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AMEN!!!
What do you call a person speak three languages?
A trilingual person.
What do you call a person speak two languages?
A bilingual person.
What do you call a person speak one language?
An American.
I wish they’d follow their own advice and not sing in redneck
#2 – Oops… missed “who”… as in What do you call a person who speak… 🙂
Only 10% of Americans have passports. Most Americans can’t appreciate that just about anywhere in the world the language of commerce is English. The woman singing probably hasn’t been to Europe where, as Jagermeister suggested, citizens speak 2-5 languages.
Learning must make her brain hurt. Whining must help.
Actually Jager it should be “What do you call a person “who can’t speak one language” thanks to our public schools.
#5 …hasn’t been to Europe where, as Jagermeister suggested, citizens speak 2-5 languages.
I like Jag’s joke, but dislike being tarred with the “ugly American” brush.
“where… citizens speak 2-5 languages”
I live in Oregon.
If Washington, California, Idaho, and Nevada all had different native languages – citizens of Oregon would probably “speak 2-5 languages”, too.
I’m not multilingual because there has been no compelling reason for me to be… not because I have no interest in, or feel mine is superior to, other languages and cultures.
‘ If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me! ‘ – Ma Ferguson, first woman governor of Texas.
Allen McDonald, El Galloviejo®
I went to hong kong on vacation. The counter girl spoke perfect english. It was at McDonalds.
Why this singer telling me I must speak only English? If this is really the land of the free, I should be able to speak whatever language I want.
I especially don’t want an ignorant, alcoholic, high school dropout telling me what I can and cannot do.
You’re jumping to conclusions there. You probably speak Klingon.
One word:
Windtalkers
J/P=?
America the size of Europe all speaking one language. Put those same people in Europe, and I’m sure all these Americans will start speaking multiple languages too.
Frankly, I doubt that the majority of Europeans speak more than 2 languages. In Britain it’s probably just one language, and in other countries it’s English+1.
#15 Yeah but we are fortunate because we had the Roman Empire. Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian (and some other I can’t remember) derive from Latin, so they’re fairly easy to learn from one another…And English, German, Neerlandese, are somewhat influenced by each other. Nordic languages are also very much alike…
So… my point is… there are bridges… I can speak portuguese and english and french, but can understand spanish and italian too…
Most of modern country music is mainstream. It’s changed tremendously in the last 10 years. Much of it is pop rather than country. You still get some twangy stuff now and them but much of it is pretty damn good. Most of the really good session musicians are playing in country bands.
While I’m all in favor of learning to speak a multitude of languages (I speak French and Spanish), the idea that people would come to LIVE here for the rest of their lives and not learn “the language of the land” just seems fucked up. It would never occur to me to move to Spain, China, Russia, Germany, or anywhere else without (at least trying to) learn the native tongue. Unless I wanted to consign myself to a marginal existence in a ghetto, begging on the street for food.
I’m pretty sure if China was next door and millions of them were crossing the border for freedom and/or better pay and infrastructure, that alot of them wouldn’t speak English. It’s the fact that those various other non-Mexican immigrants happen to have had a much lengthier and complicated time in getting here. Of course, the trials I’ve seen Mexicans go through aren’t simple either, but it’s the idea of them en masse that I believe they think/does grants them a little lingual flexibility.
dum dum dum dum dum, dum dum dum , dum dum dum…
…catchy tune!
If you want to read the damn sign, then learn the damn language. It really isn’t that hard to get good enough at a language to read signs, and it only takes a few months to get good enough to carry on a decent conversation.
And, don’t write about Americans as if we are one homogeneous group. I speak several languages and I know many others who do too.
#17 – Well… that’s a load of crap…
@#20, sorry, I spelled dumb wrong. Dumb mistake.
I live in NYC, and while i can relate to many of the comments posted calling for Americans to broaden their horizons, I can also relate to the frustration of meeting people who have lived in Manhattan for 20+ years and never bother to learn English. Some people are just lazy, and living in small pockets and neighborhoods that speak their native tongue(Namely Spanish where i live) only fosters laziness because of their ability to get by without learning English. I agree, that its great to learn other languages, and more American probably would if we were surrounded by countries that speak different langs like in Europe, but for gods sake, when you become a citizen of this GREAT COUNTRY, have some pride in it and at least learn the language.
Well, at least that Kay Rivoli is a hot MILF.
I bet she believes in god aswell.
Hey, I’m no hoser… I learned to speak Canadian years ago… eh.
Obviously Dvorak didn’t get the memo from Sacramento about the German classes he’s supposed to be attending.
Achtung baby!
C’mon, I’m not American, and I agree with the policy of one country – one language. My old man used to say to foreigners (in very broken english) ‘In Portugal speak Portuguese’. So it should be that in the USA you speak english!
Otherwise you’ll end up like some countries with 100 languages… India comes to mind. Even Europe, if regarded as one country, is a mess.
For what its worth, I lived a year in France and discovered that the French speak about as much as English (or any other language) as Americans, Canadians and British people speak French. They learn English in school, but don’t really speak it all (any more than English speaking people who learnt Spanish and French in school can’t really speak it)
The Greeks, Italians and the Spanish are also quite proudly unilingual. Belgium (French and Flemish) and Holland (English and Dutch) are bilingual. The Germans I am told are reasonably bilingual (English and German) as are Scandinavians.