Said Trump, in his big speech at CPAC, quoted in "Trump warns of 'languages coming into our country' that 'nobody' has heard of/Trump's warnings about words add to a pattern of stoking fear around migrants coming into the United States."'
I was going to say the headline was deceptive and unfair because Trump didn't say these were languages nobody has heard of. Trump said there were languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. Obviously, the people who are speaking this language have heard of it. They're not nobody.
But I see that Trump repeated his concern about foreign languages when he toured the southern border this past week, and he said "Nobody speaks them" and "These are languages that nobody ever heard of." To be fair, in context, he was expressing concern about children who don't speak English going to schools where none of the teachers know their language.
What do we do with children like this? I found this substantial article in the Springfield News-Sun. Methods have been worked out. If you stop and think for a minute, you'll probably arrive at the basics.
You put these students in English immersion classes. They're called English Language Learners (ELL). You hire "English for Speakers of Other Languages teachers," and you give them iPads with software that contains their English lessons and can also do translations into their language.
Did you know it is now possible to use your device to take a photo of any text and then immediately see the translation?
Recently, my son Chris sent me this from Barcelona, a photograph of a billboard with text in Catalan and an image from Google Lens showing the English translation (too provocative for schoolroom use!):
ADDED: Wouldn't you love to be one of those English for Speakers of Other Languages teachers? You received an extremely valuable skill, the ability to speak English, learned effortlessly when you were a child. Assembled before you are children who really need what you have to give, and wouldn't they tend to work harder and more earnestly than most schoolchildren? Yes, you may not understand their native language, but it's an English immersion class. Stick to the English that you know cold, and everyone ought to get by. If there's something they need to be able to say in their native language, teacher and child can resort to the translation software. Why make this into a big problem? To scare American voters and make them feel that outsiders are ruining things?
पोस्ट्स
१४८ टिप्पण्या:
Send them back & close the border? \_(ツ)_/¯
All of our street signs are in English. Are we to change them to 10 different languages?
Ponder millions of illegals from all over the world - trying to drive on our already congested roads. .
In CO - a Spanish speaking man smashed his truck into unsuspecting innocents - Killing many. (I forget - 4-5?) He could not read the run-away truck ramp sign. He had no brakes.
You put these students in English immersion classes. They're called English Language Learners (ELL). You hire "English for Speakers of Other Languages teachers," and you give them iPads with software that contains their English lessons and can also do translations into their language.
So this is the thing every school district must do to accommodate people who cross the border illegally?
Such a benefit to the local towns that have to attempt
To educate these people with literally nothing to add to this society.
You’re ahead in the polls, why stir up controversy?
It’s just dumb. And I hate to use the word stupid but it is.
From 1850 or until 1924 the US was able to handle the influx of people who spoke languages that "nobody had ever heard of". But then those Russians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians etc were eager and willing to assimilate and to learn English.
These days, these immigrants, these hyphenated communities--maybe not so much.
If only Trump could speak in a way that helped his cause (our cause) rather than his the strange and clumsy manner that ends up as a gift to the corrupt liar left.
Lem - exactly.
You hire "English for Speakers of Other Languages teachers."
Like Harold Ramis in Stripes? "There are a couple of things I need to know because... I've never done this before."
Son of bitch. Shit.
The problem with Trump is he is on the right side of public opinion here - BUT then he blows it.
Trump is unable to articulate much of anything, without sounding.. stupid. His super-fans love him no matter what- but he needs overwhelming support to have a chance in hell to over-come the left's cheat machine.
Trump needs to hire a speaking coach.
This is one of those times one should take Trump seriously but not literally.
So, English first, second, third, and no other languages in public discourse. So much for a future of hottentot.
Often times a program like this will work in a small, relatively controlled situation. It’s fully funded by grants; the people involved are true believers with a relatively deep understanding of the theory and methodology of the program.
When the program rolls out in the real world, it doesn’t work as well. It is underfunded, run by poorly trained people who aren’t as committed to the program, etc.
These students will likely be going into crowded schools in the poorer areas. This program will just get plopped on already overworked teachers. Class sizes go up; spending doesn’t. Student absenteeism will be an issue. There will be less personalized instruction, and the more gifted will lose out.
Our schools are already doing poorly; there is no reason to think that their performance will improve if we make teaching harder.
Linguistic fractionalization is about 12th on my list of reasons to be concerned about the 10 million illegal aliens that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have foisted upon the country.
What portion of my school taxes currently used to fund the education of disadvantaged American minorities in my district should be reallocated to educate recently arrived illegal alien kids?
The language problem of immigrants, both legal and illegal, is easy to handle- you just force them to learn English by making sure all government agencies, state and federal, use English only for documentation.
serious question:
does a naturalized citizen STILL have to pass the english part of the citizenship test?
[i'm asking, because i DON'T know]
if so, shouldn't immigrants WANT to learn english?
if so, shouldn't US MAKE them learn english?
further ("slightly rhetorical") question
HOW come natural born citizens don't have to be able to pass the SAME citizenship tests?
{i Know, you'll say: it's RACIST to even ask that!! But, i'm NOT advocating for grandfather clauses for people who's grandfathers fought in the civil war, i'm asking about citizenship tests FOR ALL people. HOW would That be racist?}
i'll (rhetorically) wait for answers
these immigrants, these hyphenated communities
1-2 Americans in a nod to Democratic legacy and our Posterity of selective inclusion.
Yeah well all these immigrants are going to save us from demographic collapse. I think your greatest fear of these South of the border immigrants are that one day one of them is going to be wiping your behind and your hateful racism will be palpable and they will treat you with all of the derision and misery that you deserve.
The is America. We speak English.
Want to excel - learn to speak English.
The left do not care about people coming here with good intentions.
The left want criminals. (Soros smiles)
The left do not care about assimilation or English speaking requirements. In fact, the left are working in the opposite direction. They want segregation in schools. They want chaos.
Because feelings.
>...concern about children who don't speak English going to schools where none of the teachers know their language.
What do we do with children like this?<
They are illegal aliens and they don't belong here. Why in the world do we have an obligation to do anything with them and their education? To put them in our schools and to worry about their freakin' language? Explain that and I'll get back to you on the question.
He's expressing concern about practical inclusion, but AI is sure to distort, contort, and comport with the semantic games played in urbane dictionaries until we are all clicking, and thrashing in a liberal furor.
You put these students in English immersion classes.
That is not how the schools are run these days.
It would be unsettling to the "newcomers" and considered cruel.
In their study, Thomas&Collier found that the most significant variable in how long it takes to learn English is the amount of formal schooling students have received in their first language.
In one study, Thomas & Collier researched a group of Asian and Hispanic students from an affluent suburban school district receiving 1-3 hours second language support per day in a well-regarded ESL program . These students were generally exited from ESL in the first two years. All of the students researched were at or above grade level in native language literacy. Here are the results for students in this study.
-- Those students who were between 8-11 years old and had 2-3 years of native language education took 5-7 years to test at grade level in English. These were the lucky ones.
-- Students with little or no formal schooling who arrived before the age of eight, took 7-10 years to reach grade level norms in English language literacy.
-- Students who were below grade level in native language literacy also took 7-10 years to reach the 50th percentile. Many of these students never reached grade level norms.
