Forget English Only. YOU learn some Spanish

[HockeyMom]

It might help you, and others. I went shopping today in Florida just as the Ross store was opening. There were no other customers in the store, only store employees. By the time I got to the back of the store, I had to go to the Ladies Room very badly, but didn't know where it was. I went up to a woman wearing a store ID and asked where the Ladies Room was. Apparently, she did not speak English and pointed in the direction of the Manager at the front door.

Oh, no. I couldn't wait to walk all the way back there. Without even thinkinng I blurtered out in my 50 year old HS Spanish, "Donde esta EL BANO?". She stopped, turn towards me, and said, "Si, Si, SI!", and then took my hand and lead me to the Ladies Room. I waved her a quick "Gracias", and went in.

Only one other time have I had to actually use in an emergency my HS Spanish. As a teenager in NYC, I once had to "translate" to a police officier what a Spanish only speaking woman in distress needed his help for. All this with only 3 years of classroom Spanish?

My point in this? Learning another language in the USA is not a bad thing, as those English Only advocates would want people to believe. What is wrong with native English speakers learning another language, specially SPANISH? I knew when I had to take Foreign Language in HS 50 years ago that Spanish would be the most practical choice. I do not regret it, at all. I used it in NYC 50 years ago, and have used it "today" many other times in Florida.

[Warpy]

1. I've learned my Spanish through osmosis

first on the Boston subway system and here on the street and in stores. Learning a few phrases (donde esta el bano?) can only help in life and it's not that big a deal, even for people who are linguistic blockheads.

I took French in high school and college and used it quite a bit in Boston. Here, not so much, although I enjoy RFI for news and reading French language papers at Newseum. I'm getting to the point that I'm so out of practice in French that I'm better in a language I never studied, Spanish.

And no, it's not a difficult language.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

44. Did you know there's a Banos California?

We call it Restroom California. We had a few foreclosures there (I work for a mortgage servicing company) and I just thought it was hilarious. I realize Banos means Bath, but we were amused. When you have a job that sucks that bad, you make your own fun.
Duckie

[Warpy]

63. There's a town in NM that's a poorly spelled corruption

of Spanish for "Get out while you can!"

I imagine this state was pure hell for early settlers until they allowed the Pueblo people to show them what to grow and how to manage crops in such an arid climate.

[hlthe2b]

2. Ahh, let the "English only" crowd...

writhe in discomfort... I'm sure they'd prefer that to learning a few useful phrases, after all. And the rest of us can chuckle in all kinds of languages.

[pnorman]

66. I'm opposed to "English Only",

but a clerk or anyone else dealing with the public should be reasonably competent in English.

[renate]

83. I agree, for most cases

I wouldn't expect people running a Korean or Mexican grocery store to speak English, but a store like Ross--definitely. Although again, it might depend on the area. In a neighborhood where everybody, but everybody, speaks a language other than English, it wouldn't be bad business to hire workers who only spoke that language, but otherwise, hiring employees who can't help a significant percentage of the customers just doesn't seem like the best way to provide good service. Like you, I'm not in favor of "English only," but if I moved to another country where English wasn't the predominant language, I would certainly expect to have to learn the basics.

[Motown_Johnny]

3. How about some German too? And some Korean?

And some of every other language that is spoken by immigrants to this country?

I know some Spanish because I worked with any number of people who did not speak English (Pre-Reagan reform). I agree it is a good idea but I don't think it is a good idea to institutionalize one foreign language over all others. It gives an unfair advantage to one group of immigrants over all others.

I'm for English Only because it is the least unfair option.

[HockeyMom]

20. I have been to Germany and Austria

Packed along our English/German dictionary. You know what? We found out that English is a required language in German schools. We TRIED to speak German there, but when the locals found out that we were American, they wanted to practice THEIR ENGLISH on us!

Poland was different. My husband and daughter took a Polish course and proved essential. Outside of major cities, very few people there spoke English.

Today in NYC? Korean probably would be the best language to learn.

[HeiressofBickworth]

37. I had the same experience

I took three years of French in high school. I moved to Germany for two years. During my time there, I never learned German because all of the people I lived around wanted to practice their English.

[2ndAmForComputers]

38. If there were a megabajillion people living here and speaking those languages...

then yes, sure. But that's not the case. It is the case with Spanish.

