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  • comments like this annoy me

    Monday, Oct 26, 2009 5:08PM / Standard Entry / Members only
    25 comments

    Check out this article:

    Cited 'non-English-speaking driver' speaks out
    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6685661.html

    Then check out the comments after the article.  Tons of people saying stuff like "If you're in our country, you should speak our language!"

    Reminds me of a great scene in Inglorious Basterds where the German actress asks Brad Pitt and his men: "Do you Americans speak any other language besides English?"

    I believe that everyone should live in another country for at least a few years.  Especially folks living in the United States.  It gives you more perspective.  One thing that I feel is a problem for people in the United States is that they think the United States *is* the whole world.  That everything revolves around them.

    If you expect everyone going to the United States to speak English, then when you go traveling to Europe or Asia, you should go and learn the language(s) of the countries you are visiting before you go visit, right?  But you don't.  You expect that people in those other countries also speak English.  There's a word for that -- it's called hypocritical.  And that's what I see when I read most of the comments to the article above.

    Ok, just had to get that off of my chest.

Entry comments (25)

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  • candylo
    Official artist Candy Lo Hang-Yin
    posted on Tuesday, Nov 3, 2009 8:47AM [Report]
    WOW Amen brother!!!!!!
    it's SOOOOOO frustrating !!!!!
  • D.Y._Sao
    Official artist D.Y. Sao
    posted on Saturday, Oct 31, 2009 4:57PM [Report]
    I had a telemarketer butcher my name and then say "You know what, you should just go back to your OWN country!" and then she hung up on me.

    I wasn't angry because it's really not that different from hollywood.
  • elle75
     elle75
    posted on Thursday, Oct 29, 2009 3:04PM [Report]
    Well said Patrick. That said now I have to go learn at least how to order in Mandarin (^_^)
    Funny but sometime I think in California, there should be a requirement to speak Spanish at least!!!
  • RenRen
    RenRen
    posted on Wednesday, Oct 28, 2009 10:51AM [Report]
    I totally agree!
  • JoanneSanderson
    JoanneSanderson
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 10:31PM [Report]
    Yeah it's frustrating and pig-headed. No matter where I go I always like to be able to say a few words, it's terribly unfair that they should have to speak English when I am in their land, unfortunately I think the general thought in England is that of what it was when we were a great power, and it's not changed since, we seem to believe that English should be spoken, and if it's is not understood the first time just keep repeating it until it is. Absolutely abysmal attitude.
  • jaymee
    jaymee
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 12:34PM [Report]
    I have cousins that think that speaking Chinese is humiliating. And he descended that to his child! How brilliant! Say! Reminds me of the movie Namaste by Kal Penn. Great one there!
  • Flagday
    Flagday
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 10:53AM [Report]
    Boon sounds downright proud of it!!!  i understood that   Weeee!
  • Boon
     Boon
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 10:06AM [Report]
    wo bu hui shua puntonghua!!!
  • leomonkey
    leomonkey
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 8:18AM [Report]
    I lived in Japan for 2 years and have often thought since that I wish that all Australians could live overseas for a while as it is so broadening for the mind and allows you such insight into not just another culture but your own. My Japanese has always been pretty basic and lousy but just the experience of even trying to grapple with another language did me a lot of good and helped me to gain insights into another culture.
  • mariejost
    Official artist Marie Jost
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 5:47AM [Report]
    Putting another spin on this issue entirely we can look to history:  a dominant culture disseminates its native language within its sphere of influence.  The Greeks did it in the Hellenistic age, when Greek was spoken all across the Mediterranean in areas where the "native" language was in no way related to Greek.  Ditto for the Romans:  where Greek didn't reign, Latin took over.  The descendants of Latin still dominate large parts of Europe that had earlier been in the Roman sphere of influence.  When the Arabs conquered an area for Islam, Arabic became the lingua franca and displaced all the local languages, or co-existed alongside them as the preferred language of the educated elite.  The cultural elite of Korea and Japan spoke and wrote in Chinese for centuries, because China was the economic, military and cultural juggernaut in that region for centuries.  So, perhaps it is not so odd that English is the second language of a majority of people on the planet.  I wonder if the 22nd century will have everyone around the world speaking Mandarin as their acquired language?
  • Jaine
    Jaine
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 4:04AM [Report]
    yah we have those ignoramuses here too

    of course they can't speak Maori and I imagine it is unlikely those leaving comments can speak the Native American language of their area
  • cyberdog
    cyberdog
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 3:19AM [Report]
    I more or less agree with what you're saying, Patrick. One of my sisters refuses to pronounce my wife's name correctly. She calls her Sue instead of Siu (小) because saying Siu is "too much trouble" for her. Typical “Ugly American."

    Language acquisition is a little more complicated than most people realize though. Our brains are hardwired for it, but, unfortunately, our (natural) language acquisition function starts shutting down as we approach adulthood. Sad, but true. My wife has relatives in the U.S. who can’t speak English, and others whose English is better than their Chinese.

