Speak English Or Get Out!

[Totenkopf]

Again, show me where I stated that? If they can read english well enough to drive then they are either "functional illiterates" or illiteracy is a red herring. Not sure what you're driving at otherwise. As to whether non-english speakers should be allowed to drive on American roads, that's a toss-up. As long as they bring someone that understands english (or their place of business does), at least there will be minimal communication problems in case of an accident or other problem.

[mimartin]

Well since you keep pulling out that card, I assumed you felt I thought that.

[Totenkopf]

Which card? The one where you felt I said you or someone else said they shouldn't? Frankly, you're the one that assumed I was singling people here out as saying that, when I pointed out that I hadn't. I was quite clear that I was spelling out my own position on the subject, irrespective of anyone else's pov.

[mimartin]

You've stated your opinion that they need to learn English more than once. I have yet to see anyone dispute that position, so you are correct I’m really unclear on why you went back to it since it still has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

[Roller123]

That guy is pretty racist. I have a question though, is English so threatened in USA so there is a need for such videos?

 

Btw whats with the delusion of grandeur of English being difficult. Among the more popular languages it is by far the simpliest and limited. No genders, no cases, no conjugation, letterbased. Learning basic English is as simple as learning about 1k words, everything else is a stepdown from whatever language the original speaker had "installed". Not to say this is an easy task, regardless.

[Totenkopf]

Was only answering your questions. You've stated multiple times your own position in the mistaken asumption that I was accusing you of thinking that they didn't need to know/learn it at all. Hence comments like this:

So what do we do, put legal immigrates on welfare until they can learn the language enough to take a driver’s test?

Not sure what that has to do with anything.

 

@roller123--racist? how? English isn't merely the domain of one racial group. Would it have been racist if a Mexican had said Americans should learn Spanish if they wish to live or work in Mexico?

[mimartin]

Not sure what that has to do with anything.

Not sure how to explain that better than I already have if you had bothered to read my posts.

 

However, English is not an easy language to learn and driving is a very import factor (at least in the South where mass transit is nonexistent) for getting to work and work is an important factor in eating. It may actually be important to allow new legal immigrants to have a driver’s license before they learn to butcher the English language like the rest of us Americans.

 

Btw whats with the delusion of grandeur of English being difficult. Among the more popular languages it is by far the simpliest and limited.

Who wrote anything about it being the most difficult? I wrote it was not the easiest not that it was the most difficult.

[Roller123]

@roller123--racist? how? English isn't merely the domain of one racial group. Would it have been racist if a Mexican had said Americans should learn Spanish if they wish to live or work in Mexico?

Uhm, common. You cant say things like this on TV plainly. His message isnt directed at those who cant speak English.(obviously) He addresses people, interested in or concerned about a "foreigner problem". And that just happens to be a very specific group of population.

 

==

Someone above said something about "English is one of the the hardest languages on the planet to just pick up". Cant say about planet but its the easiest out of European ones, dunno about Asian ones, they have pictograms. I heard a regular Chinese has to learn up to 20k icons. Well..

[Ping]

Someone above said something about "English is one of the the hardest languages on the planet to just pick up". Cant say about planet but its the easiest out of European ones, dunno about Asian ones, they have pictograms. I heard a regular Chinese has to learn up to 20k icons. Well..

 

Having gone to Chinese school until I was in 3rd grade, I can tell you right now that you don't need to learn that many icons to communicate clearly. If you want an extremely advanced knowledge of the language, then sure, you probably will have to learn 20k, but I don't think we even cracked 1000 characters while I was learning, and I could communicate with other Chinese people just fine. I've since forgotten the language, but still, you can communicate with just basic words.

 

And BTW, Guiness World Records has stated that Basque is the world's hardest language to learn.

[Pavlos]

Someone above said something about "English is one of the the hardest languages on the planet to just pick up". Cant say about planet but its the easiest out of European ones, dunno about Asian ones, they have pictograms. I heard a regular Chinese has to learn up to 20k icons. Well..