[Synicus Maximus]

52. But in my neighborhood there are a lot, and I mean a lot more people who speak Korean and various

Chinese dialect than speak Spanish.

[cherokeeprogressive]

60. Or if you're in Orange County, CA, how about some Chinese, Vietnamese, Hindi, and any number of

other languages?

How about governmental agencies whose documents are printed in English, and if a particular community wants or needs those same documents printed in their OWN language, THEY take care of the cost?

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

4. Were all living on this planet together, you figure it out.

What is the best way forward for all of us?

[Cleita]

5. Considering that Florida, like the southwest, California and Texas were originally colonized

by the Spanish, I never understood why the gringos, who came later, would be offended by the language. Since I'm bilingual, having grown up speaking both English and Spanish, I find it a more poetic and elegant language than English, which can be harsh and clumsy at times.

[mitchtv]

6. Precisely Cleita

beautiful ,musical Castellano.

[HockeyMom]

12. I am of Italian heritage

As a young child, my Italian only speaking Great-Grandma used to talk to me. I was able to understand what she said to me, and recounted her stories to my Mom and Nana many years later. They were shocked that I was able to understand her. Little children learn languages very quickly. Even today, I can still basically understand Operas sung in Italian.

Spanish and Italian are both basically "Romance" languages and have similarities originating in the ancient Latin. I still consider it a PLUS to know more than one language.

[Cleita]

35. I worked for Italian importers once and started to learn

the language just by osmosis. There are various dialects though that made it somewhat confusing.

[DonCoquixote]

32. It depends on what is said

Shakespeare or Eliot would NOT work in Spanish, at all, because English is part of the German family of languages. On the other hand, Cervantes would flow better en Espanol, as would Dante, because romance languages have a common base. We do not need to tear down English in order to praise Spanish.

[Cleita]

34. English has its place. I'm not tearing it down.

It's just not as elegant as Spanish. English is good for business, but I would rather be romanced in Spanish, French or Italian.

[DonCoquixote]

72. hmmm, possibly

Though a Shakespearean Sonnet can do wonders.

[Cleita]

82. Shakespeare did what could be done with English and

few can match him, however, read some Pablo Neruda sometime in Spanish or the original El Cid in the ancient Spanish or Don Quixote and I think you will see the difference.

[Edweird]

33. The ironing is delicious.

[Codeine]

56. Not everybody hears it that way.

I find Latin-derived languages to be ugly-sounding and sort of unpleasant. To each their own.

[Populist_Prole]

61. I'm with you

I like the sound of Russian or German.

[Cleita]

62. It's not so much the sound but how you organize the words and what they mean, but if you like the

sound of German, that's how it sounds to non English speakers. And actually, I prefer German. German makes more sense than English because, like other languages, it has regular rules to follow. English is a mess of some rules for this and others for that, plus all the exceptions to the rules and sometimes no rules because that's the way it's always been. This makes it hard to form poetic words and phrases from it that are sensual and romantic.

[DonCoquixote]

73. English

What is impotant to note is that English is actuially a dialect that was formed when a bunch of Romans, Celts and German got stuck on a remote island and had to talk. That is why it is not as organized as other languages. However, that is also it's grace, because it can accept words and phrases from opther languiages without hiccuping, something neither Spanish nor German can do.

I can throw up a bunch of words and phrases, a list that is not exhaustive by any means:

"Nuance", "Zeitgeist", "Samurai", "Jumbo", "Jihad", "Karma", "Guru", "Wunderkind", "Kamikaze", "al Dente", "Chirascuro", "Czar", "Nemesis".

No other language can actually take all these phrases, which many of us take for granted, and make them work. That also allows for poetic potential, as people like Eliot, Cummings, Pound and others were able to exploit.

[Cleita]

81. Yes, and those poets

are all so romantic.

[Hatchling]

7. A new market opened up in my area.

It's primary language is Spanish, but all the products have an English translation. I first went there because they had an incredible sale even though I was worried about everything being in Spanish. It's an awesome grocery store with a tortilleria, a panaderia, and a carniceria with no prviously frozen meats.

It's fun to see non spanish speakers eagerly trying to learn to order in Spanish and the Spanish speakers learning English. No one is frustrated at all.

