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A cunnilinguist needs few words in any language.
What do you call a person speak one language?
An American.
This is true but you have to understand. I can travel 2700 miles north, south, east or west and the native language is still English. As much as I admire being bi-lingual, there is not the natural requirement here as there is in Europe.
32. Oh Yeah, try going to parts of South Florida, Texas and California. Shit is changing.
What is she saying?
Inglish iz ma langwidge?
Press one for nice rack
#32. I’d like to understand exactly where it is you live… 2700 miles from the geographical center of the US (say, Missouri) would land you in the following places:
North –> Canada (English)
South –> Pacific Ocean (???). On your way there you go through Mexico, where the last time I checked, they speak Spanish.
West –> Pacific Ocean (???)
East –> Atlantic Ocean (???)
Northeast –> Canada/Quebec (French)
Let’s not forget that the good ol’ US of A is bordered by Mexico, Canada, and Russia (look at a map of Alaska before you say anything). That means your next-door neighbours speak English, Spanish, French and Russian.
One country One language. Throughout history it almost never has and almost never will.
Shit, even in Great Britain they have more than English. Betcha can’t name them!
I’d like to understand exactly where it is you live…
Guess I didn’t state that clearly. 2700 miles north and south. Mexico to northern Canada and 2700 miles east and west, coast to coast.
I just returned from 10 days in Peru. No signs, menus or phone books in English. Spanish only. Should I be insulted? No…..I was in friggin’ Peru. If I want to get along there, I guess I better speak Spanish.
#27, Ya, but can you speak Newfie?
Shit, even in Great Britain they have more than English. Betcha can’t name them!
Scottish, Welsh and Celtic? (Irish)
J/P=?
#13. Horse whisperer?
This has always been a nation of immigrants, and has always had plenty of languages. Our original ‘country’ was a hodge podge of English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish and others (not to mention the native Americans). And it’s only gotten MORE diverse over time.
NO one gives a sh*t how many languages any given person speaks, that’s cute but meaningless. The ONLY point is government access. When you go to contact your state/local/federal government, vote, drive, or any function where you run into ‘official’ government forms and instructions, THAT needs to be in one language, whatever it is. YOU don’t have to speak JUST one, two or five languages, but at MINIMUM you need to speak the ‘government form’ language. Imagine if you get pulled over by a cop in Wyoming because your car happens to be similar to one used in a recent bank robbery and you only understand Japanese, then you’re going to be in trouble…you might end up getting shot because you don’t understand the police instructions.
Besides, NOT learning English massively decreases your financial possibilities because you’re limited to a tiny percentage of jobs, mostly low wage. It’s in your financial interest to speak English, even if you still want to speak Korean at home with your family.
All this being true, it doesn’t help the “cause” that the most outspoken folks on using English as an ‘official’ language are usually semi-racist netnecks.
“Englich is ma languidge.”
Enough said.
English and Welsh are two modern spoken languages in the UK…. but its very rare that an English speaking person learns Welsh. as far as I know (and maybe someone Scottish can tell me different) Scot’s gaelic isn’t really spoken natively by anyone anymore. I don’t believe Irish Gaelic is spoken natively anymore either, although in the republic it is used for all official documents etc. At least, a few month ago when I was in Ireland I was told that everyone learns Irish Gaelic in school but no on speaks it at home…
In my kid’s school in London all the literature is translated into English, Greek, Turkish, Urdu and Hindi. Having lived in France for a year, and speaking a fair bit of French before I got there, I have to say that learning a second language isn’t that easy…. some people can do it fairly quickly, some people can’t no matter how hard they try. However, it seems very rare that the children of immigrants don’t learn predominate language of whatever country/area they live in….
I sometimes wonder with Spanish in the US if people are less inclined to speak English because they see a large part of the the US (all the bits taken in the war of 1812) as legitimately part of the Mexico…. anyone know if that is the case?
#41 That’s a good issue you raise there.
– Someone being shot just because he doesn’t know the language… –
Hmmm shouldn’t a person, armed with a gun, in such a dominant position relative to an ordinary person, be more instructed on how to conduct in such difficult situation. Shouldn´t he be at least instructed on how to say simple phrases like: “Law enforcement agent, please step out of the car slowly” or “license and documents please” in several languages? Hmmm.
