# Our Children should learn to speak spanish



## chaztrip (Jul 9, 2008)

WOW.......


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## Blexican (Jul 9, 2008)

I agree with him, honestly.


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## Desecrated (Jul 9, 2008)

I agree, most sweds speak Norwegian and danish to, it just make sense they are our neighboring countries and it's pretty similar language. English and spanish is pretty similar to, when I read spanish I had a great help from already knowing english.


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## chaztrip (Jul 9, 2008)

Why though? What I dont get is that he talks about the kids learning spanish then the next thing he has us in Europe and we can ony say merci becou(sp) wow that spanish did us well over there didnt it 

I disagree with respect on this.


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## Desecrated (Jul 9, 2008)

chaztrip said:


> Why though? What I dont get is that he talks about the kids learning spanish then the next thing he has in Europe and we can ony say merci becou(sp)
> 
> I disagree with respect on this.



He is just pointing out that many americans only speaks one language while most europeans know at least 3.


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## Zepp88 (Jul 9, 2008)

Jon has a point there.

What's wrong with knowing two languages?

I know if I ever traveled to another country I'd learn some of their language...this is a different situation of course.


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## ZeroSignal (Jul 9, 2008)

I think Obama is 100% right on that one.


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## Desecrated (Jul 9, 2008)

Zepp88 said:


> Jon has a point there.
> 
> What's wrong with knowing two languages?
> 
> I know if I ever traveled to another country I'd learn some of their language...this is a different situation of course.



We have lots of german tourists coming here every year, so I studied german so I could take jobs in the tourist industry, working at a hotel pays crazy money. Their has to be some job opportunity opening up if your able to speak fluid spanish in the states.


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## wannabguitarist (Jul 9, 2008)

I don't have sound so watching video would be pointless, but I disagree if he means our children should learn Spanish somewhat fluently. I think more should be taught in schools, but it shouldn't be mandatory.

EDIT: I meant Spanish shouldn't be the mandatory language, I just couldn't put my thoughts into words for some reason


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## ZeroSignal (Jul 9, 2008)

wannabguitarist said:


> I don't have sound so watching video would be pointless, but I disagree if he means our children should learn Spanish somewhat fluently. I think more should be taught in schools, but it shouldn't be mandatory.



Well, why not? How else are the American youth going to be motivated to become educated? And most other developed countries in the world have education policies that have their students learning _at least_ 2 languages and normally more.


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## TomAwesome (Jul 9, 2008)

I disagree at this point in time just because if there was a movement to teach American kids Spanish, it would probably end up making the existing problem with immigrants not wanting to learn/speak English even worse. As it is, I hear mostly Spanish whenever I go anywhere.  Aside from that, though, I agree that it's a good idea teaching our kids multiple languages.


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## Desecrated (Jul 9, 2008)

wannabguitarist said:


> I don't have sound so watching video would be pointless, but I disagree if he means our children should learn Spanish somewhat fluently. I think more should be taught in schools, but it shouldn't be mandatory.



We have english as mandatory since grade school and in high school one more european language becomes mandatory, you have about 5-8 other languages to choose from. 
I think it is good to have one foreign language as mandatory, it gives you a thirst for learning other languages as well as I think it helps a young mind to develop to learn more then just language. 
In sweden you start learning english from 4th grade, I don't think it would be a bad idea of americans studied spanish from 4th grade up to the end of junior high and then in high school choose a third language.


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## Metal Ken (Jul 9, 2008)

I agree on foriegn language education reform. Fuck this two years of French or Spanish bullshit. I wanted to learn either german or japanese in highschool, and NEITHER were offered at any school in the entire city i lived in at the time ( A suburb of Tampa). And why only two years? So you can learn a bunch of vocabulary and basic sentence structure and forget it by your senior year? fuck that too. We should have more languages, and they should be taught for far longer in schools.


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## Desecrated (Jul 9, 2008)

TomAwesome said:


> I disagree at this point in time just because if there was a movement to teach American kids Spanish, it would probably end up making the existing problem with immigrants not wanting to learn/speak English even worse. As it is, I hear mostly Spanish whenever I go anywhere.  Aside from that, though, I agree that it's a good idea teaching our kids multiple languages.



It can also go in the other direction, if your able to speak spanish you can assist neighbours, friends, schoolmates in their studies. I've been thinking about learning arabic to easier communicate with all the immigrants coming here.


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## Kotex (Jul 9, 2008)

I don't think it'll go that way though, Des. I think it'll go the way Tom is talking about.


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## Metal Ken (Jul 9, 2008)

Well, if they're gonna teach spanish, teach it throughout gradeschool.


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## auxioluck (Jul 9, 2008)

I personally love learning new languages, and I have loved speaking with Europeans who are multi-lingual. My sister's boyfriend is from Switzerland, and I loved talking with him and his family, especially his sister, because I was learning Thai at the time, and she was fluent in it. I would actually listen to my sister's BF speak Swiss-German to his mother, and mother would speak back in French. It was insane. Other languages are really interesting to me, and I think we should teach spanish to kids, BUT, on the other hand, turnabout's fair play, I think we should have spanish-speaking kids learn english too.


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## wannabguitarist (Jul 9, 2008)

ZeroSignal said:


> Well, why not? How else are the American youth going to be motivated to become educated? And most other developed countries in the world have education policies that have their students learning _at least_ 2 languages and normally more.



As bad as it sounds this is one of the reasons why:


TomAwesome said:


> I disagree at this point in time just because if there was a movement to teach American kids Spanish, it would probably end up making the existing problem with immigrants not wanting to learn/speak English even worse. As it is, I hear mostly Spanish whenever I go anywhere.  Aside from that, though, I agree that it's a good idea teaching our kids multiple languages.



And there's the people that think they shouldn't have to learn even a little bit of English and except people here to be able to still communicate with them . I have nothing against immigrants, I just don't like that mindset (nor do I think that all illegal immigrants are like that, most are quite nice except for the whole illegal thing).

Other than that I'm all for pushing more language in schools, not just Spanish though, kids need more choices. I think high schools need a better selection of languages to choose from and harder curriculum (more than 2 years). There are plenty of other languages I would have rather taken in high school than Spanish just because I would have found them to be more useful (German, Portuguese, Japanese, etc).


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## Desecrated (Jul 9, 2008)

Kotex said:


> I don't think it'll go that way though, Des. I think it'll go the way Tom is talking about.



We have a lot of problem with immigrants arguing that they shouldn't have to learn swedish since we can't even respect their culture and know nothing of it. 
It would help to integrate them if we made some adjustments to, 15% of the swedish population are immigrants, it's just sane that we do acknowledge their presence here and maybe learn a little, language, culture and celebrate some holidays with them. Considering how many latino you have in america, it might not be a bad idea to do the same  

See it like this, you can always try it, because not learning spanish in school is apparently not working right now, try learning it in school for 10-15 years and see if the situation goes better, if not, skip it and find some other way to integrate them.


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## TomAwesome (Jul 9, 2008)

Actually, now that I think about it, we should focus more on teaching English in our schools. Seriously. The vast majority of people I come into contact with are horrible with their own native language. They can't speak it, read it, or write it half properly. It's pathetic. How the hell can we seriously consider pushing foreign languages on our kids when nobody is even learning their own language properly?


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## Desecrated (Jul 9, 2008)

TomAwesome said:


> Actually, now that I think about it, we should focus more on teaching English in our schools. Seriously. The vast majority of people I know are horrible with their own native language. They can't speak it, read it, or write it half properly. It's pathetic. How the hell can we seriously consider pushing foreign languages on our kids when nobody is even learning their own language properly?



Evidence to support you; 










BUT also, I think that I have a better grasp of swedish since I started studying other languages, when you study another language for long you get into very complexed details about that language, when you start understading the underlying grammar of another language you find yourself adopting those ideas to your own language as well. 
The center in your mind dedicated to speech will only benefit from learning other languages as well.


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## Brendan G (Jul 9, 2008)

I think if you are going to a country that speaks a different language, you should learn that language. If I were to go to Italy I would learn Italian, if I were to go to Mexico I would learn Spanish and so on, because I respect their culture enough to learn the language. Honestly I think that immigrants should respect the culture of the country they are immigrating to by learning the language, instead of bitching about how the people of the other country aren't respecting their culture. On one hand I agree with Obama if one learns a different language then they might be interested in the Countries culture and in turn becoming multi-cultural. On the other hand, if you force the language upon them then more problems would occur.


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## Lucky Seven (Jul 9, 2008)

Learning another language displaces other things in school, if you ask me, the other stuff is more important. I mean, it's a nice idea, I just don't think it would work.


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## Desecrated (Jul 9, 2008)

Lucky Seven said:


> Learning another language displaces other things in school, if you ask me, the other stuff is more important. I mean, it's a nice idea, I just don't think it would work.



I don't think you study anything in your grade school that europeans don't study? And american education isen't exactly known to be that good, it won't hurt to try and reform it a little


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## TomAwesome (Jul 9, 2008)

That's true. America's public education system is terrible. I went to the nerd magnet school in high school, so it was pretty damn decent there, but most of the public schools are just awful and don't really teach anything. It's sad.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 9, 2008)

I'm all for learning new languages, and I think Ken is dead right. It's be great to have more options, and more time dedicated to foreign languages at the primary school level.

But. You guys are overlooking one huge thing. Especially you Europeans.

The US is basically almost one big continent, from shore to shore, where we speak largely one language. Add Canada to that as well. We've never had the social pressure to have to learn another language.

It might be somewhat lamentable, but it's less a failure of people and more a historical force that never came into play. Completely different from Europe.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 9, 2008)

That boycott picture are funny as fuck, BTW.


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## Desecrated (Jul 9, 2008)

The Dark Wolf said:


> The US is basically almost one big continent, from shore to shore, where we speak largely one language. Add Canada to that as well. We've never had the social pressure to have to learn another language.



Then it's time to step up to the plate


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## TomAwesome (Jul 9, 2008)

I'd still rather we get our high schoolers to have at least a middle school understanding of English first.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 9, 2008)

Desecrated said:


> Then it's time to step up to the plate



You miss the point.

What pressure drives it? Nothing. Maybe Spanish and Mexican immigrants... and that's the exact debate that's going on here. But for Europe, with so many countries and cultures, there's a lot of pressure to learn and know multiple languages.