Just looking at the signs in the store has increased my Spanish vocabulary

Another awesome thing, at the butcher counter after getting all my choices wrapped the woman behind the counter pointed me to some fish on sale. She had remembered from 2 weeks ago that I like tilapia.

[RebelOne]

8. I grew up in Miami. I now live in North Georgia.

But I would become totally pissed off when I shopped in the Hialeah area. All the sales people would assume that I spoke Spanish. I would forcefully say that I did not speak Spanish. Hialeah is about 85 percent Cuban. I lived across the canal in Miami Springs in a predominately English community.

And then a Cuban co-worker said to me that I should learn to speak Spanish. Why? My national language is English. I took Spanish classes in high school and then adult education classes in Spanish. But these people should learn to speak English.

[Ian David]

11. Strangely enough, I seem to have learned a great deal of Spanish from Dora the Explorer.

The problem is, everyone in my area now speaks Hatian Creole, Cape Verde, and Portuguese.

I used to speak French pretty well, but the Hatian French just confuses the fuck out of me.

And Google Translate doesn't do Cape Verde.

[HockeyMom]

22. There are many Haitians in Naples

I also worked with a teacher here who speak French. She was still able to communicate with her Haitian students, more so than that teacher who knew no Spanish at all with her Spanish students.

[MineralMan]

45. So you took several years of Spanish, and you

refuse to use it? That's moronic. I don't even understand that. If you can speak Spanish, and you're in a place where Spanish is spoken, speak Spanish, for pete's sake.

I'm learning Hmong, because I have neighbors who are Hmong refugees. The kids all are learning English, but mom and dad and grandma don't speak English. If I'm going to be polite, I need a little Hmong. It has stood me in good stead, so far. I learned it from the kids in the neighborhood, who were glad to teach me the basics.

[unblock]

9. i also took spanish in high school for 3 years. i got very little chance to use it, until....

30 years later, our small company landed a major client in mexico.

while for most of my career i was a computer programmer, i suddenly found myself flying solo to mexico to negotiate a pivotal spanish-language business contract for the company.

some of the people i was talking with spoke english (many executives and lawyers in mexico were educated in the u.s.) but not all, and of course the contract itself was in spanish, and i managed to catch many problems with their drafting.

we not only landed that client, but got referrals to others; today our tiny company is the market leader in our space in mexico.

those 3 years of high school spanish turned out to be of huge value to our company and my career.

[HockeyMom]

13. Yes, you never know

I worked as a TA in Title 1 school in a Hispanic area of Florida. The classroom teacher, from the upper Midwest, had never taken Spanish in school, or ever was exposed to it where she previously lived. The mor e I heard the children and parents speak in Spanish, the more I remembered. I found myself translating what they were saying to the teacher. I would say something to the kids or parents in Spanish. The school had a Spanish/English translator and I would be able to give her a brief explanation of what the parents were saying beforehand. Again, with only 3 years of HS Spanish from 50 years ago.

I had a conversation with the translator and we both agreed that the classroom TEACHER in this particular school, should have had a least a BASIC understanding of Spanish.

[Ian David]

10. Or, you COULD have just crossed your legs and started bouncing up and down.

The pee-pee-dance is pretty much universally recognized.

[eShirl]

26. +1

[stockholmer]

14. language helps define cultural identity, as more of the US becomes 'no or very little English' zones

both in thought and practice, the civic and inward cultural ties that bind will melt further away. Linguistically bifurcated nations do not work well, and given your constitutionally mandated system of uniformity, solutions like Canada's (I still think someday Quebec splits off) are not allowed.

Look to Belgium, they have been in crisis for years, and with the pan-American legacy of brutal violence, your 'Bruxelles moment' will end in much more than tears someday.

[Snake Alchemist]

16. Quebec has an official language. nt

[Speck Tater]

15. I've been studying Spanish intensively for 11 months now.

I'm finding it very rewarding. It's exciting to be able to watch a Spanish movie and understand the dialog. Even at my advanced age of 66 it's opening up new horizons for me. I recommend it highly for everyone.

Once I feel like I'm reasonably fluent in Spanish I'm going to take Italian. It's a good way to keep the mind young.

[Odin2005]

58. I like listening to Spanish language music.

I think Shakira's and Marc Antony's Spanish songs are better than their English ones!

