English Only

I understand in a hospital, that if there are many Spanish speakers in the area who are not able to speak English, this could be a life or death issue. What bothers me is going to a place where they have non-English people serving the public, who cannot understand what you want.

Sounds like your wife could improve her value, as could we all, by learining to truthfully say, "Yo hablo español."

 

Once, a few years back, I ended up having to ride a bus from Rapid City SD to Tennessee. While in KC, I walked up to the ticket counter for some information, and the man in front of me started speaking to the lady in Spanish.

She said, "Sir, you need to speak English."

He apologized and said, "I'm sorry. I saw your dark skin and thought you spoke Spanish."

"Si, I am from Cuba. But, I live in the United States now, and you need to speak English."

Man, that made him hit the roof! (However, I wanted to applaud.)

 

I am looking at a box of popcorn where there is spanish written right under the english. Hubby bought it. Where does it stop?

 

Does it offend your eyes to see Spanish under English? I don't get the problem...

 

I don't have a problem with that; it's good marketing. I do have a problem with the government requiring everything to be in other languages.

The funny thing about it is that my wife, who is from Puerto Rico, needed a copy of her birth certificate. Keep in mind that she's lived here since she was about 3 years old. She called the government offices there and could not find a single person who spoke English! They are part of the US! She had to call her abuela and get her to run over and pick it up and overnight it to her.

 

With PR though, it is a different situation. Yes, has been part of the US since 1898, but its primary language is Spanish. Much as Quebec is part of Canada, but has French as primary.

I too have no problem seeing other languages on packaging. Companies have to sell to everyone.

 

I have no problem with that in and of itself, except for the fact that as a part of the US, their government offices should require someone there speak English. This is especially true since the government offices on the mainland are required to speak Spansish.

When I was in Guam, I never encountered a single person who didn't speak English, and they are a US territory.

 

I enjoy seeing other languages on the bottom. I delight whenever I see French or German, simply because they aren't as common on products sold in America.

 

I have a 3 Stooges DVD that is subtitled (and dubbed) in Portuguese. I found that to be odd.

 

Manufacturers here, are now marketing to other nations. It's a good thing. When you see an American product with other languages, it means we're selling American products to other countries.

 

Now HOW do you say,

WOO woowoowoowoowoo!
or

NYUK nyuk nyuk!

in Portugese?

Sorry, that just made me laugh...

 

Bush is pandering to his clientel.

 

Hm, English speaking nation wants national anthem sung in English. Can't see the problem...

A nation will ultimately lose all unity if there are no universally recognised standards and truths.

Want to know what can happen by simply having the anthem in other languages? It leads to schools for one language and schools for another... jobs for one language and jobs for another... representative governments for one language and representative governments for another. Sooner or later all unity is lost and the nation is destroyed. Diversity is great, it has helped the UK and the US, but there comes a time when standards must be set and agreed upon. In both our countries that happened years ago.

If they are so intent on speaking Spanish as their primary language then they surely know of plenty of Spanish speaking countries.

 

Congress has had 200 years to make English the official language and hasn't.