Trump has been speaking fluent gibberish for years -- that's why his followers don't bat an eye. Many of Trump's gaffes are simply because he’s an idiot and speaks at a fourth grade level. Factor in his increased dementia, mix the two together, and you have an incompetent moronic buffoon. He is clearly a complete mess.
Trolling and missing the point. No, they aren't more excited: the first thing the teachers teach them is that they are oppressed, and many are also traumatized, sexually and otherwise. The school age gangsters of course don't show up, nor the already pregnant teens, as adolescent motherhood is valued above all else. The cultures they come from expect children that age to be working or collecting welfare for the anchor baby, not going to school.
Meanwhile, work sites have grown more and more dangerous as a cacophony of non-English, non-Spanish speakers from Central and South America flood the black labor market. Not only do many of these men not understand modern tools and building methods (see: electrical, plumbing, and load bearing codes); they can't read instructions, and nearly all illiterate in their own languages, and are known for poor work for all these reasons, but, especially, their inability to communicate create enormous safety risks on the job. Ask a Mexican-American. They also bring with them more competing gangs, creating more danger for everyone.
I've almost lost one guy left alone on a job site with me -- lost as in almost died, because he was using equipment he didn't understand. No, it didn't bring joy to my heart.
In the olden days, there was no accommodation for foreign languages. Immigrants were expected to learn English, assimilate and become one of us. Those expectations have gone by the wayside, which is one of the major problems in America today:
It's a joke.
ELL students aren't in an English immersion language institute. They are designated as ELL, and in a regular class. They aren't necessarily wide-eyed and enthusiastic little kids in a colorful elementary school classroom. They are just as likely to be sullen teenagers in math, history or science class.
This contributes to why our public schools are in trouble. If 10% of the students in a class have cultural and linguistic struggles along with everything else that comes with being a kid in school, everything slows down.
Some of the ELL students embrace the technology and thrive.
How is this better for Americans? Trump knows that it's not. It doesn't matter to me how he says it. Many other politicians either don't care if it's better for Americans, or think we deserve it.
"But then those Russians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians etc were eager and willing to assimilate and to learn English."
This is flatly untrue. It's just nostalgia and has nothing to do with the history. Heck, a lot of these communities created Catholic schools specifically so they wouldn't have to assimilate to the local Protestant culture.
I live in a region in which until the 70s, you would hear Polish in local bars. (Maybe you can guess where I'm at). The German-speaking population around here only stopped speaking German as soon as they did because they were worried about looking too sympathetic to the Kaiser in 1917. There were communities of exclusive German- and Polish-speakers here for a long time. And the kids at school got into fights fueled by ethnic rivalries well into the 80s.
There is nothing new under the sun. Get your head out of your nostalgia.
"You hire "English for Speakers of Other Languages teachers," and you give them iPads with software that contains their English lessons and can also do translations into their language."
Are you, personally, going to buy those iPads, pay those teachers salaries and support those "immigrants" until they can support themselves? Of course you're not. It's just one more thing to heap on the back of the taxpayers.
What you do is tell these people to go home and learn to speak English. There's already a process for coming to the US, lots of people have actually done it. There's even a government website that explains how it works.
...and an image from Google Lens showing the English translation (too provocative for schoolroom use!)
You do know grammar school has dick pics now, right?
Our public schools are already failing to teach many of their students. I am not filled with confidence that they can handle teaching these new students, despite the students interest in learning. I can imagine it being used to increase funding to the schools (reason to raise property taxes again) so they can hire more overpaid administrators that add nothing to the education of children. I'm not sure the politicians pushing for more immigration really care if the kids are educated. The way they talk, I think they would be happy for them to drop out and work unskilled labor jobs since they always mention "who's going to cut your grass or clean your toilets".
Parent/teacher conferences can be difficult enough when you both speak the same language. Having parents who speak a language that you are unfamiliar with would be an additional challenge.
How do hospital emergency rooms handle non-English speakers?
I know there are children coming into the country, but isn't the problem the number of young men? Anti-immigration people usually refer to them as "military-aged men" when they post photos of them. They talk about the men setting up sleeper cells, which sounds xenophobic, but less so than it used to after I read news stories about men from Gaza coming into Israel as workers just so they could use the intelligence of who lived where for the October 7 attack.
"If only Trump could speak in a way that helped his cause (our cause) rather than his the strange and clumsy manner that ends up as a gift to the corrupt liar left."
Because he's a moron and he runs at the mouth...the shit he makes up comes out when he talks.
And...who is this "corrupt liar left" (sic) you mention? The Democrats? Hahahahahaha! No. Some of them may be corrupt liars, but no more than a handful can be considered "left" (or even "left-ish").
Do you detect any corrupt liars in the Republican Party, any at all? (Aside from Trump, I mean.)
You should see the accidents I see litigated when some illegal with no license or insurance or real ID hits an innocent person/people and disappears from the scene, or give false ID and then disappears. Everyday occurrence. Not just South American drivers: the Chinese are terrible for this. If you see a tow truck on the road, avoid it at all costs.
I guess the real question is this: how many additional deaths and permanent brain injuries and crippling of others are you willing to trade for retaining your illusions?
"This is one of those times one should take Trump seriously but not literally."
Doesn't matter. If it's not this, it'll be something else. There's always something else. Those looking to find fault will never fail to find a reason to whine "If only Trump would..."
Children learn quickly. I'm confused why, of all the problems with unlimited immigration, this would be his focus.
Trump is forgetful, confused and speaks in gibberish. And he really can’t fill in the blanks. The media does need to be more responsible in covering these symptoms of cognitive decline as we’re in serious danger of having this man in charge of running the country. Biden is old, but he’s not showing the significant loss of mental acuity that Trump is displaying.
"Assembled before you are children who really need what you have to give, and wouldn't they tend to work harder and more earnestly than most schoolchildren?"
Some times yes. Often no. Most non-English speaking students (calling them English Language Learners is assuming that the school's desire automatically converts into the reality, a mistake all too common in the ed business), most non-English speaking students live with non-English speaking parents and kids their own age who speak their native language. They can feel little desire to work at a whole new language. Maybe elementary school kids are better but I was often frustrated by high school "English Language Learners".
In a few weeks a judge will order all ballots nationwide be printed in all those languages.
CA ballots were briefly printed i only 10 languages, but may now be back to 27.
Realistic question: How can anyone speaking only any one of those languages other then English understand how the USA works? How can they keep up with actual issues facing the USA? If you're going to be honest- the answer is- they can't. Yet, they're voting. If that doesn't bother you...
It's a round-about way to say that many of the illegal border crossers are coming from regional ethnic communities that don't even speak the main language of their home country. Many from Afghanistan came to the US during the war with only their tribal language. I expect we are seeing similar with Chinese and African migrants. One motivation for their migration is discrimination in their countries of birth
I've heard some all-Spanish ads on the radio lately and was surprised at my reaction to them; I liked them. Even easier to ignore than those in English.
Althouse, ꯄ꯭ꯔꯣꯕ꯭ꯂꯦꯝ ꯑꯃꯒꯤ ꯃꯊꯛꯇꯥ ꯒ꯭ꯂꯣꯁ ꯇꯧꯕꯗꯥ ꯑꯣꯕꯖꯦꯛꯇ ꯂꯦꯁꯟ ꯑꯃꯥ?
This seems pretty blithe.