It really isn't, you know. You can pick up the basics of English very easily, but learning to read, write, and speak English to a sophisticated degree is remarkably difficult. So much so that adverbs have yet to reach the west coast of the USA.

 

Why is the plural of goose, geese? Why is the plural of ox, oxen? Why has one proven something but not proved it? If one has proven something then why cannot one have gotten it, metaphorically speaking. If 'ou' makes an 'oo' as in 'through', why does it make an 'o' as in 'dough' or 'ow' as in 'plough'? Why does 'doubt' have a 'b'? Why if I were to spell 'fish' 'ghoti' would it still be pronounced the same (the answer is in tough, women, and nation). Why am I when he is and you are? Shouldn't I 'be', to maintain the subjunctive in a question? Why does an apostrophe signify the genitive? Why is a good friend of mine at Cambridge, but living in Cambridge on a street? Why does an 'i' make the sound of an 'e' in every other European language and an 'e' an 'i'? Why do I keep cows but eat beef and stand over (a rather knotted phrase -- in itself a knotted phrase) sheep but eat mutton?

 

Among the more popular languages it is by far the simpliest and limited.

Putting aside the fallacy of making a value judgement on a language for the moment, I doubt you're qualified to make that assessment, nor is anyone not fluent in all the languages of the globe.

 

Should you require proof of how complex and unbound English can be then I suggest you look no further than the authors on this helpful list: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats, Johnson, Pope, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Beckett, Byron, Spenser, Jonson, Heaney, Milton, Yeats, Dryden, Percy and Mary Shelley, Dickens, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, Cowper, Tennyson, Marlowe, Blake, Swift, Sidney, Donne, the Gawain-poet and the Beowulf-poet, Thomas, Poe, Conrad, Tyndale, Burns, Hazlitt, Carlyle, Austen, Browning, Eliot, Golding, Hardy, Wodehouse, Joyce, and Greene.

 

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said, 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand

Half-shrunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

 

Writing is as good as its writers, not the illogical laws of syntax, morphology, and prosody that govern the language it's written in.

 

Edit: Naturally, the language laws impose limitations on methods of expression, though. Doesn't mean that different modes cannot be found.

 

Edit 2: To clear up a point: As language is the method of poetic expression and delivery, I strongly believe that it is an integral part of a poem's power or beauty. This is not to say 'the English language' is an intrinsic part, but rather the 'language' of the poet, regardless of whether that be Latin, Frisian, or Swahili.

[adamqd]

I don't speak American but this certainly isn't good English:

 

"It makes good sense. Does it to you?"

 

Perhaps he should read a book or two. Also, it's incredibly disorientating that he keeps on walking through the same doorway...

qft

[True_Avery]

It really isn't, you know. You can pick up the basics of English very easily, but learning to read, write, and speak English to a sophisticated degree is remarkably difficult. So much so that adverbs have yet to reach the west coast of the USA.

 

Why is the plural of goose, geese? Why is the plural of ox, oxen? Why has one proven something but not proved it? If one has proven something then why cannot one have gotten it, metaphorically speaking. If 'ou' makes an 'oo' as in 'through', why does it make an 'o' as in 'dough' or 'ow' as in 'plough'? Why does 'doubt' have a 'b'? Why if I were to spell 'fish' 'ghoti' would it still be pronounced the same (the answer is in tough, women, and nation). Why am I when he is and you are? Shouldn't I 'be', to maintain the subjunctive in a question? Why does an apostrophe signify the genitive? Why is a good friend of mine at Cambridge, but living in Cambridge on a street? Why does an 'i' make the sound of an 'e' in every other European language and an 'e' an 'i'? Why do I keep cows but eat beef and stand over (a rather knotted phrase -- in itself a knotted phrase) sheep but eat mutton?

@Roller123,

 

I was the one who said it, but I may have spoke too generally. The above is more what I meant. Learning to speak English isn't too difficult, but its reading, writing, and so on that can be a real struggle, especially for older people trying to learn a brand new language. While some people may know how to -speak- English, its reading, writing, and so on in, say, test form for a drivers license that can be very difficult.

