Why should we learn spanish in the USA

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: illustri
skoorb

Practically? Only if you're 1)educated 2)relatively assimilated and 3)in an constant english speaking context. Do you think that the average immigrant from mexico, uneducated even in his own language, is going to strive to 1)go to school 2)give up everything in his culture and 3)get a job in an office?

So who's problem is that? The guy from Mexico - unless some PC idiot is forcing learning his language on other people - even if he can't be bothered to learn English. If the immigrant can't be bothered to learn the predominant language of the country he's immigrated to why should the existing resident be forced to learn his?

Learning multiple languages is a waste of time. I've said that since I was in fvcking diapers. Unless you can't speak the language of the nation you want to move to, or have some dream of working in a position that requires it you're wasting time. Most people can't speak English well or write it well, so why would you want to dumb down their education hours on acquiring a poor grasp of a language they'll never use? I was forced to learn French in canada. I knew then it was a waste of time and I was right. 9 years X how many fvcking hours down the drain, and dito for everyone else in my class, save one guy who moved to Montreal. So the rest of us wasted time. And it IS a national language up there. Insane. Education resources are finite. They should be disbursed according to need, and learning a second language is not one.

Why not have a superior command of one and an inferior of another? What is the harm?

Do it on your own time. Like I said: learning hours are finite. Most people have a questionable command of their native language anyway in regards to writing. They should be doing elementary writing courses before dicking around with another language they have no use for.

 

[illustri]

Originally posted by: CheapArse

Originally posted by: Skoorb
You shouldn't. Having a mediocre command of two languages is inferior to a superior command of one. Given that English is a better, more popular language - nevermind the fact that it's the language spoken by most in the US - and one has no good reason for people to learn Spanish. Any immigrants should learn English immediately. That's simply good immigration practice on the immigrant's part.

Why not have a superior command of one and an inferior of another? What is the harm?

absolutely none, and I'll wager most of the native english speakers have at best a mediocre command of their own language

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Why is it expected that many of us learn a second language - solely so we can speak to other citizens in our country who can't speak English?!

Prompted in response to this thread.

I have absolutely nothing against learning a foreign language... I took several semesters of Spanish and a year of French. I think it's great that everyone should learn a foreign language, especially children. But, it seems that eventually, a rift is going to develop in our country between the Spanish speaking segment and English speaking segment. Will we one day develop a kind of country within a country mentality, much like Quebec in Canada?

Also, no one seems to disagree that Spanish is a "foreign" language... thus, it's NOT an alternative primary language in the U.S. A common language or learning the common language is what bound together the collection of all the different immigrants over the last centuries. Why do we make the latest wave of immigrants to be deserving of special treatments which perpetuate the non-necessity of learning English?

*sigh* not meant to be flame-bait, I hope you guys aren't in a flaming mood.

que ?!

 

[illustri]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: illustri
skoorb
why should the existing resident be forced to learn his?

Who the hell is forcing anyone to learn spanish? Unless you are in a sh1t highschool or college you usually have a choice in what foriegn language to take. In fact you don't even have to go to school at all if you're too lazy or stupid to get a world-class education.

Learning multiple languages is a waste of time.

What about physics, higher math, biology? Education isn't trade training, you can go apprentice at burger king if you don't need a rounded background.

 

[Brutuskend]

I, for one do NOT want to have to learn Spanish.

Primarily, cuz I'm too stupid.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: illustri

Originally posted by: CheapArse

Originally posted by: Skoorb
You shouldn't. Having a mediocre command of two languages is inferior to a superior command of one. Given that English is a better, more popular language - nevermind the fact that it's the language spoken by most in the US - and one has no good reason for people to learn Spanish. Any immigrants should learn English immediately. That's simply good immigration practice on the immigrant's part.

Why not have a superior command of one and an inferior of another? What is the harm?

absolutely none, and I'll wager most of the native english speakers have at best a mediocre command of their own language

My point precisely. You'd rather they start learning another one, when they've not even reached a reasonably competent level with their own?

 

[imported_Mike]

I understand your stance that one should grasp their own language before trying to learn another. Why should students have to take more P.E. than math or science to graduate? Public school systems are trying to offer a well rounded education, obviously it is not going to revolve around each student. What puzzles me is the requirement in college when students are supposed to be focused and probably should not have to take a language class in order to graduate.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: CheapArse
I understand your stance that one should grasp their own language before trying to learn another. Why should students have to take more P.E. than math or science to graduate? Public school systems are trying to offer a well rounded education, obviously it is not going to revolve around each student. What puzzles me is the requirement in college when students are supposed to be focused and probably should not have to take a language class in order to graduate.

Yep, much of college is filler-time.

