LEARN ENGLISH!

[RadiclDreamer]

Then lets stop letting them get away with it. Vote RadiclDreamer for president 08!

 

[Ruptga]

Originally posted by: Yreka

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: elmro
The United States has no official language. Also, the Spanish speaking population is growing by leaps and bounds. The #1 radio station in New York City is in Spanish. Embrace multi-culture-ism, because there is nothing you can do to stop it.

We could nuke them from orbit.

Or start coating Walmart's selection of car accessories in lead paint.

:Q :laugh:

 

[mugs]

Uh, guys, having a national language does not mean that everyone in the country has to speak that language. For all intents and purposes the national language is the language that government documents are published in. Right now most government documents are English-only anyway. Even if we had a national language, that wouldn't prohibit the government from publishing documents in other languages, so the multi-language documents wouldn't go away. Essentially, having a national language would mean jack squat. But keep rooting for one, if for no other reason than to indicate to foreigners that we don't take too kindly to their type here.

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: Yreka

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: elmro
The United States has no official language. Also, the Spanish speaking population is growing by leaps and bounds. The #1 radio station in New York City is in Spanish. Embrace multi-culture-ism, because there is nothing you can do to stop it.

We could nuke them from orbit.

Or start coating Walmart's selection of car accessories in lead paint.

Roofles 🙂

 

[Agentbolt]

But keep rooting for one, if for no other reason than to indicate to foreigners that we don't take too kindly to their type here.

Typical straw man argument from you, Mugs. Nobody's saying we don't like foreigners. Expecting them to learn English =! telling them to get lost. Nice try.

 

[clamum]

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: elmro
The United States has no official language. Also, the Spanish speaking population is growing by leaps and bounds. The #1 radio station in New York City is in Spanish. Embrace multi-culture-ism, because there is nothing you can do to stop it.

We could nuke them from orbit.

It's the only way to be sure.

 

[pyonir]

Originally posted by: mugs
You think you have it bad, how do you think their students feel trying to learn from someone they can't understand?

I had a couple of those profs in college. One would make sure everyone understood what he was saying (even wrote it on the board if we didn't understand). The other never did and just kept rambling on. I stopped going to the second class and just went for the tests.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Agentbolt

But keep rooting for one, if for no other reason than to indicate to foreigners that we don't take too kindly to their type here.

Typical straw man argument from you, Mugs. Nobody's saying we don't like foreigners. Expecting them to learn English =! telling them to get lost. Nice try.

I was joking. Get over it. I didn't think there was any argument here. My point was that people think a national language will eliminate situations like this, and it won't. Do you disagree?

 

[Darwin333]

Originally posted by: mugs
Uh, guys, having a national language does not mean that everyone in the country has to speak that language. For all intents and purposes the national language is the language that government documents are published in. Right now most government documents are English-only anyway. Even if we had a national language, that wouldn't prohibit the government from publishing documents in other languages, so the multi-language documents wouldn't go away. Essentially, having a national language would mean jack squat. But keep rooting for one, if for no other reason than to indicate to foreigners that we don't take too kindly to their type here.

Riiiiiight.... Like they are going to get all offended and leave? Is that the answer to our border security problem, just offend them and they will stop coming over illegally?

 

[Darwin333]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Agentbolt

But keep rooting for one, if for no other reason than to indicate to foreigners that we don't take too kindly to their type here.

Typical straw man argument from you, Mugs. Nobody's saying we don't like foreigners. Expecting them to learn English =! telling them to get lost. Nice try.

I was joking. Get over it. I didn't think there was any argument here. My point was that people think a national language will eliminate situations like this, and it won't. Do you disagree?

So what do you propose that we do to solve the potentially huge problem? The OP's situation is a bit more serious then not being able to convey that you don't want pickles on your hamburger. When working around dangerous chemicals people can die if they are unable to communicate.

