Music To My Ears

 

1. Mira, Ingles es uno de los mas dificiles lengua s pa aprender.  Este es complicado mas porque cerca del an~o doce, los circuitos de lenguaje son finalizados por el cerebro.  Es muchisimo mas dificil para un adulto a aprender otra lengua.  Seis meces pa aprender ingles es posible solo si ella no tiene nada mas a hacer y tiene oportunidad de obtener instruccion de tipo imersion.  Y tambien este tipo de instruccion es bien cara.

   BobF - I had the same experience with my Grandfather and speaking German.  It just wasn’t allowed.

   Posted by prairie biker       02/16/2005  at  10:09 AM  



2. I saw the attorney for the woman on Fox last night and he said that the woman speaks a dialect (of Spanish) that is only spoken in a small rural area of Mexico. There’s a pretty good chance that any Spanish speakers around her may not be able to communicate well with her.

   I’m aware of different dialects of many languages. I kind of thought it was humorous that two cousins from Puerto Rico, who served with me on my first Navy ship, didn’t understand each other’s Spanish dialect but a Mexican on the ship understood them both. The cousins had to speak English to each other.

   I grew up with friends who were bilingual in English and whatever language Grandma spoke at home: Polish, Hungarian, Italian, etc. Sometimes they had to act as translators between me and Grandma. Grandpa always spoke English to some degree because he had a job and needed to speak the language to make a living.

   Nobody catered to these folks when they came here and I don’t understand why we are bending over backwards for Spanish speakers now.

   With all the languages that are represented in the U.S. today the phone machine would have to have a three digit number to select a language if they were to cater to all of them:
   Dial 101 for German
   dial 102 for Polish
   Dial 103 for Cantonese
   Dial 104 for Japanese
   etc.

   The solution is to get ‘em all to speak English so that we can all understand each other.

   OBTW I took three years of French in High School and found it handy when I was in France. It wasn’t enough to hold any deep conversations but I could usually make myself understood.

   I did not expect them to speak my language and found that they would go to great lengths to help me when I attempted to communicate in their language. I’m sure that the same thing would apply here when people try to speak English to Americans.

   I beg indulgence for saying something nice about the French.    It won’t happen again.

   Posted by StinKerr       02/16/2005  at  11:05 AM  



3. Prairie Bike,

   I could give a rat’s ass about how the brain is wired for language, etc. etc.

   This broad has been in this country for years already.  If she diesn’t have the time to learn the language, tough shit, get the fuck back to Mexico.  If she can’t afford it, get a loan.

   I refuse to believe that if she associated with people who spoke ONLY English for 6 months that she could not function at the 4th grade level.  Radio, TV, newspaper, freinds, neighbors.  Hell, even her rug rats could help her.

   When in Rome......

   Well, we’re in America.

   Posted by Vilmar       02/16/2005  at  02:52 PM  



4. Language is the glue that holds a nation together.  While I am not a particularly religious man, the story of the Tower of Babel comes to mind.  It makes just as much sense in secular terms, too.

   BORDERS, LANGUAGE, CULTURE (for any Savages or Savagettes in the audience)

   Posted by Illegitimi Non Carborundum       02/16/2005  at  07:48 PM  



5. I also thought about Michael Savage...When my grandfather’s family came to the US, they made sure that he and his brother leaned English as their primary language...even if you are only going to live here for a short period, you should at least learn enough English to get by daily. It’s about time something like this happened.

   Posted by Gen. George S. Patton       02/17/2005  at  01:00 AM  

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