ESL has been around for decades and it was stressful on the kids, parents, and teachers. I worked in the district office part time in the 1980s (fewer kids and fewer languages involved) and it was my job to call the parents to try and convince them to enroll their kids in summer school so the kids could continue to practice English. The kids didn’t want to be there and it wasn’t all day so it was hard for the parents. iPads have probably made this much better…but is a magic genie going to wish them into existence (along with the tampons in the boy’s bathrooms)? The money has to come from somewhere. Who loses? Homeless, drug addiction, environment, trans issues? Everything can’t be the top priority or nothing is.
And iPads in schools are not a one time investment, they have a tendency to disappear or break.
Kids that are here need to be taught. But the border needs to be controlled so the resources aren’t spread so thin it’s ineffective. And having the funds for English, math, and reading is more important than tampons in boys bathrooms.
Immersion works for younger kids, but I remember our school had problems with the Hmong and Vietnamese refugees flooding the schools. This is not a new problem.
The real problem: a lot of these "refugees" are young men coming to find work to support their families and may have trouble learning to speak English.
Often there are small groups in the USA from similar areas who can help them with jobs and resources and emotional support for the homesick. The bad news is that if you live and work with other non English speakers, you may never learn the language fluently.
I am more optimistic about their eventual assimilation because most will integrate in their own ethnic community and become good Americans like my Colombiano, Mexican, and Filipino family.
"These are languages that nobody ever heard of.”
Pauline Kael nods.
Another silly off-the-point deflection on the part of our Worst Ruling Class Ever to avoid addressing what is going on.
here is a piece of the reality:
https://x.com/Michael_Yon/status/1764214765860085821?s=20
How much does this cost?
Who is paying for it?
How many of these kids have come to the US since Biden is president?
Why should citizens pay taxes? Why should citizens follow the law?
What is the point of having a country if everyone can come here?
"Wouldn't you love to be one of those English for Speakers of Other Languages teachers? "
I was. No, you wouldn't.
"You received an extremely valuable skill, the ability to speak English, learned effortlessly when you were a child."
English is a valuable language because our country is a powerful country and we are forced to *pay* for children who come here without permission to sit in classrooms while we pretend to teach them.
"Assembled before you are children who really need what you have to give, and wouldn't they tend to work harder and more earnestly than most schoolchildren?"
Probably about 10% of them meet your romantic naivete. Most of them have no desire to learn English and if the immigrants are all from one region (central America, China, India, West Africa), they all speak the same language, are in a school where all their friends speak their language and they have no need or desire to learn English.
Every year, we had to threaten the parents of at least 8-10 students whose parents kept them out of school every day and the meeting (usually translated by an attendance clerk or a para) went something like this:
"Claudio (or Rajib or Hui or plug in a girl's name) needs to come to school ever day."
"They can't come to school. They have a job."
"They have to go to school.?
"What? They have to work. We have to pay off the coyote.”
Eventually, the kid disappeared before we notified the authorities.
Rinse, repeat.
" If there's something they need to be able to say in their native language, teacher and child can resort to the translation software."
You do realize that many of these kids have never been to school ever, right? In high school, we have no math classes for third grade level ability (even though we have American students with this problem, but that's another story). No science, no history, no nothing. So we either put them in classes they can't understand where they sit and do nothing, or we put them in electives that they can't understand where they sit and do nothing or we spend a TON of money creating special low level math classes where most of them still sit and do nothing.
Translation software is not the problem.
I *enjoyed* teaching ELL, particularly the first year when easily 60% of the class was highly motivated and the students were such a wide range of countries of origin and the kids were stuck together most of the day that even the ones who didn't want to do anything ended up learning English. The other two years were homogeneous classes and really really rough.
Sometimes it's not illegals, but refugees, dumped here by those virtuous organizations intent on dumping thousands or more Somalis or Afghans on a population. Same problem.
Refugees or immigrants--the kids are always poor, which means they live on the poor side of town, which means they are going to the Title I (high poverty schools) which means they probably aren't going to the schools in your part of town, Ann.
"Why make this into a big problem? To scare American voters and make them feel that outsiders are ruining things?"
Because it is a big problem! You know all that data saying that the cost of education is skyrocketing and the results aren't good? Or some are pointing out that over half the increase in costs of k-12 education are in non-teaching staff?
Educating the kids who are coming here costs a fortune. It costs a fortune and isn't doing much good when the kids are older than,say, 8, and a lot of them are older than 8 because their parents *brought* them here to work, not be educated. And the money for that is coming from the communities, the states, and the federal government, and ALL of that money would otherwise be spent on American poor kids.
Immigrant kids in large numbers can easily ruin community schools. And every cent of the money spent on these kids is a zero sum game that's being taken from American students, particularly poor ones.
There are indigenous languages in Mexico and Central America that are not well known. VDH has written about this.
English language immersion classes are a scam. Down here in Puerto Rico we hear horror stories of Children who speak English as a first language being forced into them solely on the basis of their last name. Gotta have the chow (as Wolfe called them in another context) to keep the money train rolling. If you don't have non-english speakers, create them. If you can't create them, pretend kids are non-english speakers.
Parents often have to hire lawyers to get their kids out of these programs.
Then you have kids who go into the program in kindergarten speaking little English and come out 12 years later speaking, reading and writing English AND Spanish at a 4th grade level.
These programs are nothing less than child abuse! They need to be abolished.
John Henry
So, the child has to be a in a special ESL classroom for several years. This adds special costs to the school system. Its not that big a deal if its a small number, but as it rises you need to open more classes and hire more teachers.
Then you have to worry about the parents. How do you communicate with them about field trips, dietary requirements, vaccinations? My school district has to have staff who speak English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Russian/Ukrainian.
Fortunately the school district gets paid EXTRA MONEY from the Federal government for ESL students. (huh, that money thing again...but we're not running deficits every year, so its not a big deal.)
Finally, my child was enrolled as ESL because we worried she might have some issues because she was raised in Taiwan. Well after a few years we realized she was fine, but the school was very reluctant to remove the ESL status because it lowered their budget. They eventually did so...
Of all the immigrant issues, education seems like a small one, though.
My wife has been teaching 12th grade history/civics and related stuff for more years than we will admit. In a Puerto Rico public high school. Language of instruction is Spanish. textbooks and most materials are in Spanish. Most of the books in the library are in Spanish
She's always had a couple kids who, for whatever reason, transferred into the school in 12th grade speaking no Spanish whatever. They get plopped down in her class with no special tutoring or anything. In a couple months they are speaking Spanish.
They do, as all students in PR do, get an hour a day of Spanish. The same way most of us got an hour a day of English in the upper 50.
My kids went K-12 to a Catholic school. Same deal. All in Spanish. They did very well. They learned to speak English at home because I refused, generally, to speak Spanish with them or my wife.
But my son wanted to go to the Air Force Academy and worried that his English would not be good enough. So for 8th and 9th grade we moved him to another private school that runs and English language curriculum. The first quarter he struggled a bit to understand what was going on. Got a couple of Bs and Cs (His first ever) By the end of 9th grade, he was class valedictorian.
You learn a language, in my experience, by speaking it, more accurately, by living it.
Accomodating this bi-or multi-lingual bullshit is bad for the speaker and for the country in general. We should all be bi or multi lingual. (My daughter is also fluent in French) it is always a very good thing. But English needs to be the primary language.
Our first amendment gives me the right to speak in any language I choose. Including Tibetan or PGP Crypto. It doesn't create any obligation on me, the govt or anyone else to understand what you are saying.
