Language Barrier

[EmeraldKitten]

You know what? Ignore the post I made immediately before this one, then. I was trying to be reasonable, but I can see you have a closed mind.

Don't patronize me - you're not that good at it.

Thank you very much. Shouldn't have expected anything else.
Nice of you to make the 'fuck off' disappear before anyone else saw it.

And to letcha know- I do have empathy for these people. It would be hard. And like I said, I dont expect them to be fluent immediately.

The only reason I remotely replied to you directly was because the comment I quoted initially. You got my goat, which pisses me off.
I am not a bad person, and just because you don't agree with me does not give you the right to slam me or anyone else you don't agree with. I've seen ya do it before, and I'm sure you'll do it again.

I'm sorry you take offense to me standing up to you.

Now, I've wasted time, energy, webspace, and neglected my honey pie.
If you'll excuse me, it's beddy-bye time.

Good night everyone!

 

[cloudy]

Thank you very much. Shouldn't have expected anything else.
Nice of you to make the 'fuck off' disappear before anyone else saw it.

And to letcha know- I do have empathy for these people. It would be hard. And like I said, I dont expect them to be fluent immediately.

The only reason I remotely replied to you directly was because the comment I quoted initially. You got my goat, which pisses me off.
I am not a bad person, and just because you don't agree with me does not give you the right to slam me or anyone else you don't agree with. I've seen ya do it before, and I'm sure you'll do it again.

I'm sorry you take offense to me standing up to you.

Now, I've wasted time, energy, webspace, and neglected my honey pie.
If you'll excuse me, it's beddy-bye time.

Good night everyone!

You're right, of course. I will slam people when they display their ignorance. Whether I think they're a "good person" has nothing to do with it. So sorry I "got your goat." That's exactly what I was trying to do - it makes people think. That it didn't work with you is telling.

Whether you approve of the fact that I have the guts to tell it like it is or whether you don't means zilch to me.

Pity. I used to like you.

 

[FatDino]

World peace, everyone. World peace.

That also means don't team up against me. *grins nervously*

 

[cloudy]

World peace, everyone. World peace.

That also means don't team up against me. *grins nervously*

No worries. You have an open mind.

 

[FatDino]

No worries. You have an open mind.

And I'm also very chicken, socially, as well.

 

[cloudy]

And I'm also very chicken, socially, as well.

You'll get over that.

 

[FatDino]

You'll get over that.

Only when I'm really, really pissed off. But again, that doesn't happen a lot.

 

[McKenna]

I'm going to toss this out there, forgive me if it's already been covered, but I wanted to share my thoughts without being influenced (too much) by what others have said here.

Have any of you ever lived in a foreign country?

Have any of you learned a second language to fluency, or near-fluency?

I have. Here are my observations:

I agree that if you move to a foreign country, you should learn the language or languages of that country. That said, I also know how EXTREMELY DIFFICULT it is to speak said language, even if you understand it. Even if you practice it every day. You have to overcome your shyness, your fear of failure, your fear of ridicule to even BEGIN to speak the language. And even then, you pick and choose very carefully with whom you practice your fledging foreign tongue. It ain't easy, and many, MANY people don't ever learn a language to fluency; it's just not in their genes. I happen to think most Americans couldn't learn a foreign language if they tried. You know why? How many foreign words do we butcher in our every day conversation? If an American speaks any of those foreign words with the proper pronunciation, they are looked upon askance, as if they are highbrow or think themselves better than the rest. You don't believe me? Try pronouncing Shanghai the proper way, instead of the American way. Count how many times people look at you funny for doing so.

Crikey, are we all about conformity? God forbid one of us speaks differently.

I happen to think Americans are a bit egocentric. I think the majority's opinions around English being the ONLY language in America are a bit narrow-minded. The world, it is a changing. Quite frankly, I think Americans better start learning Chinese; there are far more of them than there are of us, and I predict they'll be the next super power. Maybe they'll team up with Mexico and we'll have to learn Chinish. Or would that be Spanese?

Either way, I feel for the immigrants. I feel for those who live in America whose native tongue is not English. I try to be empathetic. I try to support the programs that help immigrants learn English. I encourage the immigrants I know to practice their English with me. I suppose it's a matter of practicing what you preach: I think the world would be a far better place if a few more of us did less preaching, and more practicing.