[Totenkopf]

Not sure how to explain that better than I already have if you had bothered to read my posts.

 

Cute. Could say the same of you since you 2x inferred something that was never said in any of mine. Besides, no need to put 'em on welfare, let them find a job close to their home till they can read well enough to pass a test (or at least understand enough english to pass it orally).

 

Uhm, common. You cant say things like this on TV plainly. His message isnt directed at those who cant speak English.(obviously) He addresses people, interested in or concerned about a "foreigner problem". And that just happens to be a very specific group of population.

 

Seems more like your inference than any implication he's making. The only possible "foreigner problem" in question is one of people coming here and not making any attempt to learn the language. Since blacks, whites, hispanics and asians (and many "in between") CAN speak english in America, which one of these groups of native english speaking people is he talking too? NO

[Darth Avlectus]

Someone above said something about "English is one of the the hardest languages on the planet to just pick up". Cant say about planet but its the easiest out of European ones, dunno about Asian ones, they have pictograms.

 

Mexican Spanish goes so fast on TV (Example: GolTV--Soccer...circa 2004 anyways) that you actually need to know the language and then use it before you could understand it in their transitional/communicative. In other words you can't just pick it up speech wise.

 

English is unwieldy overall IMO. However, I would guess it's easier to pick up on than Spanish. If you mean written communications, semantics, etc. then I would agree with you, otherwise it's probably more moderately difficult.

 

I heard a regular Chinese has to learn up to 20k icons. Well..

I don't know too much about Chinese language but actually what little I once used to know speaking wise wasn't too terribly difficult. Too bad I never pursued it beyond Gong Fu, history, and certain restaurant settings. Their alphabet can be rather challenging, especially depending on which dialect/version you use.

[Sabretooth]

It really isn't, you know. You can pick up the basics of English very easily, but learning to read, write, and speak English to a sophisticated degree is remarkably difficult.

 

This could probably because I've been learning English since I was born, surrounded by English words, but English honestly isn't that difficult. But getting it to a sophisticated level does require dedication, but the spread of English worldwide has allowed for lots of bastardization of the language, making any English acceptable so long as it is barely comprehensible.

 

Also, English has the most cultural significance in the world today - no matter where you go, English movies are generally there. English books are some of the most widely-read and popularly-known.

 

When learning a language, it's the current culture that counts the most - not instruction books. You pick up a language much faster when you know first-hand how it is spoken and used, what colloquialisms are common and what is now outdated.

[Roller123]

It really isn't, you know. You can pick up the basics of English very easily, but learning to read, write, and speak English to a sophisticated degree is remarkably difficult.

How many languages do you sufficiently know.

 

Why is the plural of goose, geese?

Actually this sentence translated into other languages doesnt even make sense. It lacks "gender" and "case" properties. For every noun you have to memorize its gender, and conjugate the word accordingly. English isnt totally free of that too. The verb "to be" is still conjugated and personal pronouns are still with gender.

Any language: "He likes her", English trans.: "I like I".

Any language: "He is ready." English trans.: "I be ready".

Not conjugated, genderless. Its really that simple and limited. Saying "plural of goose, geese?" is pretty much gibberish. And that on top of required changes for making a word plural.

 

list of writers

Not sure what you mean by that, english speaking writers write for the english speaking population. You dont really expect them to write in other language right? They are doing the best they can.

 

'e' an 'i'

This is a natural process of letterbased languages, where speaking and writing ways go apart. This prob doesnt "exist" in, say, Chinese, but thats because you have to learn every word anyway. Cured on a government level with a language reform. (Which USA i believe doesnt do), but thats not a problem with a language but a country. Doesnt matter on the Internet anyway. For example you can say "You -> U". U r spik inglish.

[Pavlos]

How many languages do you sufficiently know.

That wasn't the point. And three, which is far from qualified.

 

Not sure what you mean by that, english speaking writers write for the english speaking population. You dont really expect them to write in other language right? They are doing the best they can.

I'd have expected Chaucer to write in French but that's by the bye. My point, both here and in the list of odd words, was an attempt to demonstrate how varied (and powerful) English can be in a defence against your assertion of linguistic simplicity. It wasn't well-expressed and for that I apologise.