John Henry
All of those cash-strapped school districts can just lay off some DEI administrators to hire language-immersion instructors to teach all of the children of trespassing non-taxpayers who show up. What a great system!
But the children!
In High school in VA I failed Latin once and Spanish twice. I was officially deemed unable to learn a second language and given a waiver to graduate without completing the state language requirement.
Navy sent me to Puerto Rico and I learned no spanish beyond a few words. From my wife, who spoke almost no English when we met, I learned a bit of informal Spanish. When I got out of the Navy, it was enough to bullshit the Texan who ran Alcon's local plant that I was fluent and I was hired as Maintenance Supervisor. One of my primary functions, the Texan told me when I was hired, was to teach my boss (a Colombian) enough English to make sense. I had, in addition to mechanics and techs, groundskeepers and janitors working for me. None of my reports spoke much English at all.
I learned very quickly to speak technical, detailed, spanish. As opposed to the "Enough to order lunch" kind of spanish I previously spoke.
Alejandro never did get really proficient in English. He moved to San Antonio 40 years ago and when I'm there we usually have dinner. And converse in Spanish.
John Henry
tom--New Britain, CT?
It is a FACT that many illiterate Indian border-jumpers don't speak Spanish, but rather local and isolated languages that "nobody has ever heard of."
"Spanish is the official language of Guatemala. Guatemalan Spanish is the local variant of the Spanish language. Twenty-six Mayan languages are spoken, especially in rural areas, as well as two non-Mayan Amerindian languages, Xinca, an indigenous language and Garifuna, an Arawakan language spoken on the Caribbean coast." -wikipedia
You can bet your bottom dollar (which we will reach soon under Bidenomics) that Democrats will demand these obscure languages---some even lacking script--appear on all official notices, on the ballots surreptitiously handed these non-citiens, and be laboriously translated in court proceedings.
Yeah, that will be horrendous expensive, but "it's only fair."
And it will be very interested to hear the expressions these folks use in court to say, "I don't recall", or I"'m just speculating here."
Some day we might even be like India, whose paper currency includes IIRC 14 different scripts reflecting not just Hindi and Tamil, but the many other languages spoken in that vast nation.
O Brave New World!
Trump is not artful at all. He once asked Russia to find Hillary Clinton's emails. What he should have said was:
:Mr. Putin: We think Russia may have stolen emails from Hillary Clinton's server. We demand Russia send them back promptly, and please send copies to the Speaker of the House, the leader of the Senate and the editors of the NT Times, Washington Post, the NY Post and Fox news.
That would have been fun.
I suspect there are (even) bigger problems with adults speaking no English: jobs, dealing with government services or other offices, the court system. I read some years ago that Florida had to come up with a translator for an obscure Central American language for court.
We all tend to think sentimentally about the Ellis Island period. Isn't it great to have all the Italians and Jews? It wasn't a big success for the first generation or so. I believe many decision makers thought they were welcoming people who would go out west and homestead or farm. Yes for many Germans, maybe some Irish, others not so much. (Lincoln's "electric cord" speech refers to Germans and Irish). And why would the success of the early 1900s, such as it was, be taken as a harbinger of a new age rather than as a one-off--new country, vast empty spaces (oops, not exactly empty), no foreign enemies (the Spanish didn't know what hit them--next stop, the Philippines), growing entrepreneurship and "invention," somewhat lacking in physics (Edison and all that).
The Statue of Liberty itself seems to say: we have discovered and implemented the principles of liberty combined with strong and effective government: you can all do the same in your countries, all over the world, the beams can travel all these distances. We are now following the Emma Lazarus poem somehow attached to the statue: everyone should move to New Jersey. Crazy.
This is costing us a shit ton of money, and all kids are being hurt.
Back in the day, every kid in the classroom spoke English and you had the bell curve of intelligence.
Now you have no idea who is dumb and who is a genius. Teachers have to teach to the slowest kid in class. The bright kids are bored senseless and don't learn anything new.
They didn't change all the signs and start speaking English to me when I lived in Japan, let alone let me vote for God's sake.
It's cultural suicide and the left loves it...
Not only do many of these men not understand modern tools and building methods (see: electrical, plumbing, and load bearing codes); they can't read instructions, and nearly all illiterate in their own languages,
I generally agree with your comment, Tina. But I would point out that nobody is born knowing modern tools and building methods. They have to be taught and they have to learn. Doesn't matter if Mexican, Chinese, or American. But that's a whole separate issue.
As for can't read instructions, two comments:
If you are talking about guys, it is not so much that we can't as that we refuse to. Instruction manuals are for sissies.
The other is that most of the instruction manuals I've ever seen, in a lifetime working with technical stuff and machinery is shite. Reading many of them is a waste of time. The exception would be using them to look up settings and such or looking at gozinto drawings.
John Henry
There was a time when a more eloquent President weighed in on this issue.
“ stand for straight Americanism unconditioned and unqualified, and I stand against every form of hyphenated Americanism. I do not speak of the hyphen when it is employed as a mere convenience, although personally, I like to avoid its use even in such manner. I speak and condemn its use whenever it represents an effort to form political parties along racial lines or to bring pressure to bear on parties and politicians, not for American purposes, but in the interest of some group of voters of a certain national origin, or of the country from which they or their fathers came.
Americanism is not a matter of creed, birthplace or national descent, but of the soul and of the spirit. If the American has the right stuff in him, I care not a snap of my fingers whether he is Jew or Gentile, Catholic or Protestant. I care not a snap of my fingers whether his ancestors came over in the Mayflower, or whether he was born, or his parents were born, in Germany, Ireland, France, England, Scandinavia, Russia or Italy or any other country. All I ask of the immigrant is that he shall be physically and intellectually fit, of sound character, and eager in good faith to become an American citizen. If the immigrant is of the right kind I am for him, and if the native American* is of the wrong kind I am against him….
….Now for our own citizens. We represent many different race strains. Our ancestors came from many different Old World nationalities. It will spell ruin to this nation if these nationalities remain separated from one another instead of being assimilated to the new and larger American life.
The children and our children’s children of all of us have to live here in this land together. Our children’s children will intermarry, one another, your children’s children, friends, and mine. Even if they wished, they could not remain citizens of foreign countries….The effort to keep our citizenship divided against itself by the use of the hyphen and along the lines of national origin is certain to breed a spirit of bitterness and prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens.”
Theodore Roosevelt
Blogger Darkisland said...
Down here in Puerto Rico we hear horror stories of Children who speak English as a first language being forced into them solely on the basis of their last name.
Not here in Puerto Rico, of course. I was speaking of when their families move to the upper 50 and enroll their kids in public schools that have ESL programs.
John Henry
Howard said...
Yeah well all these immigrants are going to save us from demographic collapse.
--
Illegal immigrants. If you want foreigners to wipe your ass, there is a legal process to do that. Your ass wiped Pedo Pete flung the doors open in hopes for an unregulated "surge", enabling sex trafficking and Fentanyl for added benefit.
Semper Fucking Fudd.
Back to your float tank to decompress and your pretend morality. Then get back to building those high density bunk beds.
"From 1850 or until 1924 the US was able to handle the influx of people who spoke languages that "nobody had ever heard of". But then those Russians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians etc were eager and willing to assimilate and to learn English."