 

[cloudy]

I'm going to toss this out there, forgive me if it's already been covered, but I wanted to share my thoughts without being influenced (too much) by what others have said here.

Have any of you ever lived in a foreign country?

Have any of you learned a second language to fluency, or near-fluency?

I have. Here are my observations:

I agree that if you move to a foreign country, you should learn the language or languages of that country. That said, I also know how EXTREMELY DIFFICULT it is to speak said language, even if you understand it. Even if you practice it every day. You have to overcome your shyness, your fear of failure, your fear of ridicule to even BEGIN to speak the language. And even then, you pick and choose very carefully with whom you practice your fledging foreign tongue. It ain't easy, and many, MANY people don't ever learn a language to fluency; it's just not in their genes. I happen to think most Americans couldn't learn a foreign language if they tried. You know why? How many foreign words do we butcher in our every day conversation? If an American speaks any of those foreign words with the proper pronunciation, they are looked upon askance, as if they are highbrow or think themselves better than the rest. You don't believe me? Try pronouncing Shanghai the proper way, instead of the American way. Count how many times people look at you funny for doing so.

Crikey, are we all about conformity? God forbid one of us speaks differently.

I happen to think Americans are a bit egocentric. I think the majority's opinions around English being the ONLY language in America are a bit narrow-minded. The world, it is a changing. Quite frankly, I think Americans better start learning Chinese; there are far more of them than there are of us, and I predict they'll be the next super power. Maybe they'll team up with Mexico and we'll have to learn Chinish. Or would that be Spanese?

Either way, I feel for the immigrants. I feel for those who live in America whose native tongue is not English. I try to be empathetic. I try to support the programs that help immigrants learn English. I encourage the immigrants I know to practice their English with me. I suppose it's a matter of practicing what you preach: I think the world would be a far better place if a few more of us did less preaching, and more practicing.

Yes.

(I put Dutch in the poll in my thread just for you)

 

[McKenna]

Yes.

(I put Dutch in the poll in my thread just for you)

There's a poll?! Oh goody! I like polls!

 

[FatDino]

There's a poll?! Oh goody! I like polls!

Get your ass over there and vote, McK.

 

[cantdog]

A friend of mine works in emergency dispatch in Oslo, Norway. Training for the job is rigorous and includes basic crisis management and psychology, medical knowledge (most who work there are also nurse or med students) and, yep, vocal language recognition. Plus a bunch of key phrases in the eight foreign languages most likely to call. A Norweigan operator can supposedly say "help is on the way, please unlock your door" in Danish, English, French, German, Russian, Croatian, Farsi and Spanish (I think those are the one).

I used to work emergency dispatch, myself. Then the 911 system was put in and they took initial calls elsewhere. Nobody called the fire department anymore, but a central dispatcher. But I have a few languages. That wasn't the city's fault, or the city's idea, but I did. Don could speak pretty good German from his time in Frankfurt; kinda took me by surprise when a German tourist called. Again, though, no policy of the kind existed. All this was during the Reagan administration, quite some time ago, now.

 

[jomar]

If you find it possible to pick up other languages, Jomar, it's because you had French in preschool. Have your kids been exposed to any languages yet? High school is really too late to attune the language centers of the brain. It really is. The kids may pick up some French, but in no wise will it be easy, nor will it 'stick' with any certainty...

My kids were not exposed to foreign languages before middle school, about 12 or 13 years old. My daughter won a Latin award in the 12th grade. She is now taking French in college. My sister had not been exposed to a foreign language as a child, yet learned Spanish and Russian (fluent enough to be an interpreter) in college. I'm not disagreeing that the earlier one is exposed the easier it is, Stella (brain plasticity and all), but that it can be done and done well when learned later.

 

[Stella_Omega]

My kids were not exposed to foreign languages before middle school, about 12 or 13 years old. My daughter won a Latin award in the 12th grade. She is now taking French in college. My sister had not been exposed to a foreign language as a child, yet learned Spanish and Russian (fluent enough to be an interpreter) in college. I'm not disagreeing that the earlier one is exposed the easier it is, Stella (brain plasticity and all), but that it can be done and done well when learned later.

for some people, I'm quite sure -- not for everyone. And it's no good expecting everyone to do what not every one can do...

