It's true that a lot of Americans fail to learn foreign languages. Barack Obama told me that...
"It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup."... and then he went to Europe and spoke English to everybody. But this notion that you can hide what you're saying by speaking a foreign language is absurd — especially if the language is Spanish.
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nothing says more about Obama's emptiness that he would tell us to teach our children spanish (why spanish, BTW?) and yet be unable to address any of the leaders of the countries he visited (except the UK) in their native tongues--At least JFK knew enough German to call himself a doughnut.
You can get away with crap if you dont do the lecture about the importance of learning a second language--otherwise--you are BSing
Not to worry. Mr Obama will soon have our children learning Arabic so that they might read the Koran in the original form.
An acquaintance who had a deep theoretical reason to believe that dogs didn't understand English, when my first Doberman Susie looked at him at the table clearly desiring an offer of table scraps, told her ``Ixnay.''
Normally he does not speak pig latin. But talking to the dog would be dangerous to the theory, he felt, because she had a history of seeming to understand.
Anyway I suggest pig latin for insults from the help.
Instead of Merci beaucoup, it should have been sprechen zie deutsch? Why is Obama even taken seriously anymore? He's a foolish little man with foolish little aspirations about being president with no experience to speak of and he has the nerve to lecture and dole out economic advise as if he actually knew what he was talking about.
I met the future this past weekend, 3 year old twins who were perfectly bilingual in Japanese and English.
If you give your speech in a foreign language, it won't be covered on the news; it won't generate soundbites. In the unlikely event that it does (e.g. if the news provides a translator) you can complain that your remarks were misrepresented, and most Americans will never know. So even though a foreign-language speech isn't "hidden", you can use such speeches to pander to a group of people while hiding your words from the larger public. Arafat used to do that all the time -- give a nice "we want peace" speech in English, then give a "death to Israel" speech in Arabic right after.
Anyway, the reason most Americans don't bother learning a foreign language is that there's no reason to. Everyone in western Europe lives within a day's drive of at least two countries where the native language differs from their own; most live even closer than that. In contrast, the vast majority of Americans live nowhere near a country where the language is something other than English. An American can spend his entire life visiting and vacationing in every kind of climate and all manner of cities, towns, and national parks without ever setting foot in a place where the primary language isn't English.
We also have the advantage of *being* the world's dominant power -- so we don't have to bother to learn the dominant power's language.
Unlike His Oneness, George Bush speaks Spanish.
But this notion that you can hide what you're saying by speaking a foreign language is absurd
Absurd . . . yet widespread. My mother and aunt have been caught out with it, using Korean in LA. My grandfather and grandmother have been caught out with it, using Japanese in Korea. And I myself regularly use languages other than English if I have to say something private in public and whoever I'm talking to has one in common with me.
It probably comes of growing up in a household where the elder generation would regularly talk about us over our heads in Japanese, since all any of us knew was Korean or English. (They had to stop it once I and my cousins learned Japanese. Ha ha)
When I was studying linguistics, one of my professors -- perhaps in an effort to criticise nativist American suspicion of foreign languages -- mocked the notion that people speaking foreign languages around us are secretly using them to talk smack about us. She could not have been more wrong. Most people in the US speak English. When we switch to another language, there's usually a reason for it.
Esperanto, on the other hand...
I remember when I was a young kid and my parents would spell stuff to each other when they were talking about me. I knew it was a conspiracy, and I was pissed.
These bleepin' Mexicans are starting to act like my parents, and I'm still pissed.
Reality is reality though.
If you live in L.A. and apply for a job, and the only language you only know one language while someone else is applying for the job and is bilingual (English/Spanish) then guess who gets the job?
The reason of course is that a substantial number of Angelinos don't speak English so if the store clerk can't speak Spanish then they won't spend their money there and the business owner loses out on the income opportunity.
In the end this isn't going to matter because sooner or later most of the country will be like L.A.-- only speaking one language will be a handicap in terms of landing employment. That's not a liberal position or a conservative position, it's reality. I live in Arizona and there are parts of Phoenix and Tucson where the situation is the same.
In the end this isn't going to matter because sooner or later most of the country will be like L.A.
Well, no, because most of the country is never going to be located anywhere near Mexico. :)
Barakacaca loves Eurotrash. Barakacaca is infatuated with the living dead of Europe.
Yes, lead us, O Historical One, away from our history, our path, lead us down the path of death.
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
Come.
Sit.
Have a smoke.
I speak to you in human tongue.
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
On the shores of Ahagotcha
By the shining big sea waters
Was revealed to mighty warrior
Mighty warrior Highermatter
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
Once revealed to Highermatter
like the songs of singing wires
Sang the voice of Spirit Father
Rang the voice of Spirit Father
In the ears of Highermatter
like the songs of singing wires
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
When you speak to Tittyhaha
Speak to main squeeze Tittyhaha
In the presence of the people
Use the tongue of all the nations
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
In the presence of the people
In the tongue of all the nations
Clear yourself of all dark sayings
In the presence of the people.
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
When alone with Tittyhahah
When alone with other humans
Speak the tongue of other humans.
Use the tongue that you were born to
When alone with Tittyhaha
Use the tongue that you were born to
When alone with other humans
Hey ya hoy ya
When about with all the people
Use the language of the nations.
When alone with other humans
Use the language you were born to.
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
Then the wind took up the singing.
Took the message of the wires.
As the voice of Spirit Father
Ceased the singing in the breezes
Ceased the message in the breezes
And departed Highermatter
Hey ya hoy ya
Don't be rude to other people
people with the tongues of nations
With the words of other humans
Being rude to other people.
Hey ya hoy ya
These thoughts were left with Highermatter
There with him to roil and rumble
Thoughts of rudeness to the people
To the people of the nations
With the words of other humans.
Hey ya hoy ya hoy ya hoy ya
Yet reserve his private language
With his main squeeze Tittyhaha
Yet reserve his human tongue
Use it freely with the humans
Hey ya
Use it freely with the humans
Freely with the other humans
Privately with Tittyhaha
Use the tongue used by the humans.
Hey
If you live in L.A. and apply for a job, and the only language you only know one language while someone else is applying for the job and is bilingual (English/Spanish) then guess who gets the job
Maybe if you're applying for convenience store clerk. Hell, in my (current) line, the second language of choice is probably Tagalog.
Otherwise, any number of other factors are going to trump speaking Spanish.
How many hundreds of years did it take for English to become the official language of the English court after William The Bastard?
Besides, although I've met a few in the very heart of some L.A.'s hispanic districts, once born here, they speak English like natives. There's some truth to Cheech Marin's "Born In East L.A.".
Maybe if you're applying for convenience store clerk.
Illegals do grunt work; if your just involves working with people who do grunt work (e.g. kitchen staff, landscapers, that sort of thing) you really do need to know Spanish.
If your job involves working with Americans and legal immigrants, however, you don't; both groups know English.
Basically my point, Rev.
As long as the guys who can speak English are the guys controlling the money, the need to speak Spanish is highly situational.
Barry speaks more Arabic than Spanish.
Does anyone know if AT LEAST Malia and Sasha are learning a foreign language?
I speak 6. I learnt most of them under the age of 10, and my last (Spanish) at the age of 18.
The least, I mean the very least he can do after hectoring and lecturing his fellow Americans about not speaking foreign tongues (and then revealing at length he himself doesn't save for Arabic prayers learnt in Indonesia), is to give his little ones a head start.
Cheers,
Victoria
blake,
Yeah, I wasn't disagreeing with you; I was just expanding on your point for the benefit of folks who don't live here in Northern Aztlan. :)
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