It's not a question of internal will, it's a question of external reality. We haven't needed to, and still, in many ways, don't need to. Do you know how many times in my life I've needed to speak another language to get by? I'm not saying would want to, or isn't it nice, or don't we love multi-lingual people - no, I'm saying _needed_ to know another language? Or even where it would be practical.

Never.

I don't think you realize how big the US and Canada really are. There just isn't a real need for us to have large scale multiple languages. It would be nice, but without the social realities that demand it... I dunno.

I just saw a program last night, where they talked about how the Navajo nation (American Indian for you guys that don't know), which is over 200,000 people, all living in the same geographical area, have almost completely lost their native language. Why? English is more practical. Less than 10% of Navajos can speak their native tongue with any proficiency. It will likely die out for any practical purpose.

Language is more a factor of natural social forces, and less a question of choice or social "ought-tos." Language evolves naturally. And here in the US, our social landscape just hasn't mitigated the need. Everything was assimilated into English.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 9, 2008)

I sound like either A) a professor, or B) Drew. God help me.


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## TomAwesome (Jul 9, 2008)

You're right, though! Except that there are actually parts of the country (like down here for instance) where being bilingual is becoming somewhere between practical and necessary. Job hunting down here is a lot more difficult than it should be if you're monolingual, since almost any employer will want you to be bilingual. Unfortunately for me, my Spanish sucks.


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## Desecrated (Jul 9, 2008)

The Dark Wolf said:


> You miss the point.
> 
> What pressure drives it? Nothing. Maybe Spanish and Mexican immigrants... and that's the exact debate that's going on here. But for Europe, with so many countries and cultures, there's a lot of pressure to learn and know multiple languages.
> 
> ...



"After 2000, legal immigrants to the United States numbered approximately 1,000,000 per year. In 2006, 1.27 million immigrants were granted legal residence."

Enough pressure ??  

But in reality, there is no pressure to learn other languages in europe, it's just a good idea to expend your own horizon, it's not for the sake of other people. like learning it out of consideration for them but also as a mean of expanding yourself and your experience with other people/culture, even if you don't have to learn navajo I'm sure it would be fun to try and to have experienced that.


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## JBroll (Jul 9, 2008)

So one fucked up, stupid, ambiguous and unclear language isn't enough? We have enough problems with education without having to worry about OH NOES OUR KIDS DON'T KNOW SWAHILI HALP! - how about the fact that our math and science education fails at failing? I think Europeans and a lot of Americans need to realize that a lot of high school students can't multiply one-digit numbers without calculators, or figure out how to multiply a variable by a constant, or tell the difference between a parallelogram and a cat.

Maybe if the textbook companies start caring about teaching, and not filling shiny covers with pretty pictures and slapping gigantic price tags on failed experiments in dead tree mutilation, we'll get somewhere. Maybe if kids get motivated to know things that aren't secret moves on the XBox, we'll get somewhere. But tacking on more shit that nobody will actually understand anyway while continuing to screw people out of the rest of their education isn't going to work.

Besides, do we really want to make the extent of our idiocy THAT much clearer to the world around us?

Jeff


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## chaztrip (Jul 9, 2008)

JBroll said:


> So one fucked up, stupid, ambiguous and unclear language isn't enough? We have enough problems with education without having to worry about OH NOES OUR KIDS DON'T KNOW SWAHILI HALP! - how about the fact that our math and science education fails at failing? I think Europeans and a lot of Americans need to realize that a lot of high school students can't multiply one-digit numbers without calculators, or figure out how to multiply a variable by a constant, or tell the difference between a parallelogram and a cat.
> 
> Maybe if the textbook companies start caring about teaching, and not filling shiny covers with pretty pictures and slapping gigantic price tags on failed experiments in dead tree mutilation, we'll get somewhere. Maybe if kids get motivated to know things that aren't secret moves on the XBox, we'll get somewhere. But tacking on more shit that nobody will actually understand anyway while continuing to screw people out of the rest of their education isn't going to work.
> 
> ...


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## Cancer (Jul 9, 2008)

Blexican said:


> I agree with him, honestly.



So do I, but here's a thought: we live on one planet, wouldn't it be nice if the world spoke one language? Now, obviously this isn't going to happen any time soon AND I realize that being multilingual is a huge step in that direction BUT like race language is tool used to divide peoples. I think it would liberating, and promote peace on wide scale, if the world just decided on a singular language.


...course of my dream planet, you wouldn't have the concept of borders either ...but hey, a guy can dream right?



Brendan G said:


> I think if you are going to a country that speaks a different language, you should learn that language. If I were to go to Italy I would learn Italian, if I were to go to Mexico I would learn Spanish and so on, because I respect their culture enough to learn the language. Honestly I think that immigrants should respect the culture of the country they are immigrating to by learning the language, instead of bitching about how the people of the other country aren't respecting their culture. On one hand I agree with Obama if one learns a different language then they might be interested in the Countries culture and in turn becoming multi-cultural. On the other hand, if you force the language upon them then more problems would occur.





This would be my FIRST order of business if I had to live in another country.



The Dark Wolf said:


> You miss the point.
> 
> What pressure drives it? Nothing. Maybe Spanish and Mexican immigrants... and that's the exact debate that's going on here. But for Europe, with so many countries and cultures, there's a lot of pressure to learn and know multiple languages.
> 
> ...



This being said, under what circumstances would you see a planetary adaptation to a singular language? I have my own reasons, just curious as to what yours are....


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## forelander (Jul 10, 2008)

TomAwesome said:


> I'd still rather we get our high schoolers to have at least a middle school understanding of English first.





JBroll said:


> Fix other stuff first



It's been said, but learning other languages really does help other areas as well. Specifically, an understanding of another language means you understand your own language a lot better, so learning another language would likely help people's English. 

More generally, the skills you develop in learning another language and being multi-lingual can be applied to other areas as well so it's not like learning another language has the lone result of speaking that language. 

I don't know enough about the American education system to really comment, but since things need fixing anyway, I don't see how trialling something like this could hurt. 

If everyone is so concerned about the failing English, make kids learn Latin. Useless as it is, the more direct link between understanding Latin and understanding English might help in convincing some people. 

The concept of everyone speaking the same language saddens me. Languages are incredibly interesting and if there were none to learn it'd be kinda boring, to say the least.


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## Brendan G (Jul 10, 2008)

forelander said:


> The concept of everyone speaking the same language saddens me. Languages are incredibly interesting and if there were none to learn it'd be kinda boring, to say the least.


Making a universal language doesn't automatically make the other languages drop off the face of the earth. People would stop speaking them on a mass scale, but they could still be preserved. Look at Latin for example, which you mentioned earlier in your post, no one speaks it on a large scale, but it has survived over one thousand years.


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## JBroll (Jul 10, 2008)

How could it hurt? There's already not enough time for math and sciences, and you can't help that with other languages because there's not enough background there for whatever benefits language may have to show themselves.

Math is a language in and of itself, and science classes that don't use it (I'm looking at you, IPC) are already crippled by its absence.

I am a graduate math student, and I'll wind up with advanced degrees in math and physics unless something goes horribly wrong, and I work well with those fields because I learned it on my own. I even went to private schools that, at least by American standards, were good places to be. I now work for public schools as a tutor for the AVID program (which gets me with a lot of kids who really want to learn and have the potential to do a lot) in the academic year, and over the last few weeks I've been working with the kids who failed classes and needed to make them up. It takes a LOT of work to fail public schools, and winding up there means you're missing some basic arithmetic or completely lacking in the critical thinking department. But even kids who paid attention and got good grades the whole way through know very little.

I've been tutoring or teaching in one form or another since I was 5. I'm 20 now. I've seen a whole lot of students, and rarely do I see real problem-solving skills. That's all math IS. Math education, however, is a bunch of jacking off to formulas and pretending that memorizing something is as good as understanding how it works. FAIL.

It seems that the best way of killing someone's desire to learn and improve themselves is the public school system. That needs to be fixed well before we try adding more shit to it.

Jeff


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## Desecrated (Jul 10, 2008)

Cancer said:


> SBUT like race language is tool used to divide peoples.



No the idea that diversity is the thing that stands in the way of unity, is dividing us  
We don't have to be the same to come along.


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## Naren (Jul 10, 2008)

Cancer said:


> So do I, but here's a thought: we live on one planet, wouldn't it be nice if the world spoke one language? Now, obviously this isn't going to happen any time soon AND I realize that being multilingual is a huge step in that direction BUT like race language is tool used to divide peoples. I think it would liberating, and promote peace on wide scale, if the world just decided on a singular language.
> 
> 
> ...course of my dream planet, you wouldn't have the concept of borders either ...but hey, a guy can dream right?



You couldn't do that without having a unified culture. You would either have to get rid of all the traditions and cultures in the world or unify them into a single gigantic new culture.

I find that generally the people who advocate making the entire world only have one language don't understand how languages work.

Languages are completely tied to their cultures. For example, Japanese, which I speak, has a lot of central ideas infused in the language that go entirely contrary to central ideas infused in English. 

There are so many ideas and concepts in some languages that do not exist in others. I believe that you cannot truly understand a culture unless you understand their language. And, by getting rid of their language, you are in essense getting rid of their culture. 

And how would you go about creating that language? You couldn't just arbitrarily say "Since English speaking countries are in charge, we're going to make English the official language of the world." This would be, in essense, forcing your own culture on the world, your own religion (because religion - at least at a literary philosophical aspect - is hard wired into every language. A lot of idiomatic expressions in English come from Christianity and old Greek/Roman religions), and your own methods of thinking on the entire world. What is thought as common sense in one country is considered as ridiculous nonsense in another. Many cultures' idiomatic expressions and wise sayings that the culture finds to be clearly true make no sense to other cultures and seem to be entirely wrong. 

So, let's assume you make a language. How do you decide which structure is best? SOV, SVO, OVS, or something entirely different? How many verb conjugations do we need? As many as Spanish or as few as Chinese? If we get rid of all culture, religious and media influence, and so on from the religion, we are also getting rid of much of a languages culture. How many sounds do we include? How do we develop the writing system?

We may end up succeeding in creating a language with more than 50x the amount of total words, because we had to include unique concepts from every country in the world.