 

[Philippine Mango]

I think it's stupid that I have to learn spanish to talk to others in this country. With the kind of metality these illegals and non english learners have where they think WE should have to learn THEIR langauge, if everybody who immigrated was like this, there would be like 10 lines in each language under EVERY sign because EVERYBODY didn't want to cooperate.

 

[illustri]

students aren't supposed to be focused in college
grad and post education might warrant narrowingly studying your field, but even then, medical schooling requires a foreign language

 

[imported_Mike]

Originally posted by: illustri
students aren't supposed to be focused in college
grad and post education might warrant narrowingly studying your field, but even then, medical schooling requires a foreign language

? Right...and why a Doctor would want to know spanish is beyond me... :roll:

 

[Quasmo]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: CheapArse
I understand your stance that one should grasp their own language before trying to learn another. Why should students have to take more P.E. than math or science to graduate? Public school systems are trying to offer a well rounded education, obviously it is not going to revolve around each student. What puzzles me is the requirement in college when students are supposed to be focused and probably should not have to take a language class in order to graduate.

Yep, much of college is miller-time.

fixed

 

[illustri]

Originally posted by: CheapArse

Originally posted by: illustri
students aren't supposed to be focused in college
grad and post education might warrant narrowingly studying your field, but even then, medical schooling requires a foreign language

? Right...and why a Doctor would want to know spanish is beyond me... :roll:

*tapping sarcasm meter

need a stronger signal captn'

 

[imported_Mike]

Originally posted by: illustri

Originally posted by: CheapArse

Originally posted by: illustri
students aren't supposed to be focused in college
grad and post education might warrant narrowingly studying your field, but even then, medical schooling requires a foreign language

? Right...and why a Doctor would want to know spanish is beyond me... :roll:

*tapping sarcasm meter

need a stronger signal captn'

...its in the shop

 

[razor2025]

I don't see why learning another language is such a "bad" thing. I do agree that if Spanish was forced down upon us, I'll be pretty pissed too.

Here's my take on why learning Spanish is a good thing...

MAKE LOADS OF MONEY!

I live in Duluth, GA. It's FULL of Hispanic people. They're literally EVERYWHERE near my town. We also have numerous mom-pop PC stores and strong presence of Retailers (Best Buy, CompUSA, and such). What I'm amazed is that there's no Hispanic PC shop dedicated to selling PC and Parts to Hispanic people. I know that most of them will not be able to afford $1000 PCs and such, but you can easily profit by selling them old P2-P3 PCs for $200-400. There are tons of Hispanic kids in school and there are some percentage of them who wants to succeed in School & learn English. I'm sure that parents of these kids will whole-heartedly shell couple of hundred dollars to buy them PCs so they can work on projects, research, and type papers.

The main reason why business wants the Congress to relax the immigration law and let the illegal/legal Hispanic emigration is that they make GREAT consumer and worker. If you can cater to them by learning Spanish, you'll make boat loads of money.

 

[Ornery]

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose
We don't have to learn Spanish. Why do people say that? If some immigrants want to speak their native language and not learn English, then that's their own problem. I imagine that they will have more problems than the rest of us. It's not a big deal anyways. Their children will probably speak English, just like other children of immigrants.

Fact Sheets: Costs of Multilingualism

• St. Cloud (MN) reported in March 2003 that almost $200,000 was spent in a nine-month period on a variety of interpreter and translation services. Many of these costs are not reimbursed by insurance.
  AP, Central Minnesota health workers face challenge of diversity, July 1, 2003
  
  
  
  Alameda County (CA) Medical Center has 18 full-time interpreters on staff in addition to 19 on-call translators. The county's hospitals are relatively well staffed, even though patients may have to wait a long time for the services. Providing translation services costs the center more than $1 million a year. That's especially high in light of budget woes that forced the closure last week of two of its clinics. Meanwhile, 22.4 percent of the center's patients have no insurance, 66.4 percent are on Medi-Cal, Medicare or the county's indigent program and less than 5 percent have insurance. Medi-Cal reimburses Highland $23.77 for a standard visit. The hospital pays its staff interpreters $18 to $20 an hour. For other health care providers without staff interpreters, translations services can be very expensive. Contracting such services can range from $30 to $130 per hour.
  Victoria Colliver, Videophones help hospital provide crucial translation services, San Francisco Chronicle, July 5, 2003
  
  
  