    Generally, I try to make allowances for everyone, even Ugly Americans. To some degree I AM one.
  • kenjilui
    Official artist Kenji Lui
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 3:13AM [Report]
    I totally agree with you.
  • MissScarlett
    MissScarlett
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 2:32AM [Report]
    @ Flayday: my husband's grandfather, with his siblings, immigrated from the Netherlands. When he married and had children, he refused to let the kids learn/speak Dutch. He wanted them to assimilate, "be Americans."

    As ethnically diverse as the US is, it's kinda important to have a single language everyone speaks, isn't it? Times change, the world keeps spinning, the buggy whip isn't a requirement for ones mode of transportation anymore--there is always progress. As the world gets smaller, people will wake up to the "good of it," the usefulness of knowing another language. Right now though, for the vast majority, it's little more than a novelty with no useful purpose.
  • janechu
     janechu
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 2:20AM [Report]
    it is annoying and it irks me too... and I agree with your post and your comment below about the US being the culturally diverse country yet most people can only speak one language. and I don't think that the US "is" the whole world. *sigh* I'll just leave it at that... I could go on and on about this...
  • rottendoubt
     rottendoubt
    posted on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 12:03AM
    flagday - great point that i forgot to bring up.  It *IS* very ironic that america is probably THE MOST culturally diverse country in the world, but also on average the people there probably speak the fewest languages (1) of anyone.
  • Flagday
    Flagday
    posted on Monday, Oct 26, 2009 11:28PM [Report]
    Scarlett has a point.  People just do not travel outside of the US.  I agree with you:  even just a bit of travel would be a life-altering event for many.   Sadly not even travel would change some from their ethnocentric pointsof view.  I think the other problem is that learning a language is almost a second-thought in our school systems.  I think it should be required from first grade on.   I converse on AnD with so many people who know English as a second language and I really admire them.  I only wish that the US required a second language as part of education but No Child Left Behind stupidly did not think it as important as being successful on some arbitrary tests.  I could only wish the US had as great a proportion of people who know a second language.  Being the economic military and cultural powerhouse for the last 60 years has not created a climate which encouraged expanding our linguistic versatility.  Too bad.  Also Patrick looking at the comments to that newspaper article you can see from the thumbs up/thumbs down that there are a lot of people who agree with you.  But there is a very vocal redneck majority commenting.  In the US we have not come to grips with how diversity has come to include language.  We are still one of the most ethnically diverse places on the planet but in the past most peopled learned English.  As an example my paternal and maternal grandparents came to these shores from Italy and Poland/Slovakia respectively around a century ago.  My Italian grandparents learned English and were very proficient--even becoming interpreters and eventually succeeding in business.  My Polish grandparents never did learn English and stayed poor coalminers.  But NEITHER set of randparents WANTED us to learn their native language--they WANTED us to speak English and BE AMERICAN.  I always regret that.  So having foreign speakers (like my Polish grandparents remained) living here in the US is nothing new.  Nor is discrimination against them.
  • tinlunlau
    tinlunlau
    posted on Monday, Oct 26, 2009 10:37PM [Report]
    And that is why I enjoy pretending that I don't speak Cantonese whenever I go to a store in Hong Kong.  It's also a great strategy too.  Frustrate the hell out of the store clerk.  Then he/she would drag the manager out.  The manager would be right there for you to ask to get you EXACTLY what you want.  I call that "reeling in the bigger fish".  XD
  • mhough
    mhough
    posted on Monday, Oct 26, 2009 10:37PM [Report]
    I agree....watched amazing race last night and saw it happening with the contestants....not having respect for the local language.

    Here we have 11 official languages in a country of 47 million.....and yet many of us have to switch to English (my 2nd language) just to be able to understand each other.

    I'm trying my hand at Mandarin...but it is going to take a while....just struggling getting the tounge around those tones!  zai jian!  在見
  • MissScarlett
    MissScarlett
    posted on Monday, Oct 26, 2009 10:35PM [Report]
    I agree on many of your point, Patrick, but, by and large, there will never be a reason for most Americans to leave her boarders. Some will never leave their state. To them, it IS their world. Most will never have the $$ to travel, much less live, abroad. Go live in another country for a few years for a mind broadening experience? You're serious? How?  

    Yeah, totally agree on the hypocritical point. It's mostly ignorance really. Most of Joe-Sixpack's perspectives concerning peoples of the rest of our plant aren't acquired by reading or seeking out knowledge--they're given via the media. You see a flaw here? Every news story coming from across the pond (assuming they watch the news...) is presented by someone speaking English or via an interpreter. In film, there's also always someone conveniently close at hand who speaks English. The majority still won't indulge in foreign film.

    Going to another country? Learn the language OR travel with someone who does (I would love to learn the languages of other people's, but language arts is an area where I do not excel). Respect her people, honor her customs, obey her laws...

    (forgive me for sounding like a jerk. Just a little devil's advocating...)
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