blingualism...

[Blarghagh]

Actually, I take that back. I like languages like japanese and arabic, which both sound and look different. However, all the western alphabet language have to go.

[Baley]

Aren't you from Romania Baley?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, Pete. Unfortunately, I have very little love for the language itself, mother nature bores me and the Fatherland (with all it's joy, craving, zeal and adoration) is a silly childhood memory I'd rather leave behind.

 

Also, blingualism is a fascinating subject as well. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Krookie]

That's disgusting, Baley.

[metadigital]

But can he catch a bullet fired from a pistol in his mouth? Eh?

[astr0creep]

I'm a frenchmen in Qu

[Judge Hades]

What we need to do is set up an official language, here in the US it should be English, then teach Spanish at the grade school level along side English. Personally I think it is very rude to move and and work in a country in which you cannot or will not learn the native language. I wouldn't move and work in Quebec without knowling French on a conversational level first nor would I move to Saudi Arabia without knowing Arabic on a proficient basis before I move. I expect those who come to the US to live and work to learn the English language on a proficient level before coming to this country.

[Craigboy2]

I received this in an email the other day, and figured that I would see what others think of this.

 

>Our granddaughter in California was turned down for a teaching job,

>because she only had one yr. of Spanish. She got a job at a private

>school. She now teaches in Rancho Cucamonga, second grade.

>

>Had an interesting conversation with a lady of Hispanic origin last

>week. She told me that she planned to come down to St. Mary's and get a

>job in Admissions (where I work). When I pointed out that we didn't

>have any openings, she advised me that "soon" current employees will

>have to be fired to hire bi-lingual employees. According to this lady,

>the Spanish-speaking people of the US are going to demand that all

>public facilities like hospitals, courthouses, etc. - be staffed by

>people who read, speak and comprehend Spanish.

>

>We hear about the silent majority, but I think we are going to have to

>speak up or find ourselves a conquered country. That would be an

>interesting historical note - greatest land in the world conquered by

>Mexico without ever firing a shot! Think about it.

>Petition to require citizenship to be eligible for social services in

>the United States. No amnesty and no free services for illegal

>immigrants.

>

>I the undersigned below, agree that we need to keep English as our

>primary language and those who live in our country need to learn

>ENGLISH, not make the US citizens conform to Spanish.

 

 

Personally, I think that this is going too far, to an extent... like the part where people who have been in the jobs for years being fired suddenly. This to me makes it strange, since the California Constitution states in Article 3, Section 6 that English is the official language of California.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I say we all learn that one langauage spoken in Africa which only uses clicks.

 

Do a google on "Had an interesting conversation with a lady of Hispanic origin last

>week. She told me that she planned to come down to St. Mary's".

 

You will get lots of hits.

 

Part of a chain mail hate mongering program.

 

Usually can't chase them back.

 

But, using the NSA's network analysis capabilities - (Excuse me, can I borrow that for a minute or two? Heh.)  - we might figure out what political persuassion it is circulating in. Useful political info there.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And we hate mongerers! Especiallly those fish ones!

 

This whole email smells very much like an anti-immigration push.  The fact is the US is built on immigrants.  English is not our "official" language because we are defined as Americans by so much more.  California has always been a melting pot of many languages and cultures, and it belongs to Mexican Americans as much as anyone else.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's a melting pot after all and anywho California used to be owned by Mexico/ Spain. So it's not like all this hispanic influence has popped up out of nowhere.

Edited August 27, 2006 by Craigboy2

[Judge Hades]

Irrelevant. English is the language of the majority.

[Atreides]

Why's Spanish taken over Chinese in importance? The Chinese over here all speak or at least understand English well.

[Craigboy2]

We should be pushing to have more languages learned, not less.  I remember hearing that most students in Europe know 2-3 languages by the time they reach High School (or whatever it's called in Europe.)  Most of my students handle multiple languages easily. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They really should teach us Spanish in elementry school, just make it an extra class. They had something like that when I was in elementry school but it wasn't consistant (I think they did it three of six years I went there but even then the class was only every couple of weeks) and the teachers weren't very fluent. So when I got out of elementry school all I could do in Spanish is count to ten when I should have been able to do much more.

[Judge Hades]

Mainly because Spanish is easier to learn and teach.

Edited August 27, 2006 by Judge Hades

[Craigboy2]

Two years is nothing, certainly not enough to actually learn how to speak it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Especially if you were like me and just shoved it into your short-term memory, stupid, stupid me

[Pidesco]

Mainly because Spanish is easier to learn and teach.

 

Compared to which language?

[Judge Hades]

Chinese, Japanese, Gaelic, and Welsh just to name a few.

[Fenghuang]

English too...

[Pidesco]

Well, those are some of the hardest languages to learn in the world.

[Pidesco]

English too...

 

English is much easier to learn then about any Romance language.

[Fenghuang]

Danish is hard from what I hear.

[Judge Hades]

That is why we need to have foreign languages taught at the grade school level, at the third grade at the latest. Start off with an easy llanguage such as Spansih then introduce harder languages such as Chinese or japanese at the latter levels.

[kirottu]

Chinese, Japanese, Gaelic, and Welsh just to name a few.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No. There are no universal easy or hard languages to learn. The more different the language happens to be from your language the harder it is to learn.

[Pidesco]

Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are fairly easy to learn.

[Judge Hades]

Isn't Danish a Germanic langauge?

Edited August 27, 2006 by Judge Hades

[Pidesco]

Chinese, Japanese, Gaelic, and Welsh just to name a few.

 

No. There are no universal easy or hard languages to learn. The more different the language happens to be from your language the harder it is to learn.

 

 

That isn't strictly true. Languages vary a lot in complexity. Japanese, for example is much more complex than any western language.

[Pidesco]

Isn't Danish a Germanic langauge?

 

Yes. It belongs to a subset of the Germanic group, which includes the other Scandinavian languages.

[Judge Hades]

But wouldn't it be based on the root language? Such as it would be easier for a German to learn English because they share the same root language, or a French native speaker learning Spansih. It would be relative to the root language your first language is in. It probably be easier for a native Chinese speaker to learn Japanese than it would be for him to learn English.