  Over the past five years, the number of Kentucky students enrolled in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes has tripled. Schools have responded by hiring bilingual staff, training teachers in new instruction methods for other cultures, and having teachers visit student?s homes. Kentucky is finding out that multilingualism is expensive. Jefferson County Public Schools ? which provides 65 ESL teachers and dozens of bilingual assistants, spends about $5 million a year on ESL students. Bowling Green spends about $500,000 a year for its ESL population on everything from bilingual dictionaries to bilingual teachers. The state met some of its surging ESL demands with federal emergency grants that rose from 158,000 in 1998 to 622,000 in 2002. This year it received $1.3 million under the No Child Left Behind Act.
  Source: AP, Schools strained by influx of Spanish-speaking students, July 7, 2003
  
  
  
  Reversing a campaign pledge to push for English immersion programs, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has expanded the city?s bilingual education program. Under the new plan, announced in June, the city will spend $20 million to allow students to take their core courses in their native tongues.
  Source: Liz Trotta, N.Y. Mayor overhauls bilingual education, Washington Times, July 8, 2003
  
  
  
  The Virginia Supreme Court has certification programs for Spanish court interpreters and is considering certification programs in Vietnamese and Korean. In 2002, 36,625 people were served by language interpreters in Virginia criminal cases, at a cost of 2.7 million to taxpayers. These numbers have almost doubled since 2000 and are expected to keep rising.
  AP, Courts respond to rise of Virginia?s Spanish-speaking population, July 6, 2003
  
  
  
  Washington D.C. city financial officials estimate that a proposed ?Language Access Bill? would cost $7.74 million to implement. The bill would require almost all city agencies to hire translators and translate official documents for any language spoken by over 500 non-English language proficient people in the city.
  Sylvia Moreno, Advocates for Immigrants Endorse D.C. Language Bill, Washington Post, April 9, 2003
  
  
  
  21.3 million Americans are classified as ?limited English proficient,? a 52 percent increase from 1990, and more than double the 1980 total.
  Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000, 1990, 1980
  
  
  
  One-in-25 American households are linguistically isolated, meaning that no one in the household older than age 14 can speak English.
  Source: U.S. Census Bureau 2000
  
  
  
  Effective English language instruction is an essential antipoverty tool for working immigrant families. Poverty and the need for public benefits, such as food stamps, are more closely related to limited English proficiency than with citizenship or legal status.
  Source: Urban Institute, Immigrant Well-Being in New York and Los Angeles, August 2002
  
  
  
  Massachusetts offers drivers license exams in 25 different languages, Kentucky in 23, New York in 22 and California in 21. In all, 44 states and the District of Columbia offer the exam in languages other than English.
  Source: Department of Motor Vehicles in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, 2002
  
  
  
  The total annual cost for the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to provide language services is $2.2 million. Providing the same level of DMV translation services nationwide would cost approximately $8.5 million per year.
  Source: U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Report to Congress: Assessment of the Total Benefits and Costs of Implementing Executive Order No. 13166: Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency, March 14, 2002
  
  
  
  Of the 3,600 Chinese ballots prepared for the Sept. 2002 primary election in King County, Wash., only 24 (or 0.67 percent) were used.
  Source: Warren Cornwall, Bilingual vote turnout low: Only 24 Chinese ballots returned in primary, Seattle Times, October 9, 2002
  
  
  
  The total cost of providing multilingual services for the Immigration and Naturalization Service would be between $114 million and $150 million annually.
  Source: U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Report to Congress: Assessment of the Total Benefits and Costs on Implementing Executive Order No. 13166: Improving Access to Services for Person with Limited English Proficiency, March 14, 2002
  
  
  
  It costs $1.86 million annually to prepare written translations for food stamp recipients nationwide. The cost for oral translations skyrocket to $21 million nationally per year.
  Source: U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Report to Congress: Assessment of the Total Benefits and Costs of Implementing Executive Order No. 13166: Improving Access to Services for Person with Limited English Proficiency, March 14, 2002
  
  
  
  Multilingualism in government isn't cheap, even at the local level. Following are but a few snapshots of the costs involved in translating government documents:
  
  $3.3 million, 15 percent of the area's entire election expense, for Los Angeles County to print election ballots in seven languages and hire multilingual poll workers for the March 2002 primary.
  Source: Deborah Kong, Vote or vota: November elections to be held in multiple languages in 30 states, Associated Press, Sept. 26, 2002
  $265 per day for each of 420 full-time court interpreters hired by Los Angeles County.
  Source: Don Feder, Courting the Tower of Babel; Washington Times, Feb. 3, 2002
  $350,000 for each language that documents must be translated into under San Francisco's bilingual government ordinance.
  Source: Janet Ng, Asian Week.com, June 1, 2001
  $500,000 for free translation services in Maine hospitals in 2001, which is double the 2000 cost, and nearly triple the 1999 amount.
  Source: The Associated Press, Bangor Daily News, July 19, 2000
  
  
  