Both of my father's parents were born in Italy. My father and his brothers never learned fluent Italian because my grandparents said, "You're American, you speak English."
My uncle, who is fluent in Spanish as a second language, lives in a not so small agricultural town in California where Spanish is the main language spoken by far. he said he hasn't heard anyone speak English in that town for years.
So much for assimilation...
I think that you understate the difficulties posed by the problem and overstate the ease of the solution.
And then the usual suspects take your cue and proceed to shoot the messenger.
Trumpisms be some like Yogi Berra isms.
Nobody goes there anymore it’s too crowded.
Nobody speaks these languages they’re speaking…
I love it when the pearl-clutchers pretend that neither they nor anyone else understands what Trump is talking about. EVERYBODY knows exactly what Trump is taking about. And by EVERYBODY I mean Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, immigrants both legal and illegal.
Some--a growing majority--are pleased that a national politician is putting the issue front and center in a loud and strident manner, so that it can't be ignored or sidestepped. Those people are labeled "cultists."
Others don't want the issue raised or discussed. Some think it makes Republicans look mean and icky. Or makes "Americans" seem "ugly" and "Xenophobic." Those people are upset that Trump is getting so much traction on the issue. These people are "elites."
It's a big deal. For everybody. But especially for the working class, who have to deal with the problem every day. They don't want "programs" to help the poor migrants who get dumped into their neighborhoods, jobs and schools. They want the dumping to stop. They want the border closed.
10:00 @ Howard -
NO. Not it.
You are OK with all the wealthy white leftists who are addicted to cheap labor.
You must like the idea that flooding the market with cheap labor lowers wages for all Americans - especially the working poor. (All leftists fist pump this)
Also - the people being shipped to the border (via leftist funding) are from all over the world.
Illegal entrants by the millions are coming in, illegally, and opposition to the illegality and breaking of our immigration laws - is not racism. Don't be so dem-brained, cliche' and daft.
Howard- stay in camp Crook Husk Puppet. You belong there.
He was speaking of persons, including grannies, mothers, and their girls, too. Emigration reform would reduce the burden on Americans, casualties of ethnic Springs, commodities of labor arbitrage, and nations with policies of shared responsibility.
The problem with Trump is he is on the right side of public opinion here - BUT then he blows it.
@Joe Biden is Corrupt, yup. Except has he blown it? Does this move any Trump voters towards the Democrats? It gives Althouse an excuse not to vote for Trump, but what were the odds she was ever going to vote for him anyway? Meanwhile people in poor school districts are wondering what they’re going to do if a family speaking Kuanhua gets dropped into their district by the Biden administration. Do they have to hire an ESL teacher for one or two students? How does one communicate with the parents? For Althouse it is straightforward. Madison is a wealthy school district, and the university presumably provides a ready supply of ESL teachers and student teachers. People living in poorer school districts, well they should all live in Madison, as she does.
Whodatsay our president emeritus doesn't speak clearly?
“I was indicted by Fani in Georgia… her lover, Nathan Wade, and they hired him for almost a million dollars because of his great, great experience,” Trump said.
Trump zinged the two corrupt prosecutors.
“He had experience in something else. You know, a lot of experience. And at that, I’m quite sure he was very good based on the fact that she called him 2000 times,” Trump said.
Last night speaking in Virginia. (Or NC?)
2 rallies in one day? Speak for an hour or more at each? Plus travel and all the making nice with locals? Not bad for an old guy.
John Henry
Meanwhile Biden does his 5000th gaff... forgets who is who, where he is, who to shake hands with, etc... and has this Q card he carries with answers for softball questions.
And you dumbasses worry about what Trump meant...
Teddy was right about the social dysfunction, and leverage, bred and exploited by 1-2 Americans, the African-Americans, the fetal-babies, etc. and Democrats of diverse colors.
Trump is not artful at all. He once asked Russia to find Hillary Clinton's emails. What he should have said was:
:Mr. Putin: We think Russia may have stolen emails from Hillary Clinton's server. We demand Russia send them back promptly, and please send copies to the Speaker of the House, the leader of the Senate and the editors of the NT Times, Washington Post, the NY Post and Fox news.
That would have been fun.
flung the doors open in hopes for an unregulated "surge", enabling sex trafficking and Fentanyl for added benefit.
George "Fentanyl" Floyd syndrome has been a profitable scheme for a minority in Some, Select Black Lives Matters (SS BLM), and Biden/Democratic fortunes in nationwide insurrections. A matter of social progress that is forward-looking for equity and inclusion.
We became close with a legal, sponored refugee family about 25 years ago. Only Mom had passable English. When local schools offered special language training for the boys (8 & 10), the parents said, "Don't worry about it. They're smart kids." Honor Roll for both in no time.
Husband had barest "survival" English. His background (unaccredited) in emerging technology gained entry to one of the giants in the field - graveyard shift barely above janitor level. Seven years later, he was in charge of a billion dollar "project" at the same company.
People who believe in themselves thrive. "Victims", not so much.
The former see obstacles as challenges to be overcome. The latter see obstacles as excuses.
Unfortunately, our goverment requires many, many "victims" to thrive.
Lem the artificially intelligent: "You’re ahead in the polls, why stir up controversy?
It’s just dumb. And I hate to use the word stupid but it is."
Its not stupid in the slightest and I'll tell you why (apologies to anyone upthread that might have mentioned this already).
Any organization that provides services to these immigrant communities are not just dealing with the higher order language category (Spanish, West African French, etc) but instead are dealing with the hundreds of different dialects of those higher order categories and these dialects pose an astonishingly difficult challenge to service providers.
I don't know if this is still true but back in the nineties there were a lot of illegal immigrants from Fujan Province (if I spell it correctly) in China. They spoke a dialect that was incomprehensible to Mandarin and Cantonese speakers. They were considered low class by Mandarin and Cantonese speakers but they were used by Chinese businesses for their cheap labor. The Fujanese worked mostly in restaurants, but there were some with building trade skills and they worked to renovate Chinese restaurants. Smuggling immigrants from Fujan was a big business. I suppose there was some money and influence going on behind the scenes.... These immigrants were all men. They worked long hours and sent most of the money they made back to China. I'm not sure, but I think most of them eventually went back to China. They led bleak lives here, but it was a trip that they signed up for. Maybe it was all for the good. At any rate, Chinese food was cheap......America was founded on cheap labor. Maybe there will be an upside to this, or maybe not. We'll see what happens in fifty years.
Gordon Pasha, that made me love TR even more than before... The true spirit of America.
Not DJT.
Vicki from Pasadena
Here's... Husk puppet prior to his "winning" in 2020.
"Surge the border!" 'abuse our immigration and asylum laws.'
Spoken like the law-breaking with the stroke of his pen - liar he is.
Tina Trent - Indeed.
All perks for the elite white left.
Rich -
What comes out of Trump's mouth is not gibberish. It's just poorly articulated.
What comes out of Joe Biden's mouth IS gibberish - even after he is given a script to read.
@boatbuilder - Good guess, but nope. More farms, less industry.
Howard. Latins are not a race.
Joe Biden calls on illegals to "surge to the border" during the Democratic Primary debate.
https://twitter.com/hodgetwins/status/1764255675582914734
AA, Glad to see your old liberal/lefty gene is still active. You know exactly what Trump was talking about and what he meant. But chose to look for and find a nit to pick. Good job. You did your work for the Cause today. You've earned that nap.