(I'm editing, by the way)

 

[moonlight elf]

I'm going to toss this out there, forgive me if it's already been covered, but I wanted to share my thoughts without being influenced (too much) by what others have said here.

Have any of you ever lived in a foreign country?

Have any of you learned a second language to fluency, or near-fluency?

I have. Here are my observations:

I agree that if you move to a foreign country, you should learn the language or languages of that country. That said, I also know how EXTREMELY DIFFICULT it is to speak said language, even if you understand it. Even if you practice it every day. You have to overcome your shyness, your fear of failure, your fear of ridicule to even BEGIN to speak the language. And even then, you pick and choose very carefully with whom you practice your fledging foreign tongue. It ain't easy, and many, MANY people don't ever learn a language to fluency; it's just not in their genes. I happen to think most Americans couldn't learn a foreign language if they tried. You know why? How many foreign words do we butcher in our every day conversation? If an American speaks any of those foreign words with the proper pronunciation, they are looked upon askance, as if they are highbrow or think themselves better than the rest. You don't believe me? Try pronouncing Shanghai the proper way, instead of the American way. Count how many times people look at you funny for doing so.

Crikey, are we all about conformity? God forbid one of us speaks differently.

I happen to think Americans are a bit egocentric. I think the majority's opinions around English being the ONLY language in America are a bit narrow-minded. The world, it is a changing. Quite frankly, I think Americans better start learning Chinese; there are far more of them than there are of us, and I predict they'll be the next super power. Maybe they'll team up with Mexico and we'll have to learn Chinish. Or would that be Spanese?

Either way, I feel for the immigrants. I feel for those who live in America whose native tongue is not English. I try to be empathetic. I try to support the programs that help immigrants learn English. I encourage the immigrants I know to practice their English with me. I suppose it's a matter of practicing what you preach: I think the world would be a far better place if a few more of us did less preaching, and more practicing.

Exactly.

When I moved here I found speaking English very difficult. I could read, write, and speak English before I moved but textbook English is very different from everyday spoken American English.

It takes years for one to become fluent and then more years to be on the same level as the native speaker. And that goes for just about any language that I've learned not just English. I speak 3.

 

[elsol]

I agree that if you move to a foreign country, you should learn the language or languages of that country. That said, I also know how EXTREMELY DIFFICULT it is to speak said language, even if you understand it. Even if you practice it every day. You have to overcome your shyness, your fear of failure, your fear of ridicule to even BEGIN to speak the language. And even then, you pick and choose very carefully with whom you practice your fledging foreign tongue. It ain't easy, and many, MANY people don't ever learn a language to fluency; it's just not in their genes. I happen to think most Americans couldn't learn a foreign language if they tried. You know why? How many foreign words do we butcher in our every day conversation? If an American speaks any of those foreign words with the proper pronunciation, they are looked upon askance, as if they are highbrow or think themselves better than the rest. You don't believe me? Try pronouncing Shanghai the proper way, instead of the American way. Count how many times people look at you funny for doing so.

I actually laugh... because I work with a number of people from India and asian countries; some who've lived in the states for decades.

Talking to them is PAINFUL!!!

What's the funny part?

They write more correct and precise english than I do... I jump through hoops to maneuver them into having to send me emails instead of talking to me.

There's one chinese developer that has such beautiful (I'm a writer from the minimalist school so believe I don't use that word lightly) written communication that it's a pleasure to read his emails... they're concise, to the point, not a misplaced, misused or extra word, and it makes even the most complicated concept easy to understand. Speaking to him is like trying to sing along a song while your kid is turning the knob left and right madly on the radio.

 

[Vermilion]

I find it interesting to read what Stella said about language learning., There's a 5 year gap between myself and my younger sister. I didn;t start getting taught French until I was, hmm, about 7 or 8, but she started to be taught in Montessorri school, age 2 (her first French word was (phoenetically) 'canooey' meaning 'Frog' <snigger>). To this day I really really *struggle* to learn new languages. I can order a meal, ask directions etc in French, Italian and German and I'm thinking of starting Swedish for the reasons I mentioned before and although the vocab is not too bad the grammar is nigh on impossible for me. I can understand far more than I can speak by picking out the words I know, but I cannot for the life of me construct a sentence.
My sister, on the other hand, has a natural facility for languages which she doesn't take full advantage of.