[Snake Alchemist]

17. Does it have to be Spanish? nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

48. No, but it can be useful to learn whatever the largest minority language is

As others have said, that might be French in New England or some Native American language near a reservation or Chinese or Korean in certain communities in California.

[Snake Alchemist]

49. But it has to be a useful language?

I'm learning Japanese, but I'm only there every 3 years our so.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

50. Of course not

Learn whatever language strikes your fancy.

When I started studying Japanese, it was considered a very weird thing to do. Now I make my living as a translator.

[PotatoChip]

18. I agree, although French is more appropriate

for where I live (northern Maine). French is commonly spoken here, but I can't remember the last time I heard a Spanish speaking person... Not sure that I ever have, now that I think of it (around here I mean).

[KamaAina]

19. An NYC police officer doesn't speak basic Spanish?!

Let alone whatever language Amadou Diallo was speaking.

As for myself, I recently attended a march for domestic workers' rights in Sacramento that was conducted mainly in Spanish. I even had a conversation with my seatmate Martina. Also, Assemblymember Bill Monning (D-Naturally) made his way through a brief speech en espanol, even if he was fairly obviously reading from a script.

[HockeyMom]

21. Back then, not all

He called on his radio for a Spanish speaking officier.

[Codeine]

23. I'm perfectly happy with German as my second language.

My grandparents spoke it so I learned it a bit as a child then more in high school.

[RB TexLa]

24. Considering how many of our citizens speak Spanish, being against it is Anti-American

[Codeine]

57. No bebo con usted. nt

[Odin2005]

59. My landlord is a Chicano whose family was in the SW since the 1600s.

He moved up here to Fargo from SoCal about 20 years ago. I always use him as an example when some English-Only bigot squawks.

[kiva]

85. So he has lived in the US his entire life,

and he does not speak English?

[Odin2005]

87. Actually, he speaks no Spanish.

I just mentioned him because the bigots seem to think Hispanics are an "alien" element.

[eShirl]

25. In this corner of the country you're more likely to encounter French than Spanish.

My high school French did come in very handy when I was the only drug store employee who could understand a French-speaking woman trying to find suppositories for her embarrassed husband. (Thank goodness for loan-words, and having rules for French pronunciation ingrained in me in the classroom.)

[Saving Hawaii]

65. Thank the Lord for loan-words.

Only reason I can still understand as much French as I do.

On the other hand, I knew a Russian girl who spoke pretty fluent English. She had the accent down pat as well. You'd have to know that she was from Russia to know that she didn't speak English natively. But I said something to her once and she didn't know what the word I used meant so she translated it to a very similar sounding Russian word and became very upset with me. Apparently it wasn't a very polite thing to say.

[Edweird]

27. Hey, that's awesome. But what if the 911 receptionist speaks Haitian? Croatian? Greek?

Can you say "My child swallowed drain cleaner" in every possible language fluently? How about "my spouse may be having a heart attack"? Could you follow directions in any possible language? How about "Officer I'm reaching for my wallet"? Can you follow the directions of a police officer in any possible language? Hell, what if there was a Sandusky type possibly assaulting a boy in that store. Is your 'Peggy Hill' Spanish good enough to communicate that? Advocating turning the USA into the 'tower of Babel" is idiotic.

[Saving Hawaii]

67. Really? I don't think this was suggested anywhere at all. Big red herring. /nt

[DonCoquixote]

75. sigh

no one is adovocvating a tower of babel. We are adovocvating a society that can use multiple lanuages, and be adept with all of them, including English. English is pretty much the def facto world tongue.lingua franca, is evidences by the fact that most europeans speak it better than many Americans.

[Major Nikon]

28. I learned that one right after "mas cerveza por favor"

I can ask where the bathroom is in 4 different languages.

The tough part is you also have to know a little bit about gender as well. The first time I went to Germany and visited a public restroom I had no idea if I was an H or a D. About that time you realize how much you miss the stick figures with and without a dress.

[quinnox]

29. It would be better if all people knew one language

And English seems to be the one that is most popular in that many people worldwide learn it and speak it, so may as well pick it as the world language.

[LiberalEsto]

30. Every American should learn Estonian grammar

All 14 cases.