A common language is one of principal means of binding a nation. You know, that E Pluribus Unum thingy.
Logan Act Violation?
and on day 1 the student sells the ipad for drugs.
John Henry
The thing is, John, is that even if just a a machine feeder they have to know how to read a print and use a some sort of prcision measuring device. We had to scrap several thousand parts adding up to tens of thousands of dollars because the assistant shipping clerk couldn't read packing directions and just tossed the parts in a box.
We enough people here who can't read or write their own language. We don't need more. Especialy if they are here illegally.
India, whose paper currency includes IIRC 14 different scripts
===========
I can confirm after checking my stash of rupees. [in small print]
nota bene = these are languages with ages of literature under their script!
and many even thriving entertainment industry
Trump is usually right in fact or spirit. We just have to wait for most everyone to accept it months or years later. What a valuable and amazing talent. It would be very useful in a President, just not to him personally.
TRUMP/RAM 2024
The US is suffering an invasion of retarded peasants from all over the world. These unfortunates are criminals and parasites who have nothing positive to contribute to our country. Murder, rape and disease are their gratitude for our naive generosity. The ruling trash despises normal Americans and is replacing them with a more pliant populace.
In the past, before the 1960s, immigrating to America meant a one-way trip. Immigrants had to learn English and assimilate or risk disappearing. My paternal grandparents came from Hungary and England. Only one of them needed to learn English. He was 10 years old and declared that he would only speak English in America. He kept his promise for 70 years and never spoke another Hungarian word.
Nowadays, immigration is no longer a one-way trip. Immigrants can come and go as they please and may or may not learn the language and culture of their new home. American society is generally liberal and encourages the retention and celebration of native tongues and cultures. The second generation of immigrants will adapt to the new culture while the third generation will be fully American. However, some people, including Trump, are concerned about the loss of American culture and the adaptation to immigrant cultures. This is a worrying trend as it goes against the reason why people come to America in the first place.
Blogger ~ Gordon Pasha said...
There was a time when a more eloquent President weighed in on this issue.
--
LEGAL immigration.
Always with the obfuscation and false equivalence.
As if the potential of losing to Joe Biden “again” wasn’t bad enough, there are a bunch of potential jurors, and judges, supreme among them, hearing the worst possible interpretation of his pronouncements, jokes, swipes or whatever. For the love of… shut that mouth up.
Maybe Trump doesn’t think strategically. And his good fortune has just come to him the way it’s been taken away. Very easily.
It doesn’t cost anything to hate him and potentially a lot to openly support him. Don’t piss that away.
Amen. It’s a prayer. No joke.
If you can self-identify as the opposite sex in total defiance of all physical proof, and have your choice protected by the government, why can't you self-identify as an American citizen? Much less evidence against your claim, and who can say you don't feel as though you have always been a citizen inside.
I met a Spanish-speaking couple who volunteered to take two teenagers from Guatemala. Both girls spoke an Indian language, but very little Spanish or English. Google Translate was no help, but there was a hotline that provided translation if needed. They muddled through. The girls, who'd had little formal schooling at home, were placed in ESL and in subject-matter classes taught in English. They learned English but remained way, way behind in academics. The hosts hoped the girls would be able to find work as nannies when they aged out of high school.
Here is Joe, at his lowest point, if that is even possible, because of his open border and here comes Trump to his rescue.
Also TR:
"During Roosevelt’s presidency, he signed laws that further restricted who could immigrate to the United States. The Immigration Acts of 1903 and 1907 banned (in the language of the time) the immigration of anarchists, idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics and paupers, among other categories. In addition, the Expatriation Act of 1907 stated that American women who married non-American men would lose their citizenship."
https://www.history.com/news/theodore-roosevelt-important-foreign-policy-big-stick
Ummmm Rich...
Most everyone here has had NO trouble understanding what Trump has said for quite some time.
You trolls often use "Cut and Paste" comments that demonstrate Dim Awareness of topic at hand.
Please substantiate your arguments.
Yeah well all these immigrants are going to save us from demographic collapse. I think your greatest fear of these South of the border immigrants are that one day one of them is going to be wiping your behind and your hateful racism will be palpable and they will treat you with all of the derision and misery that you deserve.
@Howard, thanks to your immigrants Laken Riley all never get old enough to need a nursing home, ditto Shannon Patricia Jungwirth, nor Melissa Powell, nor Catalina Valdez Andrade, nor her sister Merced Andrade Bailon. Do you want me to go on? The list is literally scores of names long. My point is that there are people paying a steep price for the unregulated immigration policy you favor. The fact that you personally aren’t the one paying it doesn’t mean it isn’t a real price and that real people aren’t paying it. Now toddle off to the bathroom sink and see if you can’t wash off some of the blood from your hands.
“How much does this cost?”
“Who is paying for it?”
But remember - our betters have assured us that illegal immigrants provide a net positive financial benefit to the country.
What is humorous is that the more states and towns coddle and welcome these illegals, the quicker they run out of money for everything else.
My understanding is that in the big immigration wave of the early 20th century, there were no classes to teach immigrants English. "English immersion" for school kids consisted of sitting in a classroom with the teacher and other kids (aside from the other immigrants) speaking English, and having to figure it out. Somehow it worked, and the schools didn't have to hire extra teachers for special classes.
And the immigrants weren't given taxpayer money when they arrived. If they didn't have a penny in their pockets they had figure out how to survive, and for the most part they did. Maybe they had relatives already here, or there were charitable organizations that helped, but other than that they were on their own. That worked too. And they were legal.
the whole world is coming here, mandarin is the second language on the Border, Urdu Baha, and every other tonguw has come here, many from countries of special concern, like those in the 2016 omnibus, the Azeri militant who promised 'you will know who I am'
I think your greatest fear of these South of the border immigrants are that one day one of them is going to be wiping your behind and your hateful racism will be palpable and they will treat you with all of the derision and misery that you deserve.
This is the way the leftie kids in my high school used to talk, too, trying to find the most creative fantasy of what they'd like to happen to people who don't think like them politically...
When I was in college (1960's) it was a graduation requirement that you pass a second-year foreign language course. I had a friend who just could NOT learn a foreign language -- French, Spanish, whatever, he'd flunk the first year. Finally, come senior year, his only hope was Russian -- which was so difficult that passing first year Russian would satisfy the foreign language requirement. He flunked that, too, and dropped out before the end of the semester.
And he enlisted in the Army, which sent him to their Language School in Monterey and taught him Russian. He spent several years as a Russian translator for the Army. I don't know how the Army could do what the college couldn't -- maybe they threatened him with a firing squad. Or re-assignment to the infantry.
The point is: motivation is crucial to learning. Even more important than an I-Pad.
When I was in college (1960's) it was a graduation requirement that you pass a second-year foreign language course. I had a friend who just could NOT learn a foreign language -- French, Spanish, whatever, he'd flunk the first year. Finally, come senior year, his only hope was Russian -- which was so difficult that passing first year Russian would satisfy the foreign language requirement. He flunked that, too, and dropped out before the end of the semester.
And he enlisted in the Army, which sent him to their Language School in Monterey and taught him Russian. He spent several years as a Russian translator for the Army. I don't know how the Army could do what the college couldn't -- maybe they threatened him with a firing squad. Or re-assignment to the infantry.