I do not see the creation of a single worldwide language as a positive thing at all - or practical.


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## Desecrated (Jul 10, 2008)

JBroll said:


> How could it hurt? There's already not enough time for math and sciences, and you can't help that with other languages because there's not enough background there for whatever benefits language may have to show themselves.
> 
> Math is a language in and of itself, and science classes that don't use it (I'm looking at you, IPC) are already crippled by its absence.
> 
> ...



So it's not a new language that is the problem for students learning math, it's the way math is thought in school. 
I do agree with you, We didn't learn logic until collage, which is for me the backwards thing to do.

At my school there was a lack in science knowledge because nobody could explain to us why we should study it, in junior high we read , biology, physics, chemistry and technology. But I don't remember anybody taking much interest in it. If somebody would have explained to us that we could have used this subjects to understand ourself and the world around us I think we might have paid more attention to it. 
I can't really say that the fact that we read 3 different languages at the time interfered with this in anyway, even if we would have spent that time in the physics lab we would still not understand why.


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## TomAwesome (Jul 10, 2008)

Desecrated said:


> So it's not a new language that is the problem for students learning math, it's the way math is thought in school.
> I do agree with you, We didn't learn logic until collage, which is for me the backwards thing to do.



His point is, and I agree with him, that there's so much that's wrong with our public education system that we need to focus on making what we have work before we can realistically think about piling more stuff on top of it.


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## JBroll (Jul 10, 2008)

The problem with learning math is the same problem facing every other subject, and that is what needs to be fixed - not "we need more subjects, they'll learn gooder then!" like some people seem to advocate.

Jeff


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## Desecrated (Jul 10, 2008)

JBroll said:


> The problem with learning math is the same problem facing every other subject, and that is what needs to be fixed - not "we need more subjects, they'll learn gooder then!" like some people seem to advocate.
> 
> Jeff





TomAwesome said:


> His point is, and I agree with him, that there's so much that's wrong with our public education system that we need to focus on making what we have work before we can realistically think about piling more stuff on top of it.



Taking the decision to add spanish to the schedule might force the people in charge of the education system to rethink the entire education plan. You can't just add a subject without making major changes.


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## JBroll (Jul 10, 2008)

Yeah, you can. That's usually what happens.

You seem to underestimate the extent to which our school system fails.

Jeff


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## TomAwesome (Jul 10, 2008)

Desecrated said:


> Taking the decision to add spanish to the schedule might force the people in charge of the education system to rethink the entire education plan. You can't just add a subject without making major changes.



No, I'm sorry, but it won't. Otherwise, the fact that kids aren't learning jack shit would have already caused them to rethink things.


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## Desecrated (Jul 10, 2008)

JBroll said:


> Yeah, you can. That's usually what happens.
> 
> You seem to underestimate the extent to which our school system fails.
> 
> Jeff





TomAwesome said:


> No, I'm sorry, but it won't. Otherwise, the fact that kids aren't learning jack shit would have already caused them to rethink things.



Man you guys are optimistic


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## TomAwesome (Jul 10, 2008)

We're _real_istic, which is even better.


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## Guitarwizard (Jul 10, 2008)

I'm learning English, French, Spanish and of course German in school, while my mother languague is Swiss-German. 

Someone brought up the issue with "but then the foreigners won't learn our languague even less"..
Why? Even if I speak 500 languagues fluently, I'm not going to speak spanish if some spanish dickhead is to cocky to learn German when he comes here.

Another thing someone mentioned is that the school schedule should concentrate on diffrent things than learning all those languagues.
Come on...
If you would start to learn Spanish in the first grade, it would probably take you 2 hours a week and you would speak fluently when you graduate.
How many school hours / week do you guys have in high school?
I'm having 36 lessons a week, and besides learning the languagues I think I'm doing just fine with all the other subjects.

When I've been to the US, I met a guy in a greyhound bus which thought Switzerland was right next to Canada. Geography skills ftw! 
I also met someone who asked me if we have electricity in Europe. 
I told him yeah, we just invented the television, but then when we finally recieved CNN and stuff we noticed that you guys invented it already 60 years before.

So yeah, foreign languague education doesn't seem to be the only problem in US schools I think. But maybe it would also help to get less narrow-minded, and it would help all dumb people to notice that the US-borderlines aren't the end of the modern world.

Whatever, I really really hope for the US that Obama will make it..


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## arktan (Jul 10, 2008)

Guitarwizard said:


> I'm learning English, French, Spanish and of course German in school, while my mother languague is Swiss-German.
> 
> Someone brought up the issue with "but then the foreigners won't learn our languague even less"..
> Why? Even if I speak 500 languagues fluently, I'm not going to speak spanish if some spanish dickhead is to cocky to learn German when he comes here.
> ...



We have electricity?  since when????
and don't forget those guys who mess up switzerland with sweden or vice versa....

Come on guys, the most Americans i know regret that they can speak English only. Why not learn more languages? Because it's too hard? 
So in the end you guys are trying to justify that speaking only one language is OK because the system can't handle it although noone ever tried or the system can't be changed?
Languages are the key to the world and the world does not end at the borders of Mexico (see the quote above)...
If you guys want the generations after you to have a better future (especially without war) then you should start with educating the kids a bit more about the world and for that you need foreign languages...
And don't tell me it's impossible, i went to school in a place where i had 4 Languages (German, French, English and Romantsch) and others had even 5 to 7 and we all had a pretty damn good overall education (i for example know that the U.S. have electricity )
If the system is the problem then you guys should maybe stop complaining how another language won't work and change the system instead. The future generations will be thankful


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## Guitarwizard (Jul 10, 2008)

Check this out:

 

But hey, do you remember that German hip-hop guy on some comedy show, who gets asked "Where does George W. Bush come from?" It used to be on youtube some time ago..
He answers something like "Hmm, well definitely not from Germany, because he speaks English or American or something, and he's also not from Europe I think"..
Then he gets asked "And where does Saddam Hussein come from?" 
And the guy says "He speaks also American, I think he's from the same city"..


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## Drew (Jul 10, 2008)

Metal Ken said:


> Well, if they're gonna teach spanish, teach it throughout gradeschool.



Can't see the video (it's blocked at the office), and I only read the first page, but I agree. 

One of my few regrets about growing up attending a public school district is that I had no mandatory foriegn language instruction prior to my freshman year in high school. It's been demonstrated that it's MUCH easier to learn a new language as a young child than as an adult, and that if you do pick up the language later on in life it's significantly harder to become fluent and even if you do you may never get the accent down, because it becomes harder to learn to make new sounds as you age. I felt kind of cheated, when I went to college and most of my friends were at least brokenly conversant in one or two more languages, if not out and out fluent. Me, I could kind of read Latin. 

I think children should be given elementary instruction in at least one foriegn language in public elementary schools. Spanish is certainly a pragmatic one, and once you learn one Romance language it's much easier to pick up the others, so it could serve as a gatreway to later instruction in French, Italian, Portuguese, etc. 

For me, it's not about XX% of the american polulation speaks primarily spanish so we need to cater to them; it's about most of the rest of the world speaks more than one language, so it makes no sense that we're handicapping our children by only giving them the option to learn one.


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## zimbloth (Jul 10, 2008)

Yeah it has to start earlier. By the time High School came around I had more important things to worry about. I wish I had learned earlier too, it would have made things much easier.


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## TomAwesome (Jul 10, 2008)

arktan said:


> We have electricity?  since when????
> and don't forget those guys who mess up switzerland with sweden or vice versa....
> 
> Come on guys, the most Americans i know regret that they can speak English only. Why not learn more languages? Because it's too hard?
> So in the end you guys are trying to justify that speaking only one language is OK because the system can't handle it although noone ever tried or the system can't be changed?



That's not really it. Like Jeff said earlier, I think some of you just don't realize how badly our education systems fails. Learning another language isn't an impossible thing to add to a school curriculum, and when kids are young is the time to introduce this kind of stuff, but you have to do things in proper order. If we try to add foreign languages without first making some reforms to the existing system, it's not going to do any good. Kids aren't learning their other subjects properly. Kids aren't even learning English properly. How, under the same system, would kids then be learning a foreign language properly?



arktan said:


> Languages are the key to the world and the world does not end at the borders of Mexico (see the quote above)...
> If you guys want the generations after you to have a better future (especially without war) then you should start with educating the kids a bit more about the world and for that you need foreign languages...
> And don't tell me it's impossible, i went to school in a place where i had 4 Languages (German, French, English and Romantsch) and others had even 5 to 7 and we all had a pretty damn good overall education (i for example know that the U.S. have electricity )
> If the system is the problem then you guys should maybe stop complaining how another language won't work and change the system instead. The future generations will be thankful



When I was in school, I was actually in several Spanish classes from primary school up through high school. How much Spanish do I know as a result of all this "learning"? Damn near nothing. I wasn't a stupid kid, either. I got good grades. I took French for a semester at a college for high school credit and learned a hell of a lot more, though I've since lost it from lack of use.

I agree with all these points about the benefits of teaching other languages to our kids. Aside from the single reservation I mentioned in my first post if that language happens to be Spanish, I see almost only good coming from it as long as other subjects didn't suffer because of it (which they probably would if this was piled onto our current system). We need to walk before we can run, though. Our system first must be able to properly educate kids. Then we can worry about teaching kids more.


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## arktan (Jul 10, 2008)

TomAwesome said:


> That's not really it. Like Jeff said earlier, I think some of you just don't realize how badly our education systems fails. Learning another language isn't an impossible thing to add to a school curriculum, and when kids are young is the time to introduce this kind of stuff, but you have to do things in proper order. If we try to add foreign languages without first making some reforms to the existing system, it's not going to do any good. Kids aren't learning their other subjects properly. Kids aren't even learning English properly. How, under the same system, would kids then be learning a foreign language properly?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, you reaise some good points and maybe it was a bit arrogant from me to talk that way since you guys surely are better informed about the American education system
in which case i apologize and if that is true what you said then i only hope that Obama wins and taht his government makes some changes there, he better do because it's about time


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## TomAwesome (Jul 10, 2008)

I hope a lot of positive reform happens this next presidential term, too. We seriously need it...