 

[pyonir]

Originally posted by: Darwin333

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Agentbolt

But keep rooting for one, if for no other reason than to indicate to foreigners that we don't take too kindly to their type here.

Typical straw man argument from you, Mugs. Nobody's saying we don't like foreigners. Expecting them to learn English =! telling them to get lost. Nice try.

I was joking. Get over it. I didn't think there was any argument here. My point was that people think a national language will eliminate situations like this, and it won't. Do you disagree?

So what do you propose that we do to solve the potentially huge problem? The OP's situation is a bit more serious then not being able to convey that you don't want pickles on your hamburger. When working around dangerous chemicals people can die if they are unable to communicate.

The people that die can't speak English though...so it's okay, right?

:evil:

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Darwin333

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Agentbolt

But keep rooting for one, if for no other reason than to indicate to foreigners that we don't take too kindly to their type here.

Typical straw man argument from you, Mugs. Nobody's saying we don't like foreigners. Expecting them to learn English =! telling them to get lost. Nice try.

I was joking. Get over it. I didn't think there was any argument here. My point was that people think a national language will eliminate situations like this, and it won't. Do you disagree?

So what do you propose that we do to solve the potentially huge problem? The OP's situation is a bit more serious then not being able to convey that you don't want pickles on your hamburger. When working around dangerous chemicals people can die if they are unable to communicate.

I think colleges should stop hiring professors and TAs and RAs who don't speak English well, because speaking English well is a necessary part of their job. In most jobs, communication skills are important. If I couldn't communicate well with my coworkers, I wouldn't have my current job. I don't know why colleges don't value that trait, because it is even more critical for someone who is trying to teach.

But I don't think the government has the power to force universities to hire only English-speaking workers, and I don't think the government SHOULD have that power. But then the government does a hell of a lot of things that I don't think it should have the power to do. It is up to the university to decide who they hire, and it is up to the university's "customers" to let the university know when they've made a mistake. If you can't understand a professor, complain to the dean. At my college we filled out course evaluations every semester. If I couldn't understand a professor, I'd have no choice but to rate him poorly in every category. I went to a small college though, we were always taught by full professors and they all spoke English well. I made a conscious choice to go to a college where I wouldn't be taught by TAs (most of the time when people complain about being taught by someone who doesn't speak English well, it's the foreign grad students who are TAs, not the professors). It's called voting with your dollars.

 

[Agentbolt]

My point was that people think a national language will eliminate situations like this, and it won't. Do you disagree

No, I don't disagree at all. You are 100% correct on that point. It sounded like you were calling us a bunch of evil bigots for daring to suggest they should integrate. Sorry if I misunderstood a joke.

Short of making it illegal to speak any language other than English in official settings, there's not much we CAN realistically do. Immigrants hurt themselves way more than they hurt us by refusing to learn English. It's annoying for us, it can be crippling for them. It does sometimes cause problems for other people, like in the OPs case, but I just don't see how it can fixed.

You'd think people coming into this country would take 5 seconds and say to themselves "Hmm, my chances of being anything better than janitor are pretty much nil if I can't speak English, maybe I should make some effort to learn the language of the land" Granted, a lot of them do make the effort, but the % that don't is depressingly large.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Agentbolt

My point was that people think a national language will eliminate situations like this, and it won't. Do you disagree

No, I don't disagree at all. You are 100% correct on that point. It sounded like you were calling us a bunch of evil bigots for daring to suggest they should integrate. Sorry if I misunderstood a joke.

Short of making it illegal to speak any language other than English in official settings, there's not much we CAN realistically do. Immigrants hurt themselves way more than they hurt us by refusing to learn English. It's annoying for us, it can be crippling for them. It does sometimes cause problems for other people, like in the OPs case, but I just don't see how it can fixed.

You'd think people coming into this country would take 5 seconds and say to themselves "Hmm, my chances of being anything better than janitor are pretty much nil if I can't speak English, maybe I should make some effort to learn the language of the land" Granted, a lot of them do make the effort, but the % that don't is depressingly large.