  
  A federal judge has forced New York City to provide translated documents and interpreters to food stamp recipients with limited English skills. Under the agreement, the city must provide documents in any language spoken by 100 or more clients who use a specific welfare office.
  Alan Feuer, City Must Translate for Food Stamp Recipients, New York Times, Oct. 12, 2001
  
  
  
  Forcing physicians to provide multilingual outpatient services would cost $180.8 million annually. In addition, inpatient services in multiple languages would cost hospitals $78.2 million, while the bill for multilingual emergency room services would tally $8.6 million, pushing the health care total to $267.6 million.
  Source: U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Report to Congress: Assessment of the Total Benefits and Costs on Implementing Executive Order No. 13166: Improving Access to Services for Person with Limited English Proficiency, March 14, 2002
  
  
  
  The cost of an interpreter can exceed the reimbursement of a Medicare or Medicaid visit by 13 times - costing doctors more than $500 per translator (based on figures from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services - Medicare reimburses doctors roughly $40, which is 80 percent of the average national payment rate of $50 and approximately $35 for Medicaid patients).
  Source: American Medical Association, Letter to the U.S. Office of Management & Budget, December 21, 2001, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Public Information Office, 2002
  
  
  
  More than $100 million have been spent in the last 30 years to assess the value of bilingual education. Two startling conclusions made in the study include: (1) There is no evidence that a program of native language instruction has greater benefits than any other type of education program, and (2) Teaching children to read in English first, instead of in their native tongue, has no negative consequences. The enormous amount of research is on top of the $665 million a year the federal government spends on bilingual programs.
  Source: National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, 1997
  
  
  
  When compared to English-speaking Hispanics, limited English proficient Latinos are 3 1/2 times more likely not to have had their blood pressure checked in the last five years, three time more likely not to have a dental exam in the last five years and twice as likely not to have had their cholesterol checked in the last five years.
  Source: The Commonwealth Fund, Diverse Communities, Common Concerns: Assessing Health Care Quality for Minority Americans, March 2002
  
  
  
  The Tomas Rivera Policy Institute found that "far and away, the most commonly cited obstacle to gaining college knowledge was the language barrier." While 96 percent of the Latino parents surveyed in the nation's three largest cities expected their children to go to college, nearly two-thirds missed at least half of the questions on a "mini-test of college knowledge."
  Source: Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, College Knowledge, April 2002
  
  
  
  Learning English is clearly one of the most important issues for Hispanics, with 29 percent claiming that language is the top barrier preventing Latinos from succeeding in the U.S. Latinos also strongly believe (68.2 percent) that bilingual education programs should focus on ensuring students learn English well.
  Source: The Latino Coalition, 2002 National Hispanic Survey
  
  
  
  Those with limited English proficiency are less likely to be employed, less likely to be employed continuously, tend to work in the least desirable sectors and earn less than those who speak English. Annual earnings by limited English proficient adults were approximately half of the total population surveyed.
  Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, English Literacy and Language Minorities in the United States, August 2001
  
  
  
  More than 83 percent of New York City students who entered bilingual or English as a Second Language (ESL) programs in ninth grade did not have a firm enough grasp of English to test out of those programs four years later. More than 16 percent of all New York City students do not become fluent enough for mainstream classes after nine years.
  Source: Don Soifer, Lexington Institute, Bilingual Education in New York City: Poor Accountability, Worse Progress, October 2002
  
  
  
  The New York City Board of Education found that in the class of 2001, nearly one- third of English Language Learners (ELLs) dropped out within four years, while less than 30 percent graduated during that span. On the other hand, nearly 60 percent of former ELLs who had attained proficiency in English graduated within four years, higher than the percentage of English proficient students who achieved this mark. Former ELL's were less likely to drop out over the four year time period, 15 percent vs. 20 percent.
  Source: Advocates for Children of New York and The New York Immigration Coalition, Creating a Formula for Success: Why English Language Learner students are dropping out of school, and how to increase graduation rates, June 2002
  
  
  
  According to researchers at Johns Hopkins School of American Politics, gubernatorial, Senate and House political candidates spent record amounts in the 2002 elections on Spanish-language network advertising - more than $9 million through October 24 for about 14,000 television spots. Another $2 million was reportedly spent on advertising in down-ballot races and ballot initiatives.
  Source: Mary Sutter, Bustling Ballots Boon to Spanish TV, Daily Variety, October 30, 2002
  
  
  
  Air Canada spends more than $9,265,000 per year conforming to Canada's bilingual requirements, requiring the airline to generate an additional $185,000,000 in additional sales to cover these costs.
  Source: Jean-Marc Trottier, Bilingual Services at Air Canada, Presentation to the Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages, Sept. 9, 2001

 

[0roo0roo]

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