viking outposts in the year 1000 were not the United States, neither was New Amsterdam in 1650 or anything west of the Mississippi before 1803.
Were taxi companies getting complaints from passengers about drivers who could only speak English? If not, the only impetus for this is to make it easier for non-citizens to get these jobs. They aren't thinking about their customer base. It used to be that if you desired a certain job, you acquired the skills necessary to perform that job. Now we're going in reverse--dumbing down requirements to make the job fit their applicant pool. How long before they decide you only need a license in your native country and not one issued by the state of NY?
The taxis are having trouble getting drivers due to Uber rising and them not requiring English as a requirement. They're competing for drivers, not customers.
We are not talking about the Americas as whatever societies inhabited this land mass--we are talking about the United States as a sovereign nation in its current form. Viking outposts in the year 1000 were not the United States, neither was New Amsterdam in 1650 or anything west of the Mississippi before 1803.
Were taxi companies getting complaints from passengers about drivers who could only speak English? If not, the only impetus for this is to make it easier for non-citizens to get these jobs. They aren't thinking about their customer base. It used to be that if you desired a certain job, you acquired the skills necessary to perform that job. Now we're going in reverse--dumbing down requirements to make the job fit their applicant pool. How long before they decide you only need a license in your native country and not one issued by the state of NY?
Nah, I'm addressing the rhetoric of This is the US, everyone should speak English. Which is true enough now, but ignores the facts on the ground in 1492CE, or when the Portuguese, French, Dutch, British, etc. hit the Americas beaches. @ that point, the European languages/cultures were definitely in the minority, & stayed that way for decades, @ least (& they are still minorities in most of Central & South America) - & yet, even then, the Europeans concluded that their relative lack of numbers didn't matter. Why is that? What is the justification for that decision?
On the taxis - I suspect that cab drivers simply don't make a lot of money, relative to other service jobs that people could take. If that's true, & the job is a relatively low-paying, & doesn't require a lot of skills - then the people you get applying are basically entry-level - which means, yes - you're going to get applicants with low language skills in English (likely), who may or may not be good drivers, who may or may not know their way around NYC (or wherever the job is).
It's like the effect of restricting women to nursing & teaching in the US - as long as that true, good nurses & teachers crowded out the ones who weren't proficient, or couldn't fake it. As more & more job sectors opened to women, there isn't as much performance pressure in the traditional jobs as there used to be. Medium & indifferent nurses & teachers can coast more than they used to be able to.
You don't need to know english to simply drive someone. "Hi, I'm going to 5555 Park Place". Driver plugs in "5555 Park Place" into GPS & off they go. I don't speak french but I'm sure if I was a cab driver in Paris, hearing "5555 Champs Elysees" is the only thing I need to hear & off I drive.
We're talking about drivers here in the US: I don't expect a driver in France to speak English. Sheesh!
The taxis are having trouble getting drivers due to Uber rising and them not requiring English as a requirement. They're competing for drivers, not customers.
IMHO "Uber" is gonna get regulated like as in real soon.
On the taxis - I suspect that cab drivers simply don't make a lot of money, relative to other service jobs that people could take. If that's true, & the job is a relatively low-paying, & doesn't require a lot of skills - then the people you get applying are basically entry-level - which means, yes - you're going to get applicants with low language skills in English (likely), who may or may not be good drivers, who may or may not know their way around NYC (or wherever the job is).
They eliminated the geography knowledge component of the test for NYC taxi drivers recently as well. Uber drivers did not have to pass a geography test, and were able to recruit more drivers because of it. What's the appeal of driving a taxi over Uber?
In the land of ultra-liberals such as Obama and DeBlasio their view of "progress" is the creation of incoherence or chaos. I'm repping both these posts.
I'm talking about the possibility that a non-English speaking cab driver could take the passenger on a circuitous route and then problems could erupt when the ride ends after an excessively long route and an exorbitant fare. I speak from experience. Once back in 1988 or 1989 I was returning from a date in Forest Hills, Queens to my apartment at 36th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan. I instructed the cab driver to use the Queens Midtown Tunnel. I had a toll token with me for the exact change lane. Instead the cab driver took me on a journey to the 59th Street Bridge, in effect going 23 blocks north to return south the same distance. I wound up jumping out of the back seat of the cab as we sat at a light to enter the 59th Street Bridge and hailing another cab to complete my ride. I was 31 or 32 years old at the time. Now I wouldn't take the chance of not being able to outrun the cab driver.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bklynkenny
Some drivers don't know what to do regardless of language. I typically have to give the cab driver turn-by-turn directions when I'm going home from the airport. Wish they would use GPS navigation!
How do you give turn by turn instructions if they don't speak English?
Quote:
Originally Posted by bklynkenny
Drivers who have a pattern of not knowing what to do will get complaints and have their license revoked. Drivers will also risk their fares not getting paid (and no tips of course). Those who do a poor job will naturally get weeded out.
That's very long run. Also you can just imagine the backlogs and inefficiencies at New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bklynkenny
For taxi drivers, I see it as a business decision to not learn English and the businesses would suffer the consequences.
For many customers there is not much of an opportunity for a "business decision" when trying to hail a cab in the middle of a drenching rainstorm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thefragile
You don't need to know english to simply drive someone. "Hi, I'm going to 5555 Park Place". Driver plugs in "5555 Park Place" into GPS & off they go. I don't speak french but I'm sure if I was a cab driver in Paris, hearing "5555 Champs Elysees" is the only thing I need to hear & off I drive.
Good chance the driver won't understand even that much.
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It's a question of targeting