Nah, I think they should integrate too. I mean, if someone lives in Chinatown and never leaves Chinatown and doesn't learn to speak English, I don't really care. But if they want to sell me something, they need to speak English. And if they want to talk to me, they need to speak English.

There are a lot of people in this country who dislike ANY foreigners, and they usually focus on the language issue because they can't complain about foreigners outright without appearing xenophobic. Admittedly, my joke was referring to those people. But I did not mean to imply that anyone who thinks we should have a national language is xenophobic.

 

[JS80]

How would you feel if you were studying abroad and some jackass came up to you and asked you to fully learn the language within a short period of time?

 

[Steve]

Originally posted by: JS80
How would you feel if you were studying abroad and some jackass came up to you and asked you to fully learn the language within a short period of time?

Foreign exchange student != immigrant

 

[Agentbolt]

How would you feel if you were studying abroad and some jackass came up to you and asked you to fully learn the language within a short period of time?

If I were a foreign exchange student and my command of the regional language was so poor I wasn't able to communicate effectively, the jackass would be completely justified in telling me that. I'm just being an irritating drain on others by not knowing the language of a country I voluntarily moved to.

 

[AmpedSilence]

what no babble fish?

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: JS80
How would you feel if you were studying abroad and some jackass came up to you and asked you to fully learn the language within a short period of time?

I would expect that I'd have to learn the language in SOME time period before I'm allowed to TEACH people who speak that language.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: JS80
How would you feel if you were studying abroad and some jackass came up to you and asked you to fully learn the language within a short period of time?

I would expect that I'd have to learn the language in SOME time period before I'm allowed to TEACH people who speak that language.

Pretty sure these are lab techs doing research, not lecurers or TAs... correct me if I'm wrong...

And besides - if America needs more English speaking lab techs you should train more English speaking lab techs. Or pay the extra $$$ and bring them over from Britain or Ireland or Australia or somewhere that speaks english rather than poor asian countries like India and China.

 

[Kwaipie]

Seeing all these rants delivered in piss poor Engrish adds fuel to the fire that ordinary morons should not make policy.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Atheus

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: JS80
How would you feel if you were studying abroad and some jackass came up to you and asked you to fully learn the language within a short period of time?

I would expect that I'd have to learn the language in SOME time period before I'm allowed to TEACH people who speak that language.

Pretty sure these are lab techs doing research, not lecurers or TAs... correct me if I'm wrong...

And besides - if America needs more English speaking lab techs you should train more English speaking lab techs. Or pay the extra $$$ and bring them over from Britain or Ireland or Australia or somewhere that speaks english rather than poor asian countries like India and China.

Usually that work is done by grad students who have some amount of RA (research assistant) and TA (teaching assistant) responsibilities. There are a lot of foreign grad students in those positions who do teach.

And I do think that American residents should be preferred over foreigners in admissions at public universities, but ultimately it's up to the university to decide who they accept.

 

[Toastedlightly]

Originally posted by: Kwaipie
Seeing all these rants delivered in piss poor Engrish adds fuel to the fire that ordinary morons should not make policy.

Poor english? A typo and two incorrectly spelled words? This isn't a "I hate foreign languages" rant, it is a "in case of emergency, how the fuck do you know what to do?"

 

[Xavier434]

I would not want to be working with someone that I needed to rely on for my safety where they not able to speak the language I am fluent in. I am all for equal rights and all but...

My Safety > Equal Rights

Coming up with procedures and policies which preserve safety in these cases is a great solution, but you gotta draw the line somewhere.

 

[Exterous]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I would not want to be working with someone that I needed to rely on for my safety where they not able to speak the language I am fluent in. I am all for equal rights and all but...

My Safety > Equal Rights

Coming up with procedures and policies which preserve safety in these cases is a great solution, but you gotta draw the line somewhere.

I would be careful with that statement. I know where you're trying to go, but if too many people think that our society will change radically.