 

What you appear to be arguing is that one language is better than another, intrinsically. Your grounds for this is that one is more complicated than another because one has verb endings and gender and the other does but in a less wide-spread form: a cultural bias. Professor David Crystal, praise be to him, might help:

 

There may indeed be important differences in the structural complexity of language [however] all languages are arguably equal in the sense that there is nothing intrinsically limiting, demeaning, or handicapping about any of them. All languages meet the social and psychological needs of their speakers, are equally deserving of scientific study, and can provide us with valuable information about human nature and society.

[...]

The fact of the mater is that every culture which has been investigated, no matter how 'primitive' it may be in cultural terms, turns out to have a fully developed language, with a complexity comparable to those of the so-called 'civilized' nations. There are no 'bronze age' or 'stone age' languages. All languages have a complex grammar: there may be relative simplicity in one respect (e.g. no word endings), but there seems always to be relative complexity in another (e.g. word position). People sometimes think of languages such as English as 'having little grammar' because there are few word endings. But this is once again the unfortunate influence of Latin which makes us think of complexity in terms of the inflectional system of that language.

[...]

A belief that some languages are intrinsically superior to others is widespread, but it has no basis in linguistic fact. Some languages are of course more useful or prestigious than others, at a given period of history, but this is due to the pre-eminence of the speakers at that time, and not to any inherent linguistic characteristics.

 

This could probably because I've been learning English since I was born, surrounded by English words, but English honestly isn't that difficult. But getting it to a sophisticated level does require dedication, but the spread of English worldwide has allowed for lots of bastardization of the language, making any English acceptable so long as it is barely comprehensible.

You may be right. My point was, however, that English is not made up of logical cases and inflections but a matted mess of forms sponged off various languages. It has its own complexities, different from, say, French.

[Tommycat]

Sheesh.. you make it sound like you have to learn 3 words for the gender. For the most part you don't. In the case of German, you learn the gender of the word through die, der, das Word gender generally doesn't change. All proper nouns are masculine(saying "das volkswagen" really means the people's car, while "der Volkswagen" is the company). But honestly there is not nearly as much variation in German as there is in English. Get in the room with a Scott and a Texan Auctioneer and they may both be speaking English, but deciphering what they are saying might be a bit of a challenge. Work phone support for a while and tell me English is easy. Understanding different accents from a wide range of people can be rather fun at times.

 

The only people who don't think English is difficult to learn are those who are native speakers of the language. It can be quite frustrating. That is not to say it is the MOST difficult. Some languages you have to be pretty well brought up in to learn. But there are subtleties of the language that seem strange to others. "Smoking a fag" means two different things between LA and London.

[Roller123]

South Germans(swabian) and North Germans(plattdeutsch) do not understand each other. Or very barely. Funny you mention german language, as its Grammatik is regarded as very difficult by American writers themselves(see Mark Twain)

 

Pavlos

I wasnt disputing that an english speaking writer cant produce a work of art. My apologies if it came that way. But a language is a tool nothing more. and better tools produce better results. Note how the professor doesnt give any exampes of properties which could qualify as "richness". Oh wait he did.

but there seems always to be relative complexity in another (e.g. word position)

Which is again funny, because English has a very strict word position. Good for learning, bad for writing and rhyming. Example: "John killed Mary". Change word order and it becomes "Mary killed John". Thats not complexity and flexibility. The opposite but.

[machievelli]

Tim James who is running for Governor of Alabama has an interesting political advertisement.

 

(This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.)

 

While I'm against illegal immigration, I find this ridiculous and bordering on racism since it not only punishes illegal aliens, but legal immigrants. If he really believes that not being able to read English road signs, that are “intentionally pictographs” designed to be understandable without reading, was hazardous then he also needs to revolt the licenses of the illiterate. This was roughly 15% of the population of his state in 2003, most likely the same people he is pandering too with this stupidity.