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## JJ Rodriguez (Jul 10, 2008)

Coming from New Brunswick in Canada, which is a bilingual province, and coming up in the school system where learning French is mandatory, I can tell you mandatory language teaching DOES NOT work. I can speak maybe a couple phrases in broken french, and words here and there, and I was forced to take french for 10 years in school. I hated every minute of it. If you force something on kids, they will not learn it just out of spite  Hell, a lot of people I know and went to school with don't know french hardly at all, and they were forced to take it too.


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## Guitarwizard (Jul 10, 2008)

JJ Rodriguez said:


> Coming from New Brunswick in Canada, which is a bilingual province, and coming up in the school system where learning French is mandatory, I can tell you mandatory language teaching DOES NOT work. I can speak maybe a couple phrases in broken french, and words here and there, and I was forced to take french for 10 years in school. I hated every minute of it. If you force something on kids, they will not learn it just out of spite  Hell, a lot of people I know and went to school with don't know french hardly at all, and they were forced to take it too.



So where do you think is the problem, if it works everywhere but not in North-America?
2 foreign languagues I had in school were mandatory, although I have to admit that my country has 4 official languagues as well. 
But that's still how it is in most countries. (Well, maybe not in North-Korea or Iran and so on)

Without wanting to offense somebody, I can't really follow the argument of the people not wanting mandatory foreign-languagues in school.
"Don't change anything, it won't work anyway"... 
I mean, Obama's goal is pretty shure to make it work, not to just doing it without caring if it'll work.
But however, if you never change something, because you think it won't work anyway, then you can be pretty shure the problem won't be solved for ever.
But if you try, there's a chance to make things better, even if it is extremely small, it is still there. 
That's just the way I think - maybe I would think diffrently if I would live in the US and would really know well what's happening in your school system.

But I think that even if the children still wouldn't learn anything in languague classes, then you could at least say it's their fault in the end.
I also assume that if it would be established all over the country that these classes are mandatory, there would also be more acceptance and interrest from the students.

Even if the whole fucking universe speaks English - learning diffrent languagues trains your brain and also makes you being better in all of the other subjects. 
Same thing of music, of which European schools here are actually lacking!

I mean damn, it can't be that difficult! Why not just put the kids into school, and if they suck, drop them out! It's easy as that! 

Someone also said that the other subjects are far more important, and kids can't even multiply two digits, they should learn that first..
Well, personally I think that it is *far* more important to know a little French or Spanish than being able to solve some stupid equiations with 23 unknowns and stuff.
I don't know how much maths, physics, chemics and stuff get teached in the US, but I think that even here, there should be much more languague lessons. Personally, I have never been in a situation in my life where I have needed the things I learned in math after the 5th grade of primary school.
I don't fucking care which molecular reaction happens when I put some silly substances together, or at which speed and force my body pulled to the ground by gravity if I jump out of a plane.
I DO however care if I am able to comunicate with other persons when I'm visiting another country, and being able to have an insight to their culture, and not being an arrogant prick assuming that everyone has to learn my languague.
But still, I have spend much more hours of my life dealing with the gravity, equiations and molecular stuff I wrote before.

Whatever. No offense to anybody - we all live in democracies, and if you guys over there don't want to learn languagues, that's your choice and your right.
There are of course also cultural differences, and I know how far you come communicating in English all over the wolrd. Maybe I would be to lazy to learn anything else too if I would speak it as my mother languague, who knows.


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## JJ Rodriguez (Jul 10, 2008)

I don't know why it doesn't work here, different attitudes maybe? I just don't have the facility to learn another language, I'm just good at math and computers. For other people though, I have no idea. People around here just don't care. French actually would be pretty damn useful here, as there's french people everywhere. I'm sure if I had applied myself I COULD have learned french half decently, but when you're 6 years old, you hate school, and you just don't have the natural talent for it, you really just don't give a shit. Hind sight is 20/20 right?


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## Kotex (Jul 10, 2008)

^True. And Des I'm not saying that I disagree, I just know how people are here and I don't think it would happen.


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## TomAwesome (Jul 10, 2008)

Guitarwizard said:


> 2 foreign languagues I had in school were mandatory, although I have to admit that my country has 4 official languagues as well.



I can't say for sure, since I don't really know much about how things work over there, but my guess would be that this is a big part of it. With the exception of south of the American border, the entire _continent_ of North America speaks English as its official language. There are some parts of Canada that speak French, but as far as I understand it (and correct me if I'm wrong), Canada views that about the same way America views the Spanish speaking areas. It's kind of like what Boober was talking about a few pages ago. If North America was composed of several smaller countries that all spoke different languages, it might be a little different.



Guitarwizard said:


> Without wanting to offense somebody, I can't really follow the argument of the people not wanting mandatory foreign-languagues in school.
> "Don't change anything, it won't work anyway"...
> I mean, Obama's goal is pretty shure to make it work, not to just doing it without caring if it'll work.
> But however, if you never change something, because you think it won't work anyway, then you can be pretty shure the problem won't be solved for ever.
> ...



I've said it before, but the real problem with this isn't that we don't think our kids can learn another language. It's that our entire education system needs reforming. I agree that nothing will get solved if nothing is changed, but the real problem is that the education system doesn't work right. That's where the change is needed right now. I'm starting to think I should just pop in every few posts and copy/paste the things I've already posted. 



Guitarwizard said:


> But I think that even if the children still wouldn't learn anything in languague classes, then you could at least say it's their fault in the end.





Guitarwizard said:


> I mean damn, it can't be that difficult! Why not just put the kids into school, and if they suck, drop them out! It's easy as that!



That kind of thinking is the last thing our education system needs.



Guitarwizard said:


> Even if the whole fucking universe speaks English - learning diffrent languagues trains your brain and also makes you being better in all of the other subjects.
> Same thing of music, of which European schools here are actually lacking!



No argument there.



Guitarwizard said:


> Someone also said that the other subjects are far more important, and kids can't even multiply two digits, they should learn that first..
> Well, personally I think that it is *far* more important to know a little French or Spanish than being able to solve some stupid equiations with 23 unknowns and stuff.
> I don't know how much maths, physics, chemics and stuff get teached in the US, but I think that even here, there should be much more languague lessons. Personally, I have never been in a situation in my life where I have needed the things I learned in math after the 5th grade of primary school.
> I don't fucking care which molecular reaction happens when I put some silly substances together, or at which speed and force my body pulled to the ground by gravity if I jump out of a plane.
> ...



While I see some of your points, I disagree. Most people here don't even have a grasp on basic math and science, which I think is really important. While stuff like advanced algebra and calculus won't figure into the daily lives of most people, I don't think many people would say that having a firm hold on basic and intermediate math skills and science principles isn't important. Mathematics is a language that transcends all culture.

Different subjects also include things like geography and history, which are a great help in understanding one's own culture and others' cultures, as well as having a better idea of what's going on in the world now. There's literature, too, and I don't think I have to spell out how that one relates to culture.



Guitarwizard said:


> Whatever. No offense to anybody - we all live in democracies, and if you guys over there don't want to learn languagues, that's your choice and your right.
> There are of course also cultural differences, and I know how far you come communicating in English all over the wolrd. Maybe I would be to lazy to learn anything else too if I would speak it as my mother languague, who knows.



Again, it's not about not wanting to learn other languages, and it's not about laziness. I think it's a great idea, but one must evaluate the reality and practicality of the matter. It would be great, but we have to fix some things first.


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## Naren (Jul 10, 2008)

I'm all for what Obama is proposing.

However, like TomAwesome and JBroll have said, they would HAVE to fix the hopelessly broken US education system for this to even have a chance of working.



Guitarwizard said:


> So where do you think is the problem, if it works everywhere but not in North-America?



It works pretty well in Europe.

It works to a much lesser degree in Africa and South America, but has a good success rate.

It works to an even lesser degree in Asia, differing from country to country.

It doesn't work AT ALL in Japan. Japanese kids are forced to take 6 years of mandatory English in junior high and high school and, if they go to college, they're forced to take another 1-2 years. They can read some basic English, but they can't speak it at all or understand it when it's spoken. They can barely read it and barely write it.

In Japan's case, the problem is the way it's taught. I could spend days talking on that, but I won't.

South Korea is the best out of East Asian countries in English language training, but they're still nowhere near Europe's level (except for maybe Singapore, where English is the official language. But they can even be worse than South Korea because they combine Chinese, Malay, and English together into a language called Singlish that no American, Canadian, British, or Australian would be able to understand). Of course, Europe oftentimes feels like they have to learn other languages and, since English is a Germanic language with lots of Romantic language influence in it, most European languages are close enough to English that it's easy to learn.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 10, 2008)

Desecrated said:


> Enough pressure ??



Are you serious? Didn't you read my post?

You have how many different countries within driving distance from you, speaking how many different languages, all part of the EU? And that's like the US how...?

I'm not saying it's a choice, I'm saying it's a reality. You don't even live in the US. You know how often, especially here in America's heartland, I even _hear_ a foreign language? Unless I'm watching Telemundo, or my Mexican neighbors are playing some of their folk music, never. 

Never.

Trust me. There is very little social impetus to learn many languages here. Again, I'm agreeing it's a good idea to learn, but just as necessity is the mother of invention, so too is it the mother of language acquisition, generally speaking. 

Did you even read the part about the Navajo? Over 200,000 people, who live together, and historically spoke the same language, and it's almost dead. No social impetus.


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## DslDwg (Jul 10, 2008)

I'm curious why it has to be Spanish? With our French Canadian brothers to the North and the amount of business we are doing with China - why not French or Chinese. Maybe it's just because the politicians want to cater to a certain group of people they would like to vote for them. 

I'm all about learning different languages - I am very jealous of the Europeans that know multiple languages. However, I think in America we wait until too late. Seems to me that a new language is better absorbed by a younger mind. Most Americans don't have any formal foreign language education until high school. 

Then if Spanish is mandatory how about making English mandatory for the young Mexicans attending our schools - instead of creating Spanish language classes for them (at our tax payers expense).


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## Celiak (Jul 10, 2008)

I find that kind of offensive too. I can speak fluent Spanish but that doesn't mean I should have had to learn if I didn't want to. I don't think we should have an official language either and it is good to learn other peoples languages especially when you go to their country. However, the way words things and says them is very hostile.

I really am not happy with him at all but the alternative is worse. We really need to get away from this two party system.