My dad is trilingual and speaks French, Italian, English fluently, but also has working amounts of German, Spanish, Dutch, Hebrew and Portugese (I believe) - he's well on the way to becoming fluent in Spanish now, too.

My mum is as bad as me - do my sis and I get our abilities genetically or from the fact that she was taught languages early? Who knows, I'm just cross that my dad didn;t think to spend the first 10 years of my life speaking French and Italian to me. I'm gonna make him talk to my kids in foreign languages when I have some...

x
V

 

[sutherngent985]

When my son was 2 or 3 (I don't remember exactly), I came home one day and his mother was all excited. 'Our son was speaking Japanese today!' I was like HUH? She said he picked it up from watching Pokemon or one of the other Japanese cartoons on TV. Hes 9 now and doesn't speak it that I'm aware of but I am going to make sure he takes at least one language as soon as his school offers it, Spanish probably since they don't offer Japanese or Chinese in schools here that I'm aware of. I just hope he didn't get my language genes...I can barely speak American LOL.

 

[EmeraldKitten]

This is all very interesting!

None of my family is from anywhere but here, so they obviously only speak English. (Well, no, not originally, but I'm not sure how many generations you'd have to go back to find the first 'settlers', lol.)
Vermilion, your post makes me wonder if the age you start learning or genes do really affect if you can speak a different language or not. Hmm.
My best friend from high school- most of her family lives in California, and her grandma is Portugese. She got on the phone with her one day, and had an entire conversation with her, in the grandma's language, and I about shit. I had no idea she even knew any other languages, lol.
Come to find out, Portugese was her first language, but she basically learned them both at the same time. No one else in her family is that fluent in both- it's either one or the other. But, then again, no one else was taught like her. I thought it was awesome.

One of the customers I had yesterday- her mom is Mexican, her dad is white. Her mom and that side of the family all speak English, using Spanish only when necessary. She said they go back to their native tongue if they get pissed off at each other though, lol. (Which I found cute.) But she said growing up, they spoke English- she basically learned what Spanish she does know at school.
I also found that interesting. Hmm.

I guess it depends on what area you're from and what resources are avaliable to you. My high school offered Spanish and that was it.. however, another school in this county only offered French. And no, they aren't required courses.
Also, when I took Spanish I in 8th grade, the teacher was about useless, and everyone in my class should have been drowned at birth, lol. (It was full of the jock types that thought they were above the law.)
My Spanish II teacher was better, but he was an ass, and expected us to know everything we should at the beginning of the year. After the required two weeks, I tried to drop the class because he was moving way too fast, and we didn't learn half the shit we should have known from the aforementioned worthless teacher. (I wasnt the only one that wanted to drop it- everyone from the first one did too.)
He promised to slow down and back track, so we didn't drop it.
Once we could no longer drop the class without taking an 'F' for the year, he turned into a high-paced ass again, and didn't really backtrack. No, it wasn't his job to teach us Spanish I also, but several people failed the course for the year, and I think maybe 3 people in the class got A's. (They had a different teacher than us for Spanish I.)

Okay, now I'm running late for work.
I'm sorry I lost my temper last night- that wasn't what I was trying to do at all. I get a little touchy sometimes.
Which is exactly why I don't post threads like this, and don't reply in threads like this. Some people are too opionated, then someone else is.. and then it blows up and makes for a lot of skip searching through threads. So if everyone will please excuse the shit slinging conest, I'd appreciate it.

Have a fantastic day!

 

[bridgeburner]

The fastest way to learn a foreign language is total immersion. You cannot learn fluently a language which you have no occasion to use.

What one has occasion to use is based almost exclusively on need, not - despite many rumblings here - on politics be they left, right or center.

Why are there four national languages in Switzerland? Because it's a tiny country surrounded by five other countries all with their own languages.

Now, if you live in West Virginia, which is about 10,000 square miles bigger than Switzerland, you're surrounded by five other states....but they all speak the same language. In fact, this is true of any state in the U.S. You will not find yourself in Louisiana unable to find English speakers just because you happen to be in a Creole district although you might have some trouble in various places in the South Carolina and Georgia low-country where the predominant language is Gullah.