#43
There’s one thing nobody realizes in language learning: It’s exposure to the language that matters more. And TV is fundamental in this process.
In Portugal (my place…) all TV series are subtitled, so English (American) is easy to understand to the average person. Just across the border in Spain everything is dubbed, so virtually nobody speaks any languages other than Spanish…
Also if your natural tongue is phonetically rich your ear is more trained to listen to nuances.
Example: All the Spanish people living in Portugal after decades still speak lousy Portuguese, whereas an Ucranian or Russian immigrant (there’s a lot here) speak with almost no accent within two years…
Anyway, if you plan to live in a country you should be obliged to speak the official language. “When in Rome…”
43.
Yep, that’s right; Mexico lost most of its land in 1812. Learn some history will ya. Mexico was not even a proper country in 1812. Mexico declared independence from Spain and then Texas declared independence shortly thereafter from Mexico. Santa Ana was defeated by the Texans ( Tejano and Texian; look it up). After Texas joined the U.S. Santa Ana attacked again and lost again; it sounds familiar like the War of 1812 when the British lost again. Santa Ana is lucky Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott didn’t take all of Mexico when Scott defeated the Mexicans at Mexico City.
These forums work well in English. 🙂
Why Can’t the English….
Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction by now should be antique.
If you spoke as she does, sir, instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too.
An Englishman’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other
Englishman despise him.
One common language I’m afraid we’ll never get.
Oh, why can’t the English learn to set
A good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely disappears.
In America, they haven’t used it for years!
>>Shouldn´t he be at least instructed on how to say simple
>>phrases like: “Law enforcement agent, please step out
>>of the car slowly”
Oh yeah, that’s practical. Teaching every Barney Fife in every East Bumfuck town in the US to say that in Chinese (Mandarin? Cantonese? Wu? Min? Xiang? Hakka? Gan?), Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Portugese, Ukranian, Arabic, Hmong, Somali, Vietnamese, Farsi, Hebrew, German, French, and all the other languages a traffic violator might speak??
If I go to live in the Ukraine, I’m going to learn fucking Ukranian. And if people go to the USA to live, they can learn fucking English. And if they’re just visiting and they’re stuck in the middle of Wyoming unable to understand a single word of English, they’ve got more to worry about than getting pulled over by the cops.
Finalmente todos son bien recibidos en México. Incluyendo a los dos gueros del video.
Ha y claro que entiendo la canción como todos ustedes. y estoy orgulloso de tener el Español como lengua materna.
Felidad para todos!
from cia.gov:
Ukrainian (official) 67%, Russian 24%, other 9% (includes small Romanian-, Polish-, and Hungarian-speaking minorities)
from a Ukraine travel site:
Tickets are typed by means of printers on the specially designed forms with water marks. These templates are bilingual – Ukrainian and Russian, inserted data is in Russian.
YEE HAWW!! God bless America (And Support the troops)… good to know these red necks are the natives of this land…
The Mexicans at least descend from natives to this continent (and Spanish has been used here as long as English).
You know what….that crap about Americans only speaking one language and never traveling is just that crap!! It’s like saying that French woman have hairy armpits and legs and the British have bad teeth. Oh, WAIT, THEY DO!! 🙂
Seriously, someone above noted that only 10% of Americans have passports…well, that over 30 million people, that more than the total population of a great many nations and over 3/4 of many more. Thats no number to sneeze at. Christ, there are only 59 million people in Britain, you going to tell me that half of them have passports?
Besides, we have 12 million, plus that travel without a passport in this country, then you add in those pesky Canadians who sneak down here for Medical care and your looking at 50 million people easy.
If we were a small nation, surrounded by 5 or 6 other nations, all speaking different languages, you can bet we would be bi-lingual. Our neighbors are English speaking and Hispanics, and a huge amount of Americans speak some form of Spanish.(and I’m not talking about the ones who speak it as a native tongue).
We are a nation of over 300 million people, who basically speak English, show me any other country of that size with 1 common language. It’s one of the things that makes this country a great country(despite Bush and co.’s efforts to change that), no problems with the country breaking up into squabbling, ethnic/language groups like Russia, or the former Yugoslavia.