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## Desecrated (Jul 10, 2008)

JJ Rodriguez said:


> I don't know why it doesn't work here, different attitudes maybe? I just don't have the facility to learn another language, I'm just good at math and computers. For other people though, I have no idea. People around here just don't care. French actually would be pretty damn useful here, as there's french people everywhere. I'm sure if I had applied myself I COULD have learned french half decently, but when you're 6 years old, you hate school, and you just don't have the natural talent for it, you really just don't give a shit. Hind sight is 20/20 right?



I've meet many Canadians who spoke but french and english very well and sometimes a third language on top of that. Maybe they had french speaking parents.


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## Desecrated (Jul 10, 2008)

The Dark Wolf said:


> Are you serious? Didn't you read my post?
> 
> You have how many different countries within driving distance from you, speaking how many different languages, all part of the EU? And that's like the US how...?
> 
> ...



There are more people from different nations living inside the usa then we europeans have access to, both in number and in percent. If you live in the north of sweden and avoid tourist attraction you will probably never meet somebody who doesn't speak swedish. 
BUT if you want to do more with your life then just spend your days playing xbox in your mothers basement, learning languages and traveling is a really fun thing to do  

I learned sign-language, there is less then 200.000 deaf people in sweden, it was fun and a challenge, so navajo could still be learned by an outsider if you have the interest.


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## Makelele (Jul 10, 2008)

I think the biggest problem with learning languages in schools is that you just don't use them enough if you just go to the lessons at school and do your homework at home. Also, after you finish school the language skills quickly fade away if not used. I actually just learned the basics of English at school, but got the rest from computer games, music, television (thank God that TV shows or movies aren't dubbed over here) etc. as I'm sure most others on this forum whose first language isn't English. That's also how I've maintained my knowledge of English. 

I'm still far from being at a native speakers level, but I guess the only way to get to that level is to spend some time in a country where it's spoken.

I also studied German for 5 years in junior and senior high school, but I can't really speak or write it very well anymore. I do, however, understand it quite well, still. so I can still see some point in learning languages.

The biggest problem with forcing people to learn other languages is that they're rarely motivated to learn languages they've got no use for. So, someone in the northern parts of the USA who never needs Spanish for anything probably doesn't see the need for it. That's actually a big issue in Finland, where Swedish is taught in schools. The Finnish kids in eastern Finland don't really see a point in learning Swedish because they never hear it anyway. In southwestern Finland there are lots of Swedish speaking people, so there the teaching isn't as disliked as in the east.

Then again, it might come in handy later in life when you're in contact with foreign companies and so on, because even if you speak a language badly, people respect if you try to speak to them in their own language. That's what a lot of people come to see later in life.


Edit: BTW, I've learned Finnish and Swedish at home from my parents when I was a kid, learned English at school and at home, and German at school. The ones I've learned the earliest and used the most are, not surprisingly, the ones I know best ( I'm about equally good at Finnish and Swedish).


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## Guitarwizard (Jul 10, 2008)

Naren said:


> It works pretty well in Europe.
> It works to a much lesser degree in Africa and South America, but has a good success rate.
> It works to an even lesser degree in Asia, differing from country to country.
> It doesn't work AT ALL in Japan. Japanese kids are forced to take 6 years of mandatory English in junior high and high school and, if they go to college, they're forced to take another 1-2 years. They can read some basic English, but they can't speak it at all or understand it when it's spoken. They can barely read it and barely write it.



With "everywhere", I actually ment everywhere in the western world, without thinking about Asian and South American countries. Sorry for that.
I didn't know about the circumstances in Japan though.

@TomAwesome: To be honest, I don't have much of an idea of what your school system is lacking or what the issues are there.
However it's mostly just my general opinion about what's really importat education: Actually gaining a critical overview of the world and having a broad horizon (is that spelled right? ), instead of just learning theories and stuff in math and so on.
But that's a topic on it's own..


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## Groff (Jul 10, 2008)

I'm gonna have to agree with him on that point. But not only spanish, learn as many as you can, why not? I wouldn't mind knowing a few languages.


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## TomAwesome (Jul 10, 2008)

DslDwg said:


> I'm curious why it has to be Spanish? With our French Canadian brothers to the North and the amount of business we are doing with China - why not French or Chinese. Maybe it's just because the politicians want to cater to a certain group of people they would like to vote for them.
> 
> ...
> 
> Then if Spanish is mandatory how about making English mandatory for the young Mexicans attending our schools - instead of creating Spanish language classes for them (at our tax payers expense).



If this does go through, and if it is centered around Spanish, I will be pissed, because then it is obviously pandering to the immigrants. I have no problem with the Spanish language, and I have no problem with Mexicans who come here legally, but (maybe because of where I live) it's a huge issue to me when people come over here, refuse to learn our language, expect us to bend over backwards and waste money pandering to them... and then even more so when it actually happens like that. If I was going to move to France, I'd learn French. Common sense.



Desecrated said:


> There are more people from different nations living inside the usa then we europeans have access to, both in number and in percent. If you live in the north of sweden and avoid tourist attraction you will probably never meet somebody who doesn't speak swedish.
> BUT if you want to do more with your life then just spend your days playing xbox in your mothers basement, learning languages and traveling is a really fun thing to do
> 
> I learned sign-language, there is less then 200.000 deaf people in sweden, it was fun and a challenge, so navajo could still be learned by an outsider if you have the interest.



Sorry, but that's not really a very accurate analogy. Most of the people who move here from other countries do speak English. Living among people who are bilingual in various languages is a far cry from living so close to other countries that speak different languages. You're right that a person who has interest in learning a different language can do so, but that's really aside from the point of this whole discussion that's going on here. The whole interest issue kind of works with my point, too, though. Here there's not as much interest in learning another language. Aside from areas like the southern boundaries of the country, most people have no real use for learning another language aside from just for the fun of it. Most Americans are pretty far away from regular use of foreign language.



Guitarwizard said:


> @TomAwesome: To be honest, I don't have much of an idea of what your school system is lacking or what the issues are there.
> However it's mostly just my general opinion about what's really importat education: Actually gaining a critical overview of the world and having a broad horizon (is that spelled right? ), instead of just learning theories and stuff in math and so on.
> But that's a topic on it's own..



The funny thing is that line about "gaining a critical overview of the world and having a broad horizon" (yes, that's spelled right ) is exactly why I feel having a good fundamental understanding of math, science, history, literature, etc is so important.


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## Desecrated (Jul 10, 2008)

TomAwesome said:


> If this does go through, and if it is centered around Spanish, I will be pissed, because then it is obviously pandering to the immigrants. I have no problem with the Spanish language, and I have no problem with Mexicans who come here legally, but (maybe because of where I live) it's a huge issue to me when people come over here, refuse to learn our language, expect us to bend over backwards and waste money pandering to them... and then even more so when it actually happens like that. If I was going to move to France, I'd learn French. Common sense.
> 
> Sorry, but that's not really a very accurate analogy. Most of the people who move here from other countries do speak English. Living among people who are bilingual in various languages is a far cry from living so close to other countries that speak different languages. You're right that a person who has interest in learning a different language can do so, but that's really aside from the point of this whole discussion that's going on here. The whole interest issue kind of works with my point, too, though. Here there's not as much interest in learning another language. Aside from areas like the southern boundaries of the country, most people have no real use for learning another language aside from just for the fun of it. Most Americans are pretty far away from regular use of foreign language.



There are 28 million people in america who speaks spanish, next is french, chinese and german with about a million people each. I just find it very odd that so many americans don't have an interest in learning a language when almost 10% of the population is speaking it.


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## darren (Jul 10, 2008)

Spanish? Everyone should learn to speak Chinese so we can converse with our Asian overlords when they buy the rest of the planet.


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## DslDwg (Jul 10, 2008)

Desecrated said:


> There are 28 million people in america who speaks spanish, next is french, chinese and german with about a million people each. I just find it very odd that so many americans don't have an interest in learning a language when almost 10% of the population is speaking it.


Your assuming that those 10% are all speaking Spanish - My opinion is that most of those 10% are permanent residents or citizens of the U.S. and have assimilated with our culture. The real issue is the illegal immigrants which represent a whole separate group of people. The media estimates as many as 20 million undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. and that's really what is driving the Spanish language discussion. 

If you want to see someone really get fired up about this topic talk to a Mexican American who immigrated to this country and has assimilated in our culture. They hate the idea of the illegals not assimilating into the culture worse than the whites do. Or at least they are more passionate about it.


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## TomAwesome (Jul 10, 2008)

Desecrated said:


> There are 28 million people in america who speaks spanish, next is french, chinese and german with about a million people each. I just find it very odd that so many americans don't have an interest in learning a language when almost 10% of the population is speaking it.



There are a lot of people who speak other languages, but most of them also speak English, and when they're going about their day, they speak English.



DslDwg said:


> Your assuming that those 10% are all speaking Spanish - My opinion is that most of those 10% are permanent residents or citizens of the U.S. and have assimilated with our culture. The real issue is the illegal immigrants which represent a whole separate group of people. The media estimates as many as 20 million undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. and that's really what is driving the Spanish language discussion.
> 
> If you want to see someone really get fired up about this topic talk to a Mexican American who immigrated to this country and has assimilated in our culture. They hate the idea of the illegals not assimilating into the culture worse than the whites do. Or at least they are more passionate about it.


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## DslDwg (Jul 10, 2008)

Desecrated said:


> There are 28 million people in america who speaks spanish, next is french, chinese and german with about a million people each. I just find it very odd that so many americans don't have an interest in learning a language when almost 10% of the population is speaking it.


I misunderstood that you were saying 10% are speaking not 10% are Mexican. I also find it very odd that since over 80% of Americans do speak English why those 10% find no value in learning English.


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## Guitarwizard (Jul 10, 2008)

TomAwesome said:


> The funny thing is that line about "gaining a critical overview of the world and having a broad horizon" (yes, that's spelled right ) is exactly why I feel having a good fundamental understanding of math, science, history, literature, etc is so important.



I totally agree with you with history and literature. These are probably even more important than languagues.

..Math, though, is another story. 
But let's get bacl to the actual topic..


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## chaztrip (Jul 10, 2008)

DslDwg said:


> I'm curious why it has to be Spanish? With our French Canadian brothers to the North and the amount of business we are doing with China - why not French or Chinese. Maybe it's just because the politicians want to cater to a certain group of people they would like to vote for them.