[ZombieHorde]

31. "English only" is mean, in my opinion.

Tolerance and patience are better, in my opinion, than intolerance and strictness.

[AsahinaKimi]

36. I am bilingual

speaking Japanese and English. I love also learning Mandarin.. as in my area, there are many Chinese-Americans. Its nice to go to the store and tell Chinese-American owners "xie xie ni" (Thank you!) and say: Zaijian! (bye bye!).

[socialist_n_TN]

39. Interesting thread. I took 2 years of HS French.......

back when dinosaurs ruled and barely remember any of it. I have learned some Spanish and Mandarin in my old age and I'm glad I did. Not that I'm fluent (I don't think you can get fluent without living that particular language in total immersion, i.e., living there), but I do know enough in both languages to carry on basic conversations, ask for and understand directions, and other common human things.

The main thing I've learned about learning a language is that it's more important to have people to talk to in that language than what the particular language is. If the main secondary language is Spanish, learn Spanish. If it's French, learn French. I learned Spanish and Mandarin because in my area those are the second and third languages after English and I knew I would have more people to speak it with. And speaking the language with native speakers is important to the learning.

I agree with the main premise of the OP though. Why the hell is it a problem to learn another language? I think it's part of the RW anti-intellectual propaganda that has suffused this country in the last 30 years. Somebody learning anything is suspect.

I'll finish with a sad and bitter joke. What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages? Trilingual, of course. How about 2 languages? Bilingual. Now, how about someone who speaks 1 language? American.

[stevedeshazer]

40. I'm learning Español from my coworkers.

I took it in high school, back when the Earth had just cooled enough.

I find it much easier to catch on being around my Latino buddies and customers.

HockeyMom, I agree with you.

Edited to add: They want to learn English from me as well. It's mutually beneficial.

[HockeyMom]

41. It was amazing how happy and accommodating that woman was

once I attempted to communicate with her in her native language. If you have ever been overseas, you will know what I mean.

[HockeyMom]

42. Learing English is required to graduate from Haitian HS

I have been told this by coworkers from Haiti, both in NY and Florida. If you encoutner a Haitian immigrant who does not know any English, they probably have not graduated HS, and will be very poor.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

43. The free market has spoken- its more economically profitable to speak both

[Ilsa]

46. Some Chinese in some cities, and Vietnamese too

while we are at it in some warm coastal cities. My husband works with a least three very diverse immigrant groups, including Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, and Middle Eastern people, speaking both Persian and Arabic. I guess he needs to learn their languages on top of the Spanish he learned in high school.

And I guess I need to learn all the medical jargon for languages. Nevermind that I could make a critical mistake as a nurse in trying to communicate with my patients.

[Saving Hawaii]

68. Senale doinde le duele. What else do you need to know?

I keep telling myself that I'm going to learn more Spanish. I can typically find somebody to translate but it's always a nightmare dealing with translation problems and all the time it takes.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. Yes, everyone in the U.S. should learn English--and the vast majority of immigrants DO

and they want to learn English. The first generation is more or less successful, depending on how old they were when they came over, how much education they had, what kind of job they're working at, and how many others of the same nationality are in the area.

If Grandma and Grandpa come over with their younger relatives at the age of seventy, they'll never learn more than a few words. If a thirty-year-old comes over and immediately goes to work in a sweatshop where all the other workers are from the same country and the worker is dead tired at the end of the day, that person is not going to learn English quickly. Neither is a woman from a conservative culture who is expected to stay home all day with the children and not go out without a male escort. However, a child or teenager who comes to this country will eventually be able to speak English without an accent, especially if he or she attends a school where the majority of children are native speakers of English.

One of the largest immigrant groups in Minneapolis is Somalis, and a few weeks ago, I overheard two teenage Somali girls speaking unaccented English to each other while riding the light rail.

When I was in a small town in Oregon that had a significant Latino population, I sometimes heard small brown children speaking to one another in English while their parents spoke to them in Spanish.

In both cases, they may be like my grandmother, whose parents enforced German-only at home but who preferred to speak English whenever her parents weren't around.

The second generation is almost always English-dominant unless, again, all their classmates are of the same ethnic group as they are. (Then they'll need a lot of specific ESL instruction to become really proficient in English.) They may have grown up speaking the ancestral language at home, but their public life is conducted in English and the ancestral language is reserved for family occasions and specifically ethnic contexts. When young and eager to be "just like everyone else," they may not even want outsiders to know that they speak another language at home.

