Originally posted by: sean wookie
How are we ever going to be like the rest of the world if we can onoly speak one language?

Speak two languages? Ha! We have a hard enough time with the one we do know. (I know it is a typo, I am just playing. I am sure you can find any number of typos in my own posts)

Are we talking about putting more emphasis on teaching our children Spanish? Or are we talking about flipping the dang cereal box around fifty times trying to find the one side that is in English? I do not want us to become like Canada where every DVD requires the title to be in English and French. That is unacceptable to me. Also what you brought up about being like the rest of the world goes for the other side to.

If the foreigners don't learn English, and become citizens and vote, still not knowing English, I don't think that does anybody any good. I worked with a bunch of legal aliens for about six months during a temporary job I once had. They got paid the same as rest of us, but did a lot less work. The job required filling out a lot of paperwork, and they would always have to ask us to do it for them because they couldn't read the forms. As a result we had to stop what we were doing and help them while they stared over our shoulders watching us fill out their paperwork for the next couple of minutes. This was only tolerated because the supervisior happened to be of the same nationality as them, and told us to help them fill out their forms. Later when that supervisior was transfered, one of the first things the new supervisior did was to sack all of them because they couldn't do their own work. With minimal effort they could have learned enough English to fill out their own papers and they wouldn't have been fired.

I agree with Ferris, I think we often cripple our imigrants by accommodating to the level we do.

I also somewhat agree with Sean, as a person who is bilingual myself (trilingual, depending on whether of not you count a dead language), I think it is a terribly useful skill to have, and if began from a young age, a very easy thing to learn. I think we should teach foreign languages starting in the 1st grade or so, Spanish in High School is too little, too late.

But I also disagree with Sean, In England you go just a short ways and you are in France. In Germany you go just a little ways and you are in Italy. In Greece you go just a short ways and you are in Macedonia. There are any number of other directions you can travel just a short ways in any of these countries and run across as many languages. In Oregon go just a little way and you are in Washington, in Washington go just a little ways and find yourself in Idaho or Canada. Maybe in Canada you might run into some French speakers, but chances are good that they will know English. From Oklahoma travel a ways and you may find yourself in Kansas or Texas. America is an English speaking country. There may be a lot of immigration, but I really think it is their duty to learn our language.

Traveling around the world I find this to be very true, "When in Rome do as the Romans do, but when in America be yourself" Every country you go to you are expected to fit in, but when visiting America you'll find we are very tolerant to foreigners showing an ignorance of our culture. I think this is a good thing, no doubt, but I think we take it too far sometimes. Anytime I have to fill out any documents that require information from my passport I have to sift through "Name/Nombre/Nom/Nome", and the same thing for age, eye color, hair color etc. Seriously, it really gets on my nerves. It is just going a little too far.