Why do so many Europeans speak English? Because, thanks to the long-running Empire of Great Britain and now of the United States, English is the language of business. If one must "blame" someone for imperial arrogance, please note that America only adopted the mantle from the Brits and had Rome not fallen we'd all be speaking Latin still, although it could be argued that anyone who speaks French, Italian, Spanish, Portugese or Romanian still does to some extent.

In the case of the average citizen in any country, the language needed to get by will be the language of the region. If you live in France, that's French. If you live in Kansas, that's English. If you're lucky enough to live in Switzerland you'd better study up.

On average it takes roughly three to six months of total immersion in a language to become facile --- it could take years to become as fluent as a native, but one doesn't have to be as fluent as a native speaker to get along more than adequately.

In the case of immigration, of course one couldn't be expected to be fluent or even passable at first, but to fail to learn a language in which one can be immersed after years of living in a country is nothing but pig-headedness. Yes, there are enclaves in the U.S. where one can get by never speaking anything but a non-English language, but those individuals are limited by never being able to survive outside of those areas ---- just as English speakers in foreign lands never truly assimilate or gain the ability to maneuver freely if they only associate with English speakers.

Now, back to need.

Does an emergency dispatcher need to have the ability to deal with a caller who does not speak the dispatcher's language?

Absolutely.

That is something that the dispatching company NEEDS to address because lives are at stake. Does an individual dispatcher need to be a polyglot? In the U.S., no, but he does need to be able to gain immediate aid when dealing with a non-English speaker. In the case of the little girl who drowned, there was a clear failure on the part of the dispatching company not to have someone on hand who could have handled a call from a Spanish speaker.

In the case of the firemen, I'm glad that they felt it more important to continue fighting the fire in whichever way they could rather than be drawn into long and fruitless attempts to explain the situation to hysterical bystanders REGARDLESS of
the language those bystanders spoke. The primary duty of firefighters is to fight fires, not provide counseling in the middle of a crisis. They were aware of the people trapped in the building and they were unable to get to them. They still had a fire to fight. I'm disgusted that the court system saw fit to blame them for such a thing in the name of a mis-guided political correctness.

There are places in America where public service institutions have a great need to be multi-lingual. Any major urban city should have staff who speak both Spanish and English at the very least. In Los Angles this means more languages than I can think to list here. It's interesting to note, however, that despite the large Persian and Japanese population in Los Angeles, those are not languages that often require tranlsators or special accomodation which suggests to me that there is a more than passing socio-economic tie-in to the question of multi-lingualism.

 

[angelicminx]

cloudy= I never said people shouldn't learn a language - in fact, that's the exact opposite of what I've been saying, but you, and others don't want to hear it.

I've gone back and read the thread 20 or 30 more times. I guess I DID miss your point between all the generalized slams you made. Not all Americans carry the attitude that, (I'm quoting some people I've heard NOT a statement Cloudy made), "If they can't fucking speak the language, they should go the fuck back where they came from!"

I'm one that would be more than willing to learn to communicate with someone who's willing to learn to communicate with me.

I don't believe I ever said that Americans shouldn't learn another language. I believe what I said was that it wouldn't be a bad idea, but I also said that since English is the predominant language in the US a working knowledge of English is necessary. Never said I expected fluency. I don't expect anyone to be 'perfectly fluent in American English', not even Americans. Hellfire, there's Southernese, Yankee, Hippee, Valley, Teenager...

I also stated that a second or third language should be a requirement for 911 operators. Which languages dependent on the languages spoken where the operators work. I'll expand that statement to include emergency personnel.

If I were to move to Mexico, I would expect to have to do all the work with learning the language. I wouldn't expect to walk into any store, any job, or walk up to any person on the street, speak English and be understood (though that would be awesome, which I think is the point Cloudy was trying to make. Maybe?). Same goes for any other country. I'd likely dance in the street if I found an English sign for a store or other place of business, but I wouldn't expect to. My expection would be that my ass had best learn the language.

How long has English been your family's predominant language? Two generations? Three?

Honestly I don't know. I know my mother has traced her family tree back before the Mayflower, but I don't know what the main language was for sure.