The point is: motivation is crucial to learning. Even more important than an I-Pad.
all people used to speak the same language. Their unity of language allowed them to collaborate efficiently. They decided to build a grand tower, so tall it would reach into the heavens.
And down came the Tower.
"Assembled before you are children who really need what you have to give, and wouldn't they tend to work harder and more earnestly than most schoolchildren?"
LOL!!! That may well be the most naive thing you have ever written on this blog, Althouse.
"I think your greatest fear of these South of the border immigrants are that one day one of them is going to be wiping your behind and your hateful racism will be palpable and they will treat you with all of the derision and misery that you deserve."
Howard, the immigrants won't be wiping the asses of old white people like you and me. When their numbers are big enough, they will simply euthanize you or toss your wrinkled ass out on the street to die while they move into your apartment or house. I would rather see the population of the U.S. drop by 2/3s over the next century than to see it turned into mixture of Africa and Latin America, which is what is going to happen if we don't do something in the next decade to stop this invasion. Your children's children and their children will think contemptuous thoughts about you in the future as they are struggling to survive in a favela as a despised minority.
I had an amazon delivery at work (north Austin) who didn't speak English and had a Spanish app on his phone that he handed me when he made the delivery. It had a blank, and presumably I was supposed to sign but I've never had to sign for amazon deliveries before.
This undermines the narrative that when Trump criticizes illegals he means Mexicans, and is therefore a racist.
I suspect there are (even) bigger problems with adults speaking no English: jobs, dealing with government services or other offices, the court system. I read some years ago that Florida had to come up with a translator for an obscure Central American language for court.
We all tend to think sentimentally about the Ellis Island period. Isn't it great to have all the Italians and Jews? It wasn't a big success for the first generation or so. I believe many decision makers thought they were welcoming people who would go out west and homestead or farm. Yes for many Germans, maybe some Irish, others not so much. (Lincoln's "electric cord" speech refers to Germans and Irish). And why would the success of the early 1900s, such as it was, be taken as a harbinger of a new age rather than as a one-off--new country, vast empty spaces (oops, not exactly empty), no foreign enemies (the Spanish didn't know what hit them--next stop, the Philippines), growing entrepreneurship and "invention," somewhat lacking in physics (Edison and all that).
The Statue of Liberty itself seems to say: we have discovered and implemented the principles of liberty combined with strong and effective government: you can all do the same in your countries, all over the world, the beams can travel all these distances. We are now following the Emma Lazarus poem somehow attached to the statue: everyone should move to New Jersey. Crazy.
Biden has been speaking fluent gibberish for years -- that's why his followers don't bat an eye. Many of Biden's gaffes are simply because he’s an idiot and speaks at a fourth grade level. Factor in his increased dementia, mix the two together, and you have an incompetent moronic buffoon. He is clearly a complete mess.
Biden is forgetful, confused and speaks in gibberish. And he really can’t fill in the blanks. The media does need to be more responsible in covering these symptoms of cognitive decline as we’re in serious danger with this man in charge of running the country. Trump is old, but he’s not showing the significant loss of mental acuity that Biden is displaying.
I can do this all day, Rich. Demonstrating how far your head is up your ass is pretty easy.
there will be a day(s) of reckoning.
I'm so old I remember immigration sponsorship programs.
And he enlisted in the Army, which sent him to their Language School in Monterey and taught him Russian. He spent several years as a Russian translator for the Army. I don't know how the Army could do what the college couldn't -- maybe they threatened him with a firing squad. Or re-assignment to the infantry.
They kind of do. You get immersion to the point that speaking English in the schoolhouse results in an Article 15 (non-judicial punishment). However, you also are there strictly to learn, which can provide motivation, and the military has a long history of figuring out the best way to train a wide variety of students, plus they have an incentive for you to succeed: failure costs them, whereas in college it doesn't cost the school anything.
Trump is a geriatric fucking senile imbecile. But I will vote for him because he is less of a geriatric fucking senile imbecile than Biden. Not much of a choice. As American voters we deserve someone better than these two retards.
Lloyd: our courts, hospitals, clinics, and schools have to produce translators for more than 100 different languages and obscure dialects, thousands of times a day.
Blogger Michael said...
Howard. Latins are not a race.
Agree not a race.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, what are "Latins"?
Is a 3rd generation Argentine whose first language is German a Latin? How about a 5th generation Argentine Italian speaker? No to the first (German is not a Latin derived language) Yes to the second? (Because Italian is) No to both because neither is Spanish. Yes to both because they are from Argentina?
How about a Mexican of indiginous descent? No Spanish blood at all. Latin?
Brazilians?
How about Romanians? In Europe French are considered "Latin"
And so on.
It is a bullshit term and nobody can agree on the definition. Not even the US government, though they do have a legal definition that neither they or anyone else apply.
Hispanic is even worse, although that does have a good definition "Citizen of Spain" that nobody pays attention to.
Go ahead, take a shot at defining Hispanic or Latin(o)
John Henry
It's very obvious that the people who suggest that the language issue is not a huge problem have zero experience teaching English Language Learners at any level. Reciting talking points is really not helpful, and there is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
There are immense differences in the resources required and the likely outcomes depending upon the age at which the person starts learning English.
Kids under 8 years old: you even really need to instruct. Will pick up flawless English unless they are somehow in a deliberately segregated (usually by parents) situation.
Kids 8-15: benefit a lot from English Language Instruction in addition to immersion. It doesn't come as easily and naturally to them, and having a teacher who can explain the more complex points of English, can get them to work on things they have trouble doing (because normal people will just avoid those areas and so not learn things that are actually quite learnable).
Over age 15: English Language teaching CAN be a big help, but only if the student WANTS to learn, because the brain is no longer particularly plastic with regard to language learning. I worked with adults ranging from 18-55 at the Loyola Literacy Center in Chicago. These people came in twice a week for two hours a night and worked hard the whole time, and there was definite improvement, but it was a real sacrifice for them and became impossible as soon as they had to take care of kids or a sick relative, or their day job became more exhausting, or just about anything.
If you think that there are just tons of people who have the linguistic ability, social skills, and patience to teach English to a substantial fraction of 8 million illegal immigrants, you are going to be sadly disappointed. English Language Learning specialists regular burn out and switch to something else after a few years because it is DIFFICULT work.
And we don't really have the luxury of just ignoring the problem and assuming that it will all work itself out. Lack of English fluency adds an enormous amount of friction to many, many interactions. You can't always get a translator, many translators who are available often aren't that great at English themselves, and when you have emergency situations--when emotions are running high and there is a lot of time pressure--all kinds of bad things happen due to language barriers.
All of this friction creates costs that communities just cannot afford right now--thanks to covid, there's a massive need for remedial teaching already, and bringing in large groups of children needing language instruction is already breaking school budgets.
John Henry: citizen tradesmen have to study and pass tests to sink wells, build bridges, install fuse boxes and all other electrical, do plumbing, and then meet code so the homeowner isn't screwed by a county inspection or killed when the new pos powerful ceiling fan from China doesn't have the right kind of breaker.
Used to be, a working man could fix his own house and car or find a contractor who didn't have to game the system to survive. Now they're not allowed to get permits without formal training, so they pay a contractor so they can get up to code for insurance and a mortgage, then watch their house burn down because the contractor hired some illiterate Guatemalan to do the work while the supervisor went out to score more jobs. Inspectors focus on the big moneymaking houses and ignore the third world conditions of the poor, and increasingly, middle class.