See that is what I think that whole speach was all about...... was him trying to garner votes from the uhhh uhhhh certain group....


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## TomAwesome (Jul 10, 2008)

Getting votes from the illegals you mean?


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## chaztrip (Jul 10, 2008)

TomAwesome said:


> Getting votes from the illegals you mean?




Tom, I am not sure what I mean as I need to tread this water carfully


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## TomAwesome (Jul 10, 2008)

I just mean that if he's trying to get votes from the illegals, his time would be better spent elsewhere since they can't vote.


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## chaztrip (Jul 10, 2008)

TomAwesome said:


> I just mean that if he's trying to get votes from the illegals, his time would be better spent elsewhere since they can't vote.



Dont be so sure of that.....


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## King_nothing621 (Jul 10, 2008)

I think it should not be forced for everyone to learn it. Although it would help a lot espcially in the area I am in. I really think it's unfair that people will come to this country without knowing the language and force us to adapt. But change is inevitable.


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## JBroll (Jul 10, 2008)

TomAwesome said:


> I just mean that if he's trying to get votes from the illegals, his time would be better spent elsewhere since they can't vote.



Actually they can, but they have to pretend to be dead Republicans.

Jeff


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## Nerina (Jul 10, 2008)

TomAwesome said:


> I disagree at this point in time just because if there was a movement to teach American kids Spanish, it would probably end up making the existing problem with immigrants not wanting to learn/speak English even worse. As it is, I hear mostly Spanish whenever I go anywhere.  Aside from that, though, I agree that it's a good idea teaching our kids multiple languages.



I understand your point here. In South Florida as you know we have a HUGE spanish population, and forget Miami, THE COPS down there dont even speak english half the time, thats a big  

More than once I have been in Miami, and needed directions and couldnt find a person that could tell me in enlgish, thank god I wasnt dying and needed a hospital.....

Your point about it making it worse between immigrants and english speakers I also understand. On numerous occasions I have walked into a store, especially like Macy's or Sears,and others, and when I ask for help, the first response I get is "Habla espanol?' and when I say 'no' I get looked at like I'm completely retarded. Other times all the staff starts running around like chickens with no head trying to find someone who speaks english, very bad for business IMO.

Not all, but a lot of the spanish community (at least in south florida) seem to think that we have to learn spanish to do business or otherwise communicate with them, which is is a huge turn off in itself. If we start making it mandatory for kids to learn spanish in school FOR THAT SPECIFIC REASON, it will cause huge issues. The ones who are willing to learn english, I have no problem with them whatsoever, and I'm sure no one else does either. 

This is how I look at it: I actually love the fact that we have so many different languages and cultures in the world,I appreciate the diffrences, and I respect them. I would love to be fluent in French, Italian and Spanish, BUT, I do not like the fact that I feel forced or pressured into it. THAT is the difference. THAT is the turn off. I have spanish friends, and I talk to them in the little spanish I know, and we help eachother with our languages, we learn from eachother, that is how it should be. But for an American to feel that in his own country he has to learn a language just because the speakers of that language wont budge and learn HIS language, that is just disrespectful, and its wrong. I would NEVER go to another country, and expect to only talk to them in english! WTF is that? 




TomAwesome said:


> Actually, now that I think about it, we should focus more on teaching English in our schools. Seriously. The vast majority of people I come into contact with are horrible with their own native language. They can't speak it, read it, or write it half properly. It's pathetic. How the hell can we seriously consider pushing foreign languages on our kids when nobody is even learning their own language properly?



I cant argue with you here. In some states the literacy rate is high, and others, well.......



Brendan G said:


> I think if you are going to a country that speaks a different language, you should learn that language. If I were to go to Italy I would learn Italian, if I were to go to Mexico I would learn Spanish and so on, because I respect their culture enough to learn the language. Honestly I think that immigrants should respect the culture of the country they are immigrating to by learning the language, instead of bitching about how the people of the other country aren't respecting their culture. On one hand I agree with Obama if one learns a different language then they might be interested in the Countries culture and in turn becoming multi-cultural. On the other hand, if you force the language upon them then more problems would occur.



 I couldnt say this any better. 



The Dark Wolf said:


> I'm all for learning new languages, and I think Ken is dead right. It's be great to have more options, and more time dedicated to foreign languages at the primary school level.
> 
> But. You guys are overlooking one huge thing. Especially you Europeans.
> 
> ...



I see your point, and you are correct. European countries are closer together and already had a close network of multi lingual and multi cultural transactions happening, which is more of a reason for them to have more than one language at their command. 

In the US, I feel offering, not forcing, kids to learn a language can only be a good thing,open their eyes to the rest of the world and its cultures.




The Dark Wolf said:


> You miss the point.
> 
> What pressure drives it? Nothing. Maybe Spanish and Mexican immigrants... and that's the exact debate that's going on here. But for Europe, with so many countries and cultures, there's a lot of pressure to learn and know multiple languages.
> 
> ...



I agree with you on this too, but just for arguments sake I'm gonna say this.... As far as business, and government goes, wouldnt it be nice to have an american get called up for translation insteead of having to fly someone over that speaks a certain language? Like after 911, the government was begging for people that spoke arabic etc, if more people were interested in foreign languages, perhaps, perhaps, this wouldnt be a problem.....?




TomAwesome said:


> You're right, though! Except that there are actually parts of the country (like down here for instance) where being bilingual is becoming somewhere between practical and necessary. Job hunting down here is a lot more difficult than it should be if you're monolingual, since almost any employer will want you to be bilingual. Unfortunately for me, my Spanish sucks.



Yup, been there, done that. I live in America, I dont see why I cant get a job if Im not fluent in Spanish......and like I said, I do speak some spanish, but thats kinda bullshit if I cant get a job to feed myself because I cant speak perfect spanish to people that wont speak english, but anyway, I already stated my opinion on that one.....


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## wes225 (Jul 10, 2008)

honestly. i think it should be the persons choice wether they learn a language or not. ive tried to learn spanish but i really can't get through the lessons and such. im gunna leave there i have have a fuckin headache that hurts like hell


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## Xaios (Jul 11, 2008)

Just so the non-canucks in the crowd are aware, French *IS* considered to be one of Canada's official languages. In Quebec, which is the second largest province in Canada at 7.7 million people, French is THE official language. Outside of Montreal, which is the second largest french speaking city in the world after Paris, France, most Quebecers are not profficient English speakers.

Why? Like as has been said, geographical proximity.

The areas of Canada which are most bilingual are the areas resting around the borders between Quebec and Ontario, as well as Quebec and the maritime provinces, because they're the only ones who will typically make use of both languages on a regular basis. In western Canada, if you go anywhere between Alberta and Central Ontario, you will not have use for a language aside from English, not even remotely. The only part of Western Canada where it may be handy to know another language is in the greater Vancouver area, as it has a large Asian population. Still, it's certainly not a necessity.

There are some small exceptions, here in the North. In Nunavut Territory, Inuktitut is the first language of most residents. Still, Nunavut is home to only 30,000 people, spread out over an area very nearly the size of Greenland. Plus, saying it's out of the way is an understatement to end all understatements. Most of the territory lies inside the Arctic Circle, as does most of the population. The territory mainly consists of most of the arctic archipelago. Getting just about anywhere there requires either a plane or a boat, as it well and truly has almost NO paved roads. Heck, even unpaved roads are a rarity outside of Iqaluit. It is isolated, in the truest sense, so obviously they don't really have an awful lot of use for English, aside from Government.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I may add to it later.


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## Guitarwizard (Jul 11, 2008)

Xaios said:


> Why? Like as has been said, geographical proximity.



That's pretty much the main factor, I think. 
In most European places, you can drive 5 hours with your car, and the people speak something totally diffrent.
Switzerland might be one of the countries where this happens most, as we have 4 languagues in a country as big as Massachusetts, with only 7 million habitants.
Danemark has pretty much the same thing going on..


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## Zepp88 (Jul 11, 2008)

I could see reason for the United States at some point to become fully bilingual, and have Spanish and English taught the same.

I don't particularly LIKE the idea, but it might become a neccessity, as I'm sure is the case in Canada, why would somebody in Ontario want to speak french?


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## daybean (Jul 11, 2008)

im hispanic and i speak english and spanish. spanish classes shoud be at someones own will, and not forced. however since we (americans) live in a nation of alot of latinos (alot), this may not be a bad idea. if you choose not to learn spanish, thats your right and thats fine, but why would we want to learn french or something not common in america, if you are planning staying in the states. lets face it a latino invation is already on the way.
we should all also learn to play the bajosexto for us guitar players too !!!


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## Zepp88 (Jul 11, 2008)

It's not like latino population is going to suddenly vanish,  Unfortunately though not all of them want to learn english, or they just struggle with it.

So, as long as American business owners will hire illegals and pay them under the table, they'll keep coming, and I know it sucks but I'm tired of hearing the "speeek english retards!" and the "They tuk er jerbs!" nonsense, hell half of the BPs are hispanic and are hard to understand.


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## daybean (Jul 11, 2008)

well i work for a school down here in south texas, and alot of the students do not speak english, and are americans. they need to be learn both, and if you dont learn english, well your fucked. also, alot is with the parents, they need to teach the kids more english, alot more.


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## daybean (Jul 11, 2008)

Zepp88 said:


> It's not like latino population is going to suddenly vanish,
> So, as long as American business owners will hire illegals and pay them under the table, they'll keep coming, and I know it sucks but I'm tired of hearing the "speeek english retards!" and the "They tuk er jerbs!" nonsense, hell half of the BPs are hispanic and are hard to understand.



i hope you see tHAT most of this shit is racist. and i know that we will never go away, they are allready here!!!!

^^^NO IT WAS NOT RACIST, I WAS DRUNK LAST NIGHT AND MISINTERPETED THE WHOLE THING!!!!^^^

SORRY ZEPP, YOUR A GOOD GUY


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## Zepp88 (Jul 11, 2008)

Yeah, it's a complicated multi sided situation......

It's fine if they want to come to America to work and make a living, but not illegally...the language barrier is tough, because for some it's hard to learn a new language, but they should TRY, and I feel that some have no intention of doing that.