I know my maternal grandmother's side of the family is, at a minimum, bilingual, but they are also world travelers. One of my cousins retains a government position in Germany, translating being one of his responsibilities. He speaks 8 languages, that I know of. His siblings know no fewer than 4 languages. His mother, my grandmother's sister, is a college professor, and also speaks several languages. To the best of my knowledge, my maternal grandparents are not bilingual. My maternal grandfather is one of the biggest bigots I know.

My paternal grandfather was half Cherokee, and didn't speak anything other than English, as far as I know. I wish he had, I'd love to know Cherokee. My paternal grandmother is also Cherokee, but I don't know how much. She only speaks redneck and is one of the most intolerant, closed-minded, holier-than-thou people I've been around. I don't know much more about his side of the family.

How do you think those members of your family would feel reading the views expressed here?

My maternal grandmother's side of the family have expressed similar views to mine. I don't have a problem with immigrants who are learning the language, more than happy to help in any way I can. As a matter of fact, Hey! Let's trade knowledge. I'll teach you some words, you teach me some words. My problem, and intolerance, is for the ones who have expressed a refusal to TRY.

When I was substituting in preschool classrooms, one teacher had included Spanish in her curriculum. It covered the 'Diversity' requirement set by the school board, but that wasn't why she did it. She included it because one of her forty students had just immigrated from Mexico and didn't speak English. The child was placed with the only teacher in the school that was fluent in Spanish. The child was three when she first came to school, and was very withdrawn. The teacher sang songs about the days of the week and numbers in both English and Spanish. The labels for things had pictures and English words as well as Spanish words telling the kids where things went. Over the first few weeks, communication between the children was halting and more often than not reverted to sign language. As the year passed, the girl helped the other kids learn Spanish words and the other kids helped the girl learn English words. The other kids did not become fluent by any means, but they had fun learning what they did. The girl, however, slowly did become fluent in English.

The girl's sister joined her at school the following year, with a new teacher who also spoke Spanish. The sister had learned English from the girl and therefore didn't have much trouble adapting to the classroom. The new teacher also implemented Spanish in her classroom, and the kids loved it. The sister, age three, had bouts of irritation when the other kids would ask her Spanish words for things. They pestered her to death, and took away from what she was trying to accomplish during 'work time'.

I was included in the parent meeting at the end of the second year. While the father could communicate with the main teacher, who was fluent in Spanish, he could not communicate with the other teachers. I was told by the main teacher that the girl had to translate for her father, and the father had told the teacher he would not learn to speak English. It was enough that his daughters knew English. The girl expressed a small amount of anger about this fact in one-on-one conversations with me. Sometimes she didn't get to play because he needed her to translate. She was 5 by then.

As to the rest of my ancestors? Some of them I couldn't give a shit about their opinion. I've recently discovered that one of them played a major role in the Salem Witch Trials, possibly tossing out one of the first accusations. There are slave owners on the tree who raped and abused their 'property', as well as some that were at least partly responsible for the slaughter of Native Americans, women and children included.

The others? I don't know. There's such a diversity of opinion within the family now, who knows how they would have felt.

Let's say, just for a second, that you had to move someplace like....China to be able to survive, and to make sure that your family was fed, etc. You don't speak a word of Chinese, I'm guessing. All the signs are in Chinese, very few speak your language (let's pretend), and now you have to find a job to support yourself. Wouldn't you be just a little bit overwhelmed? I sure as hell would be.

Still have no empathy for these people?

Overwhelmed? Yes. Refuse to adapt? Nope. It would be incredibly hard, but adapt I would.

Never said I didn't have empathy for those who are obviously trying.

I've recently had to deny employment for a gentleman who is a recent Russian immigrant. My supervisor is one of his translaters and had sent him to me to work with my husband on a plumbing job. From my understanding, he's excellent in his field, but speaks only a little English. He IS trying, and I felt bad about not being able to hire him, but the job required being able to change plans at the drop of a hat. (The customer was an ass who changed his mind on what he wanted no less than 20 times on a single job.) My supervisor was not going to be available to translate any time we needed her, therefore it just wasn't feasible. He understood the problem and gave us his number in case we had another job come up. I was able to send him somewhere he could get work, thank goodness. In the near future, I hope to be able to offer him a job again, with a customer who knows what they want from the start.

Considering the sheer volume of assistance offered in the US, the ones who flat refuse to try to learn are the ones who chap my hide.