If a second-generation immigrant marries someone of another ethnic group (more common than the first generation immigrants would like--they invariably want their children to marry someone with ties to the Old Country), the family language will naturally be English, and the children will grow up with English as their first language.

Even if a second generation person marries within the ethnic group and raises children in the Old Country language (I know Latvians and Ukrainians who did this, because they felt that their languages were endangered under the Soviets), both the parents and the children will be able to speak English fluently.

By the way, in the nineteenth century, Anglos didn't complain about Latinos who "refused" to learn English. They complained about Germans who didn't learn English. Some cities had bilingual schools, and there were German-language churches, newspapers, magazines, social clubs, singing groups, athletic clubs, and everything else to create a parallel society. Until World War I, there were parts of Minneapolis where everyone spoke either German or Yiddish. My great-grandmother brought her parents over to Minneapolis from Germany in about 1910, and they lived into the 1930s without ever learning English. They didn't need to.

If you've never worked in a college language department, you don't realize how many people with Hispanic last names have to study Spanish in school because no one in their family speaks it proficiently.

[Fuzz]

51. I do enough work to help latinos. I may even have tacos for dinner tonight.

Go ahead, do the liberal media spin on that, I know you are going to do it. I like tacos.

Edit:

I'm hoping everyone who reads this knows the mayor of east haven, ct story.

[Saving Hawaii]

69. I had a burrito for dinner. It was tasty. But nobody in Mexico knows what a burrito is anyways.

Is it really even Mexican food?

[pink-o]

53. I learned Spanish in school and a lot by osmosis as well.

Where I live (The SF Outer Mission or the Excelsior District) most everyone is a native Spanish speaker, so I like going around eavesdropping on conversations without anyone knowing I can understand them.

And let's face it: English may be ubiquitous, but it's bloody hard to figure out if you're not brought up speaking it! I always figured the verb conjugation would be the biggest hurdle, since there's no rhyme or reason to it, but a Brazilian woman, an Italian man, and a Mandarin-speaking Chinese woman all bemoaned the sheer amount of prepositions in English, and the arbitrary usage of them! You take in, take out, take up, take down, take away, take over take aside take after, et al.

Whereas Spanish has about 4 prepositions, and A and De have multiple uses. They say your brain tends to lose the ability to absorb languages once you age, and English is so confounding it's no surprise that older immigrants rely on their kids to translate for them.

I've never understood the English only crowd anyway--what are they so afraid of? A little cultural education is good for the soul!

[wilt the stilt]

54. Let me paraphrase one of the most famous liberals- Ted Sorenson

of the JFK era. America is made up of many cultures and religions. We have nothing that binds us together. We need a common bond and that bond is language. The language is English.

The English only crowd doesn't know how to sell it. They come off as idiots because most of them are. They want English only because of the wrong reasons.

We do need a common bond.

[Odin2005]

55. I think every American should learn Spanish.

Somebody who knows English and Spanish can be understood in the entire Western Hemisphere

[RZM]

88. No they can't

What about Brazil, Suriname, and numerous other Caribbean nations, including Haiti?

Only about 40 percent of people living in Quebec say they are bilingual. While I'll bet the real number is a bit higher than that, there are still plenty of people there who probably do not understand English all that well.

[Odin2005]

89. DOH, I forgot about Brazil!

I am a fucking idiot!

Only 40% of French Quebecois speak English? REALLY???

[RZM]

90. Well 40 percent say they are bilingual, apparently

I don't know if that's true. I suspect some people who say they aren't maybe are more bilingual than they are admitting. Plus that's data for all people in Quebec, not just those who speak French as a first language (of course, bilingualism is way higher among the Anglophone population, since they are living in Quebec, after all).

[Behind the Aegis]

64. I am all for learning another language.

I speak 6, to varying degrees. But, I also feel people who are coming to this country to live, need to learn English. I know it is a difficult language, especially for late learners, but it is the understood language of the country. Were I to move to Chile, I would have an advantage as I already speak Spanish, but if we (my partner and I) were moving there, I would help him learn the language. Chile, like the US, doesn't have an "official" language, but it is understood they are Spanish and English, respectively. It doesn't have to be perfect, nor do I like when "official language" is used to exclude is a racist mentality, but when choosing to live in a country, one should know the language as spoken by the majority of the citizenery (even if they can't spell and need spellchecker in a wicked way).