If it wasn't for dishonest American buisiness owners this wouldn't be much of a problem....


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## Zepp88 (Jul 11, 2008)

daybean said:


> i hope you see tHAT most of this is racist.



What, my words, or the retards that I was mocking?


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## daybean (Jul 11, 2008)

Zepp88 said:


> What, my words, or the retards that I was mocking?



the retard part kinda jump out


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## Zepp88 (Jul 11, 2008)

daybean said:


> the retard part kinda jump out



Oh yeah, lotttttssss of racism going on of course. Out of curiosity, if you don't mind, have you even encountered racism like this that was physical in any way? I mean stuff more serious than idiots with picket signs?


I hope that you didn't misinterpret what I said as racist.


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## daybean (Jul 11, 2008)

Zepp88 said:


> Oh yeah, lotttttssss of racism going on of course. Out of curiosity, if you don't mind, have you even encountered racism like this that was physical in any way? I mean stuff more serious than idiots with picket signs?
> 
> 
> I hope that you didn't misinterpret what I said as racist.



ffffffuuuucccckkkkk yeah!!! i travel anywhere beyond texas and ill get pulled over, and harassment by cops. even in parts of texas i have to be careful. look i didnt mean to say you were a racist, i thought you were sick of illegals working for americans and could not speak english.
if i was wrong sorry.


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## Zepp88 (Jul 11, 2008)

What I'm tired of, is American buisiness owners enabling illegal immigration (giving them a reason to come in illegally basically) and then complaining about it. 

I have absolutely no problem with people trying to make a better living for themselves, but I would ask them to do it legally and to at least try to learn the language of the country (at least the most widely used or "official" language). I also don't really claim to have a solution to make everyone get along  But, we can start with honest Americans.

Also, they should bring us all bajo sextos, that would rock


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 11, 2008)

Nerina said:


> I see your point, and you are correct. European countries are closer together and already had a close network of multi lingual and multi cultural transactions happening, which is more of a reason for them to have more than one language at their command.
> 
> In the US, I feel offering, not forcing, kids to learn a language can only be a good thing,open their eyes to the rest of the world and its cultures.



Totally agree, Nerina. And that's my point.

I think it would be GREAT for us Americans to learn new languages. I also think it would be great if Americans ate less and exercised more. Does that mean those things are gonna happen on a large scale?

Nope.

At least, not if things stay the way they are. There's no driving force that impels us to acquire new languages, or retain them. Even if I busted my ass and learned a new language, if it wasn't Spanish, I'd be hard pressed here to even use it. And even Spanish wouldn't be the easiest thing. My cousin is staying over tonight, and he speaks 3 languages _fluently_, and completely agrees with me.


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## daybean (Jul 11, 2008)

Zepp88 said:


> What I'm tired of, is American buisiness owners enabling illegal immigration (giving them a reason to come in illegally basically) and then complaining about it.
> 
> I have absolutely no problem with people trying to make a better living for themselves, but I would ask them to do it illegally and to at least try to learn the language of the country (at least the most widely used or "official" language). I also don't really claim to have a solution to make everyone get along  But, we can start with honest Americans.
> 
> Also, they sound bring us all bajo sextos, that would rock




dont forget the tequila 

wow a bajo sexto and some tequila sound good to me!


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## Naren (Jul 11, 2008)

Zepp88 said:


> I have absolutely no problem with people trying to make a better living for themselves, *but I would ask them to do it illegally* and to at least try to learn the language of the country (at least the most widely used or "official" language). I also don't really claim to have a solution to make everyone get along  But, we can start with honest Americans.



 WWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!??!


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## Zepp88 (Jul 11, 2008)

Ahh shit did I say that? 

Fucking fail....


I've gotta go fix that...


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## loktide (Jul 11, 2008)

hehe, obama's right.

not trying to show off, but i'm german and also speak spanish and english.


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## Zepp88 (Jul 11, 2008)

Eh, most Europeans I've spoken to are multilingual, no boasting there really.

I just hope for Americans to get the point about being part of the world, and not so narrow minded...


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## loktide (Jul 11, 2008)

Zepp88 said:


> I just hope for Americans to get the point about being part of the world, and not so narrow minded...



exactly.


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## ZeroSignal (Jul 11, 2008)

DslDwg said:


> I also find it very odd that since over *80%* of Americans do speak English why those *10%* find no value in learning English.



Erm... 

80% + 10% = 90%

Or are you taking into account other ethnic minorities?


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## DslDwg (Jul 11, 2008)

ZeroSignal said:


> Erm...
> 
> 80% + 10% = 90%
> 
> Or are you taking into account other ethnic minorities?



Yeah according to census results that's about the break down of English and Spanish speakers in the U.S. the other 10% are a mix of other languages. I just find it funny that my wife who is an immigrant speaks English (not her first language) and during her schooling she was taught English - and she comes from half way around the world. However people who want to come and work and live in the U.S. have no desire at all to do the same. It really is just a political issue.


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## JJ Rodriguez (Jul 11, 2008)

daybean said:


> dont forget the tequila
> 
> wow a bajo sexto and some tequila sound good to me!



I bet it does 

[/racism]


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## BigM555 (Jul 11, 2008)

Okay, I've been watching this thread and just can't help but throw my opinions on the fire....

I think enhancing the capabilities of American youth was Obama's point. Spanish just happened to be the language _du jour_. *That's* why he jumped to talking about Europe and French.
man some people are just too literal

I have to agree with him. On a business trip to France and Germany last year I was literally embarrassed by my ignorant colleagues "expecting" to be able to simply speak English to everyone and be understood. Some of them thought it might be disrespectful to massacre the local dialect (or at least used that as an excuse). They poked fun at me for trying to "blend". You know what though? I actually asked some of the locals what their opinions were. They _prefer_ when foreigners show an attempt to use the local language. And really, aren't we the same?

In regards to "driving forces", it's here, you just may not be recognizing it. Pretty much every economic and business research study completed in the past decade has highlighted the increase in globalization and diversity. The world is metaphorically a much smaller place than it used to be. Expecting everyone else to learn English because it is "sort of" the standard today is ridiculous and short sighted.

As far as fixing the rest of the North American (yes Canada is included too) school system, well, you have to start somewhere. You can criticize the current system and suggestions to change it all you want but that's never going to actually change anything. At some point a decision has to be made to *actually do something*. Sitting around _waiting_ for the right answer is contemptible at best.

[/rant]


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## Nerina (Jul 11, 2008)

The Dark Wolf said:


> Totally agree, Nerina. And that's my point.
> 
> I think it would be GREAT for us Americans to learn new languages. I also think it would be great if Americans ate less and exercised more. Does that mean those things are gonna happen on a large scale?
> 
> ...




Yup  This is the exact reason I have a grudge against my father. 

Get this, my father is Italian, and he's fluent in Italian,English,Spanish and French, can speak Portuguese too and was learning Arabic for fun. 

My mother is Scottish and speaks English,Italian and French, but dosent speak Italian as well as my dad, so, she tried to get my dad to teach me and my brother Italian since we were born, at least we would have had two languages, and also, me and my brother are Italian citizens, and it would be a major plus when visiting family to be able to communicate with them, heck, even live or work in Italy. 

But no, my father never taught us, because his point was that me and my brother would never NEED to know the language.

Now that I'm much older I have taken it upon myself to learn French first, (with the help of playstoppause, and grom and others...French thread). THEN I will will learn Italian. And because I am doing this at a later age, its so much harder and tough, and I will probably never sound like a real Italian when I speak it, and for that, I will always be pissed at him. 

So for me, I had/have a need for a language, but your point is valid, unless there is a need then there is really no driving force, unless like a very small percentage of people that learn purely for fun or just to travel. 

And like you said, the fact that the US is such a huge country, and the official language is English, how would anything be done on a large scale? That would take years if done at all.



BigM555 said:


> Okay, I've been watching this thread and just can't help but throw my opinions on the fire....
> 
> I think enhancing the capabilities of American youth was Obama's point. Spanish just happened to be the language _du jour_. *That's* why he jumped to talking about Europe and French.
> man some people are just too literal
> ...




You are completely right, and I admire your willingless to blend in, and learn from other people, as I am the same way. The thing with the US, which I think most people are trying to say, is simply the fact that the US has so many people who really are out in an area where they dont need to speak anything but English. 

In my situation I live in South Florida and down in Miami everyone speaks Spanish, so knowing a few words can help, but if I was in the middle of Kansas, who would I speak Spanish to? 

Loving languages and wanted to learn and discover other cultures is a wonderful thing, and I am wholeheartedly for that,because I do too, but in most cases the human brain is lazy and until a need comes along, no learning will be done. There might be a need in some states, like florida, california, and texas, but in other states there just isnt. Which is not to say that no one should be interested in the rest of the world and its languages, its just that to implement languages into a school system all at once will take years if it is done, because of the immense size of this country, coupled with the fact that it will need to be standardized, as is math, and other subjects. 
And to add to this, some states are already so backwards with the math and english, that adding a new language at a young age might prove to be disasterous. 

As far as a need already being here, and the US not recognizing it, you are probably right, the first thing that springs to mind for me is business,like you said. I'm pretty sure a lot of business is lost between us and other countries simply because we lack people that speak other languages. 
The sad thing though, is that other countries realise this, and instead of asking us to learn some of thier language, they simply find someone from their side that speaks english, because its much more likey to find people from other countries that speak a little English than to randomly find an american that happens to speak French, etc. This is why people will still argue against you that there is no real pressuring need, we can be lazy and just expect others to speak to us in English, because it happens so often, its pathetic, but it happens all the time.


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## Jason (Jul 11, 2008)

Fuck.. Sign me up for president  I said this before. I think it is ignorant for Americans to be "Were only going speak ENGLISH!!"


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## Jason (Jul 11, 2008)

DslDwg said:


> I'm curious why it has to be Spanish? With our French Canadian brothers to the North and the amount of business we are doing with China - why not French or Chinese. Maybe it's just because the politicians want to cater to a certain group of people they would like to vote for them.
> 
> I'm all about learning different languages - I am very jealous of the Europeans that know multiple languages. However, I think in America we wait until too late. Seems to me that a new language is better absorbed by a younger mind. Most Americans don't have any formal foreign language education until high school.
> 
> Then if Spanish is mandatory how about making English mandatory for the young Mexicans attending our schools - instead of creating Spanish language classes for them (at our tax payers expense).