In the first story, someone's child died, ffs, but that doesn't matter - let's all join hands and sing Kumbaya, and hope that the dispatcher doesn't get in trouble. I find it troubling in the extreme that no one is bothered by that aspect besides me.

Even you didn't initially express sympathy for the death of the child. Just because it wasn't expressed doesn't mean it didn't bother anyone else. I also hope the dispatcher doesn't get in trouble, he'll be reliving this for a while, if not the rest of his life. I hope the mother and step-father don't get in trouble for the child being outside unsupervised, they've been punished enough. I wish the child had made it to the hospital and was still alive. I do wonder if the dispatcher will now learn Spanish, in hopes of preventing such a tragedy in the future.

In the second story, it bothers me that 1. Someone told the survivors they could sue. 2. The courts allowed it. 3. They played the discrimination card.

I'm thinking it's possible that a hysterical person, no matter their first language, could have not understood what was happening either. Could they sue and win? Hmm, I don't think it's likely.

Cloudy, I have a lot of respect for you. While I'm not fond of being on the wrong end of your blazing gun, it's inevitably going to happen. One of my faults is taking things personally which are not truly directed at me, I know this.

 

[cloudy]

Cloudy, I have a lot of respect for you. While I'm not fond of being on the wrong end of your blazing gun, it's inevitably going to happen. One of my faults is taking things personally which are not truly directed at me, I know this.

No, none of it was personal.

I just get incredibly frustrated with the attitudes of quite a lot of Americans. I suppose because I've been on the wrong end of discrimination (not just in the US, Canada is just as bad), and I so empathize with people doing their best just to get by - like most of us - but having it so hard because they don't speak the language, even though most (not all) are trying their best to learn.

I hear it all the time - one of the drawbacks of living in a small town in the south: "If they cain't speak Amurrican, them damn furreners need to go home!" They don't think about how really close they are, generational wise, to members of their families who faced the same problems.

For one, I think it's amazingly courageous to move to a completely different country, where they speak a different language, and try to build a new and better life for yourself and your family. I'm not convinced I could do it, and I don't think anyone that knows me would list "timid" as one of my attributes.

It seems like a new form of discrimination, one that's acceptable in place of the old forms. Just like in Emerald's post (and I'm not picking on her, just using it as an example) where she says that "everyone she asked" had the same opinion as she does, and had it before she asked.

Isn't that exactly how discrimination works? One must follow the crowd, have the same opinion as "everyone." To stand out from the crowd is to risk misfit status yourself.

I'm just tired of it, is all. I suppose I've come to expect a little more tolerance from people here in the AH, and to be quite honest, I was disappointed that it wasn't so, and that people I really thought might already know how hurtful that type of thing is, didn't see it at all.

I would love to take people and put them in a place where they can see things from the other side, but I can't. The best I can do is continue to try to express it (which I fail at miserably sometimes), and yes, go in with guns blazing at times.

 

[McKenna]

The fastest way to learn a foreign language is total immersion. You cannot learn fluently a language which you have no occasion to use.

What one has occasion to use is based almost exclusively on need, not - despite many rumblings here - on politics be they left, right or center.

Why are there four national languages in Switzerland? Because it's a tiny country surrounded by five other countries all with their own languages.

Now, if you live in West Virginia, which is about 10,000 square miles bigger than Switzerland, you're surrounded by five other states....but they all speak the same language. In fact, this is true of any state in the U.S. You will not find yourself in Louisiana unable to find English speakers just because you happen to be in a Creole district although you might have some trouble in various places in the South Carolina and Georgia low-country where the predominant language is Gullah.

Why do so many Europeans speak English? Because, thanks to the long-running Empire of Great Britain and now of the United States, English is the language of business. If one must "blame" someone for imperial arrogance, please note that America only adopted the mantle from the Brits and had Rome not fallen we'd all be speaking Latin still, although it could be argued that anyone who speaks French, Italian, Spanish, Portugese or Romanian still does to some extent.

In the case of the average citizen in any country, the language needed to get by will be the language of the region. If you live in France, that's French. If you live in Kansas, that's English. If you're lucky enough to live in Switzerland you'd better study up.

On average it takes roughly three to six months of total immersion in a language to become facile --- it could take years to become as fluent as a native, but one doesn't have to be as fluent as a native speaker to get along more than adequately.