Personally, I believe children in pre-school need to be taught multiple languages (simple basics), then focus on the ones more appropriate for the area. Learning how to recognize a variety of sounds makes it much easier in the future for the learner to aquire a language with a more natural sounding pronunciation.

[Prism]

70. I speak it for my niece and nephew

My sister-in-law is an immigrant from Mexico (she lived there before meeting my brother). They're teaching their children to be bilingual. I took seven years of Spanish in school and have always had a working knowledge (I can understand almost everything said, but my speaking has always been a little rusty).

Now, I actively polish up, because I know those lil adorable buggers will try to slip something in Spanish past Uncle Prism one of these days. I'm planning ahead for the snarky, under-the-breath teenage years. Oh yes I am.

[Bolo Boffin]

71. I have a friend who'd made it halfway through Level 3 of Spanish Rosetta Stone

and decided to just walk into Mexico on the spur of the moment. Because he's like that.

Turned out that the only thing he ever had to say in Spanish was, "Donde esta el bano?", which cracked me up. All that investment to walk across the border and ask where the bathroom was in a Mexican bar. He didn't even get complimented on his accent!

But still I agree with your point. We should learn at least one other language besides our birth language, and Spanish has loads of reasons to choose it.

[HockeyMom]

91. I worked in a Title 1 school with Spanish speaking kids

as a TA. One little 4 year old girl was crying most of the day. From just my limited Spanish I was able to understand that her feet hurt because her shoes were too small. You don't need to know extensive Spanish to be able to figure out that.

Rosetta Stone? Maybe not, but just one or two years in a HS or College Classroom would be enough.

[Honeycombe8]

76. It would help Spanish speaking people to learn Engish. Without it, they can't get a good job...

make decent money, make their dreams come true, raise successful children.

Any time you move to another country, it only makes sense to learn the language of your host country ASAP. If I moved to Italy, I'd be learning Italian before I even moved there. Wouldn't you? A lot of Italians and French speak English, which is great when asking where the bathroom is, but to get ahead and have a happy life, I'd need to know the language THERE. Fluently.

[Ilsa]

77. And sometimes it is essential to learn

as much of the adopted language as possible. You never know when a translator for your language might not be available in an emergency room. I can remember a German woman waiting in the ER all evening, not for a doctor, but for a translator. Fortunately, she wasn't writhing in pain from an undiagnosed illness. This was in Texas.

[Honeycombe8]

78. I speak a little French. I know enough Spanish to say that I don't know Spanish.

"Lo siento, no espanol."

German: Nein.

Latin: e pluribus unum

French: j'habite a Dallas, Texas, aux etat unite. Je parle une anglais. Je parle un peu francais.

Italian: Chow!

But if people who move to the United States learn to speak English, there will be no problem. They need to know at least the basics. That's all any English speaking American would know about another language, anyway. Unless they speak it on a regular basis.

[progressoid]

79. Uno cerveza por favor.

[Kellerfeller]

80. English is the official language

of international aviation.

And for most international academic journals and conferences.

Spanish is not. Don't get me wrong. Learning other languages is great and I highly encourage it. But everyone should be learning English. Most of the world is.

[AlinPA]

84. I heard some teabaggers complaining about other languages being taught in schools here.

"This is 'murca we should teach only English in 'murca".

[bhikkhu]

86. Agreed - and learning a second (or third) language is the best way to boost intelligence

...which could use a boost in most of the "speak american!" crowd. English is an essential language, I would say, but most of the people in the world speak two or three languages.

I taught myself Spanish as a teenager, to be able to read some of the great fiction writers (Llosa, Borges, Cervantes, etc) in the original. The Spanish literary tradition is long, deep and wide; its well worth the effort, and in some ways overshadows our own.

After that I tried Japanese but didn't get far: I studied Latin, French, Italian, and German enough to appreciate their differences and learn the backgrounds of some of our own language, and currently I've spent a few years working on Korean, which is a beautifully thought-out and expressive language...