 

Hey Tim James, I have a better idea, if you don’t want illegal aliens to have driver’s licenses, then change that law and don’t punish those that did it the right way and came to this country legally.

Thoughts?

 

American road signs tend to use the same International symbols used throughout the world. If you cannot read an international roadsign, there is no where in the world that should issiue one.

 

Aside from: "After this and the Arizona law' date=' the reps must be really desperate to alienate the fastest growing group in America". No (admitedly, the Arizona law might be more devastating to the police vote, but you get the idea).[/quote']

 

Growing by illegally immigrating. Face it, until the last decade it was a seven year jail sentence if you immigrated from the US to Mexico illegaly.

 

At any rate, he's an idiot.

 

He's an American Politician. I think that makes him an idiot by definition.

 

Actually, he makes legitimate points. A common language is part of the glue that holds a country together. Frankly, it's both assinine and discriminatory to only print the test out in 12 languages. What about everyone else who comes here and can't speak or read any of those 12 languages? Having been to several non-english speaking countries, I'd say that if I wanted to live there, the burden would be upon me to learn the native tongue. While english does have some stature as a global lingua franca, you do yourself a disservice by not learning a country's native language (which, like it or not, is english in the USA) as it interferes w/your ability to experience that culture in any meaningful way. It also limits your options. Being multilingual is a great thing at a personal level but insane as a national policy.

 

Actually, the US Census Bureau (I helped with the 2000 census) has printing of the exact same forms in 31 languages.

 

He's demanding that everyone know English to the level he desires. His grasp of how to speak English is limited and he wants to make something as needed as a driving test completely English. I'm sorry, but he is speaking the most bastardized form of English on the planet and he's demanding his state be -more- English. I would recommend anyone who moves here learn some English, but if you've ever tried to learn a different language it doesn't always work out that way, especially considering English (and Americanized English) is one of the the hardest languages on the planet to just pick up, not to mention that past 25 it becomes increasingly hard to teach yourself a new language.

 

Since his grasp is less than the Average American, why not use his level of English?

[Totenkopf]

Actually, the US Census Bureau (I helped with the 2000 census) has printing of the exact same forms in 31 languages.

 

Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. Waste of money, frankly.

[mimartin]

American road signs tend to use the same International symbols used throughout the world. If you cannot read an international roadsign, there is no where in the world that should issiue one.

Nope, if you cannot understand the meaning of international road signs, then there is nowhere in the world that would issue a license. I’ve had an international drivers license, but I cannot read any French, I did study the signage enough to pass the test (written in English).

 

 

 

Face it, until the last decade it was a seven year jail sentence if you immigrated from the US to Mexico illegaly.

Nope, just look at the last time the U.S. went though this type of debate. In 1986 we had immigration reform, what we really had was amnesty for illegal immigrants. There is nothing new about this debate and it has been going on for way more than a decade. Who in their right mind would think that rewarding illegal activity would suddenly stop it?

[machievelli]

Nope, just look at the last time the U.S. went though this type of debate. In 1986 we had immigration reform, what we really had was amnesty for illegal immigrants. There is nothing new about this debate and it has been going on for way more than a decade. Who in their right mind would think that rewarding illegal activity would suddenly stop it?

 

You appear to have misaprehended my comment. Until seven years ago, Mexican law had a penalty of 7 years followed by deportation if you immigrated there illegally. They changed it because even as they have screamed that they have the 'right' to immigrate into the US, you didn't have the same right going the other way.

 

As for the original amnesty, all it did was tell the others who had yet to try it, all you have to do is run north again hide long enough, and your crime will be rewarded.

[mimartin]

You appear to have misaprehended my comment.

Yep, I flat got that completely backward. I did not live up to the measure twice cut once philosophy. Of course in this case it was read twice. I apologize.

[machievelli]

Yep, I flat got that completely backward. I did not live up to the measure twice cut once philosophy. Of course in this case it was read twice. I apologize.

 

No problem. COnsidering the people I argue with sometimes here, Doing what they then accuse me of for example, someone willing to admit they were wrong is refreshing.

 

'Lay on MacDuff, and damned be he who cries, kold, enough!'