In the case of immigration, of course one couldn't be expected to be fluent or even passable at first, but to fail to learn a language in which one can be immersed after years of living in a country is nothing but pig-headedness. Yes, there are enclaves in the U.S. where one can get by never speaking anything but a non-English language, but those individuals are limited by never being able to survive outside of those areas ---- just as English speakers in foreign lands never truly assimilate or gain the ability to maneuver freely if they only associate with English speakers.

Now, back to need.

Does an emergency dispatcher need to have the ability to deal with a caller who does not speak the dispatcher's language?

Absolutely.

That is something that the dispatching company NEEDS to address because lives are at stake. Does an individual dispatcher need to be a polyglot? In the U.S., no, but he does need to be able to gain immediate aid when dealing with a non-English speaker. In the case of the little girl who drowned, there was a clear failure on the part of the dispatching company not to have someone on hand who could have handled a call from a Spanish speaker.

In the case of the firemen, I'm glad that they felt it more important to continue fighting the fire in whichever way they could rather than be drawn into long and fruitless attempts to explain the situation to hysterical bystanders REGARDLESS of
the language those bystanders spoke. The primary duty of firefighters is to fight fires, not provide counseling in the middle of a crisis. They were aware of the people trapped in the building and they were unable to get to them. They still had a fire to fight. I'm disgusted that the court system saw fit to blame them for such a thing in the name of a mis-guided political correctness.

There are places in America where public service institutions have a great need to be multi-lingual. Any major urban city should have staff who speak both Spanish and English at the very least. In Los Angles this means more languages than I can think to list here. It's interesting to note, however, that despite the large Persian and Japanese population in Los Angeles, those are not languages that often require tranlsators or special accomodation which suggests to me that there is a more than passing socio-economic tie-in to the question of multi-lingualism.

Some well-expressed thoughts here, thanks for sharing.

I agree that the best way to learn a language is by total immersion. Because of this, I tend to doubt anyone who claims "fluency" in a language which they have not used since high school, or, for that matter, that they have not used in the language's native country.

I had three years of high school spanish, and 2 years of German between high school and college. I speak no Spanish, and I can stumble through some German, but I haven't had much cause to use either since I took the classes. I had 9 months of Dutch classes. I claim fluency with it simply because I had need to use it, and I learned it by immersion. I also speak it on a near-daily basis.

 

[jomar]

We know, in fact, that it can be impossible for many people. Not a thing that can be done. Like telling a tone deaf person that they can lern to sing, like telling a legless man that he can run.

If you find it possible to pick up other languages, Jomar, it's because you had French in preschool. Have your kids been exposed to any languages yet? Highschool is really too late to attune the language centers of the brain. It really is. The kids may pick up some French, but in no wise will it be easy, nor will it 'stick' with any certainty...

Where are you getting your information, Stella? I'd be interested in looking at it. I'm not aware that one can't learn a new language at an older age.


Me? I took Spanish for two years in high school when the school had a "learn at your own pace" program. Big mistake by them of which I took full advantage. Unfortunately for me.

During our 231 years of history, we have been host to waves of immigrant families. All of these waves were notable for the same thing; parents that never learned the English language, and children who learned it easily and quickly.

We've had Russian, Chinese, Korean, German, Irish, Nigerian, you name it- ghettos, where the older people could feel comfortable. And they stayed in those ghettos till they died. I'll be damned if I can understand why people think this is something new.

The older immigrants stayed in the communities that spoke their native language - they had no need, thus no motivation to learn a new language. The kids branched out and assimilated.

 

[rgraham666]

A lot of those people in ghettos weren't welcome as anything but workers so assimilation was difficult.

I see it here in Canada. I live in Little India, almost all the residents are from the subcontinent with a fair number of Pakistanis thrown in.

The people who immigrated here are a little weak in English and use their home language a lot. The stores are set up on the same model as 'back home'. They stick to what they know.

But there's a fair bit of prejudice as well. The 'good folks' don't want them around and spout all the old repetitive canards about hygiene, intelligence and honesty. It's been a while, but once 'Paki bashing' was a mildly popular thing amongst teenage thugs. It may still happen, but I haven't heard anything recently.

The kids are often very Westernized, with the exception of families just arrived. Their English is fine and they speak their mother tongue as well.

Plus ca change and all that.