I've watched it get worse and worse for 30 years. I wouldn't live in the crap houses and condos they throw up, then sell for 400K plus. A friend of mine lost the use of five rooms within a year because some illegal crew didn't glue all his pvc connections and used the wrong size drain pipes. It's unbelievable.
To hell with the recession. We're going full Medieval. Because immigration.
I'm getting out of here and supervising my last house. Nobody is touching a thing unless I'm watching or working with them. I'm done. And it's both parties. Trump screwed up last time. I hope he knows he better deliver this time.
None of this would have happened without the last several decades of the Bush-Democrat immigration cabal.
"My uncle, who is fluent in Spanish as a second language, lives in a not so small agricultural town in California where Spanish is the main language spoken by far. he said he hasn't heard anyone speak English in that town for years.
So much for assimilation..."
The last place I worked in SoCal (this was in 1990) decided to close up shop and move the factory out of state. Talking with the personnel guy one afternoon, I asked him what he was busy with as things were wrapping up. He said he was trying to help out with finding jobs for guys on the factory floor and was having a tough time since many of them didn't speak or read English- just Spanish. These were people who had, in some cases, worked for the factory for twenty years. Legal residents, no speak English.
"But remember - our betters have assured us that illegal immigrants provide a net positive financial benefit to the country."
They also assured us that the shot would keep you from catching covid or infecting others. How'd that work out? /s
"Reciting talking points is really not helpful, and there is not a one-size-fits-all solution."
Actually, there is. Go home and learn English. When you've done that, you are welcome to come back and apply for admission to the country. The government even has a website that explains how it's supposed to work.
"Biden is old, but he’s not showing the significant loss of mental acuity that Trump is displaying."
Biden isn't the only one demonstrating advanced cognitive decline.
Narayanan said...
India, whose paper currency includes IIRC 14 different scripts
===========
I can confirm after checking my stash of rupees. [in small print]
nota bene = these are languages with ages of literature under their script!
and many even thriving entertainment industry
************
I once met the manager of a fancy hotel near Trivandrum. A Kashmiri, he said he had a helluva time dealing with Malayalam, one of the local languages, but not so much with Tamil.
Luckily there was always English as a back-up.
Another Trumpestuous storm in a teapot
LLR-democratical lonejustice: "Trump is a geriatric fucking senile imbecile. But I will vote for him because he is less of a geriatric fucking senile imbecile than Biden. Not much of a choice. As American voters we deserve someone better than these two retards."
Trump is a million times smarter than you in ways you can neither fathom or even recognize.
And you aren't fooling anyone with your lies about voting republican that you toss about like a Seminar Caller from the 90's.
BTW, all that makes you the imbecile.
Go peddle your wares where they will be appreciated more...such as a DNC chat site.
The Althouse LLR-democratical Brigade is truly pathetic and, astonishingly enough, actually getting dumber by the day.
Jim at: "I can do this all day, Rich. Demonstrating how far your head is up your ass is pretty easy."
That would be LLR-democratical Rich.
The LLR-democraticals are not exactly distinguishing themselves today, or any other day, are they?
Unless by "distinguishing themselves" we mean setting new "highs" in "lows".
"I'm getting out of here and supervising my last house. Nobody is touching a thing unless I'm watching or working with them. I'm done. And it's both parties. Trump screwed up last time. I hope he knows he better deliver this time."
--
Yeah..Trump blew that free ride he had.
While getting hammered with impeachments, leaks and deep state undermining, he should have paid more attention to your local coding issues.
They won't need English anymore than the black ghetto dwellers do.
Just change my bedpan and then go home.
Comrade Drago, I know you're working the late shift, but please collect only one beet from the bin. Sustandard work.
The GOP must do the responsible thing and replace the unsympathetic, ill-meaning elderly man with a poor memory atop their ticket before the election.
Trump crowd goes silent as he confuses Biden and Obama again
‘Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word,’ Trump says
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-biden-obama-b2506194.html
We have to go to international media to hear about Trump forgetting who's president and what his wife's name is, because our media is too busy with their campaign to make a four year age difference be the only thing in our presidential election that is disqualifying.
FYI Rich The Magnificent.
Biden is Obamas third term. All the same people are on Bidens payroll. Now go away for awhile and dwell on your medioc...er Magnificence.
YOU are confused about O'Biden Richie. Obama is in his 3rd term, going on his 4th, and idiots like you are blathering on about Trump. Grow up. YOU are part of the problem with your new fundamentally transformed 3rd world dictator...Obama.
LLR-femocratical Rich: "Comrade Drago, I know you're working the late shift, but please collect only one beet from the bin. Sustandard work."
It appears you are approaching the gadfly/Howitzer Howard/LLR-democratical lonejustice-like "Mendoza Line" for pro-democratical weak-tea political posting.
I suspect this unbroken serial rhetorical gaslighting failure is a terminal condition for you.
LLR-democratical Rich: "Trump crowd goes silent as he confuses Biden and Obama again
‘Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word,"
There is not a soul on this earth that doesn't know obambi is running this crap show of an administration.
Again, you might be more successful in your Reid Hoffman-like mission posting on blogsites where those reading your missives are as disingenuous and mendacious as you.
Mason G said...
"Reciting talking points is really not helpful, and there is not a one-size-fits-all solution."
Actually, there is. Go home and learn English. When you've done that, you are welcome to come back and apply for admission to the country. The government even has a website that explains how it's supposed to work.<<
I agree, and I'm afraid that there really isn't anything else that will work. All of the idiocy surrounding immigration has transformed what should be a source of strength into an utter disaster.
Non-working-class Democrats believed in some idiotic straight-line extrapolation about "turning Texas blue" and corporate-class Republicans salivated at the prospect of hordes of docile workers to exploit, and shill economists screeched that any rise in worker raises caused by some tiny reduction in the labor supply would be inflationary (not quite as inflationary as just printing trillions of dollars through artificially low interest rates, though), and the normal people (and the immigrants themselves) pay the price.
We're going to need at least a decade-long pause in all immigration except for marriages to U.S. citizens in order to sort this all out.
Mr Wibble said...
And he enlisted in the Army, which sent him to their Language School in Monterey and taught him Russian. He spent several years as a Russian translator for the Army. I don't know how the Army could do what the college couldn't -- maybe they threatened him with a firing squad. Or re-assignment to the infantry.
There's a test to take before being sent to Monterey. It's not language per se, but some sort of symbol interpretation IIRC. The military has been refining tests for over a century to determine what a recruit can or cannot learn. If you pass the test- you can learn a foreign language. When I entered the basic entry test was the GCT-ARI, General Classification Test, Arithmetic. Now it's ASVAB- Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Test. One thing it's testing is IQ. A lot of other things it tests are really aptitude in specific areas. And there is a bottom line. As far back as WWI it was realized that an IQ of 83 or less (some fudging as some perform better then their IQ would indicate, and many worse...) and a recruit would be worse then useless. Other people who should be doing their own tasks would have to watch the low IQ recruit to ensure he wasn't screwing something up.
If the ASVAB says you can learn a skill, and the service you join sends you to a school to learn that skill, the only way you won't learn it is if you put your mind to not learning it. By the way, some jobs that require higher scores and technical skills are really miserable jobs. That people take pride in doing because they know others can't hack it.
"To scare American voters and make them feel that outsiders are ruining things?" mostly, yeah
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