Maybe cause people of SPANISH decent are the main group of immigrants. Yeah we do business with China doesn't mean everyone will speak with the chinese BUT more people will encounter spanish speaking people.


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## HighGain510 (Jul 11, 2008)

Hispanics are the # 1 minority group in the country now. He is going to go with the majority in the hopes that they will see him as hispanic-friendly and get his vote. Common sense for him...


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## daybean (Jul 11, 2008)

JJ Rodriguez said:


> I bet it does
> 
> [/racism]





racist agaisnt my kind of people , and i like playing the bajo sexto and drinking tequila.


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## Naren (Jul 11, 2008)

The thing that annoys me most where I live is when I see American tourists (Europeans sometimes do this tooo, but I see it most often with Americans and British tourists - especially middle aged ones), complaining that some Japanese person can't understand English. Well, of course they can't speak English. This is fucking Japan, not the U.S. or Canada. If you want to visit for just a few days, then I guess you don't have to learn Japanese, but why should they speak your language on the other side of the world?

90% of my friends in Japan are Japanese and the other 10% are non-Japanese who can speak Japanese. Generally an understanding of the language means an understanding of the culture. I used to know a Canadian guy and an American girl who I never wanted to be around because they would always complain about those Japanese people. They couldn't understand Japanese at all and, as you could guess, they didn't understand Japan at all. Don't complain about a foreigner's English not being good when they've never even been to an English speaking country. You're not in the position to criticize their English when you can't even speak their language at all. 

Mm. Just one of the things that really ticks me off.


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## JJ Rodriguez (Jul 11, 2008)

daybean said:


> racist agaisnt my kind of people , and i like playing the bajo sexto and drinking tequila.




Dude, I was making a joke, saying of course you would like tequila and stuff, you're hispanic. I wasn't saying YOU'RE racist. The end racist HTML tag was to depict it was the end of my racist comment


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## JJ Rodriguez (Jul 11, 2008)

Naren said:


> The thing that annoys me most where I live is when I see American tourists (Europeans sometimes do this tooo, but I see it most often with Americans and British tourists - especially middle aged ones), complaining that some Japanese person can't understand English. Well, of course they can't speak English. This is fucking Japan, not the U.S. or Canada. If you want to visit for just a few days, then I guess you don't have to learn Japanese, but why should they speak your language on the other side of the world?
> 
> 90% of my friends in Japan are Japanese and the other 10% are non-Japanese who can speak Japanese. Generally an understanding of the language means an understanding of the culture. I used to know a Canadian guy and an American girl who I never wanted to be around because they would always complain about those Japanese people. They couldn't understand Japanese at all and, as you could guess, they didn't understand Japan at all. Don't complain about a foreigner's English not being good when they've never even been to an English speaking country. You're not in the position to criticize their English when you can't even speak their language at all.
> 
> Mm. Just one of the things that really ticks me off.



I find it funny when foreign people apolagize for having shitty english. I always just say "You're English is way better than my German/Japanese/Indian/Whatever"


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## daybean (Jul 11, 2008)

JJ Rodriguez said:


> Dude, I was making a joke, saying of course you would like tequila and stuff, you're hispanic. I wasn't saying YOU'RE racist. The end racist HTML tag was to depict it was the end of my racist comment





oh sorry,


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## JBroll (Jul 11, 2008)

JJ Rodriguez said:


> I find it funny when foreign people apolagize for having shitty english. I always just say "You're English is way better than my English"



The equivalent statement for Americans...

Jeff


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## Naren (Jul 11, 2008)

JBroll said:


> The equivalent statement for Americans...
> 
> Jeff



Well, at least for those ghetto kids you were talking about in the other thread.


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## BigM555 (Jul 11, 2008)

Nerina said:


> The sad thing though, is that other countries realise this, and instead of asking us to learn some of thier language, they simply find someone from their side that speaks english, because its much more likey to find people from other countries that speak a little English than to randomly find an american that happens to speak French, etc. This is why people will still argue against you that there is no real pressuring need, we can be lazy and just expect others to speak to us in English, because it happens so often, its pathetic, but it happens all the time.



I agree this has always been the case and it is the basis for the argument. But the tides are already changing. Mandarin Chinese and Spanish are the two most popular languages spoken in the world.

Top 100 Languages by Population - First Language Speakers

As the economies of these countries envelope those of North America they are going to be less willing to make the effort to know "our" language.

The question then becomes; Do you want to be proactive and start the process of assuring continued communication and interaction now or wait until you have a need?

The difference between a _manager_ and a _leader_ is that the manager solves problems that already exist. The leader should formulate strategies to steer toward a better sustainable future.


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## El Caco (Jul 12, 2008)

Obama was not saying that Spanish is the language every one should learn but that every on should learn a second language and I agree. In the US I think learning French could be very beneficial. I also think that immigrants should have to learn a minimum standard of the native language before their residency status is finalised. I have personal experience with family members who are immigrants, some forced themselves to learn English fluently while others think they speak and understand English well but their English skills are very poor, about the level of a 6-7 year old. I could write a book on the problems that come from their poor grasp of Australian English.



Naren said:


> I'm all for what Obama is proposing.
> 
> However, like TomAwesome and JBroll have said, they would HAVE to fix the hopelessly broken US education system for this to even have a chance of working.
> 
> ...



Totally  

I have to agree with your comments about the way it is taught Eric, when I went to school French and German was compulsory but the way it is taught is useless, later Japanese became an option and now my son is learning Indonesian. The problem is no one learns more than a few words and how to count so by the end of year 10 most students can't speak and it is only if you take language as an elective in year 11 that you start to go on depth. After you leave school you pretty much forget it all.

My son (year 1) is showing promise in Indonesian so we are going to encourage him by continuing his study at home and his teachers are going to arrange advanced tutoring for him at school.

I find Asians very hard to understand, I had a brother in law from Taiwan, when he spoke to me I would just nod and say yes because I could not understand him, he was convinced he spoke great English. He once showed me a business card he designed and I ended up offending him when I pissed myself laughing, I could not help it my kids could have done a better job.

Funniest experience was at a Thai restaurant, the whole time we were there a very bubbly fellow serving us would repeat "Vcum, Vcum", I had no idea what he was going on about and assumed it was something in his native tongue, it wasn't until we were about to leave that I realised he was saying "you're welcome".



Drew said:


> Can't see the video (it's blocked at the office), and I only read the first page, but I agree.
> 
> One of my few regrets about growing up attending a public school district is that I had no mandatory foriegn language instruction prior to my freshman year in high school. It's been demonstrated that it's MUCH easier to learn a new language as a young child than as an adult, and that if you do pick up the language later on in life it's significantly harder to become fluent and even if you do you may never get the accent down, because it becomes harder to learn to make new sounds as you age. I felt kind of cheated, when I went to college and most of my friends were at least brokenly conversant in one or two more languages, if not out and out fluent. Me, I could kind of read Latin.
> 
> ...



You're not alone there, my Dads heritage is Croatian and my mothers is German and neither taught me. My youngest brother and sister speak German. I'm 32 and can count to 10+ and say a few words in 4 foreign languages and nothing else, it's so frustrating that even though I was in a great position to learn at least 2 my parents would not help.


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## Jachop (Jul 12, 2008)

Great idea. I hope that the next government will make responsable decisions when it comes to public schools. More money and resources, and also flexibility, are obviously needed.


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## ZeroSignal (Jul 12, 2008)

BigM555 said:


> I agree this has always been the case and it is the basis for the argument. But the tides are already changing. Mandarin Chinese and Spanish are the two most popular languages spoken in the world.
> 
> Top 100 Languages by Population - First Language Speakers
> 
> ...



Yeah I was kinda thinking that myself... Nice job.


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## JJ Rodriguez (Jul 12, 2008)

s7eve said:


> I find Asians very hard to understand, I had a brother in law from Taiwan, when he spoke to me I would just nod and say yes because I could not understand him, he was convinced he spoke great English. He once showed me a business card he designed and I ended up offending him when I pissed myself laughing, I could not help it my kids could have done a better job.
> 
> Funniest experience was at a Thai restaurant, the whole time we were there a very bubbly fellow serving us would repeat "Vcum, Vcum", I had no idea what he was going on about and assumed it was something in his native tongue, it wasn't until we were about to leave that I realised he was saying "you're welcome".



I'm actually pretty decent at understand Asians and Indians, and pronouncing their names  My company got a contract to set the computers up at a pulp mill that had just been bought by an Indian company, and they sent over a bunch of their management dudes to oversee the startup, so I think I got a lot of practice


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## TheHandOfStone (Jul 12, 2008)

He's probably right. But I'm taking German because it's more fun for me.


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## WarriorOfMetal (Jul 15, 2008)

Man, I should show this thread to my roommate...she'd probably be annoyed, though. I often give her a hard time for her occasionally weak grasp of basic elements of English, and she gets mad at me for it, and then in unrelated arguments will bring that up, saying things like, "your grammar won't get you anywhere in life."


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## El Caco (Jul 15, 2008)

The problem with people I know who have a poor grasp of English is they are constantly being misunderstood and misunderstanding others but they don't understand that it's a communication breakdown as they think that what they understand is what the other person intended and it creates issues that could have been avoided if they both spoke the same language. 

People who have a limited understanding of a language think they are speaking that language but they are not, they are speaking their own corrupted language based on that language and some phrases have very different meanings. I've known my Dad to get in fights when someone is joking and think they are joking when they are insulting him and he is always misunderstanding things he reads or hears in the news which creates the most insane arguments. Yet if you ask him he will tell you that his English skills are perfect.


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## WarriorOfMetal (Jul 15, 2008)

My roommate just got mad at me for correcting her use of the word "your" when it should have been "you're"...saying that "your so annoying...im not gonna take the time to put the 're....stop being a loser"


Ok, so doing it on purpose makes it acceptable? If anything, I'd think that would make it worse. Sure, I often don't bother to capitalize certain proper nouns or first words in sentences when I'm typing on a message board or AIM, but I still use the correct word to express what I'm trying to get across!


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## TomAwesome (Jul 16, 2008)

Oh man, the your/you're thing is a peeve of mine. Don't even get me started on there/their/they're


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