| Should American kids learn Spanish? |
| Yes All American children should be taught Spanish |
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62% |
[ 25 ] |
| No learning Spanish will not benefit American children |
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37% |
[ 15 ] |
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| Total Votes : 40 |
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Triangular_Trees
What is right is sometimes found on the left.
Joined: Jul 18, 2007
Posts: 2053
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 Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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Its no surprise that citizens of other countries typically know english as well as their own language. If you lived in an area the size of France you couldn't get everything modern society needs within your borders, and English is the international business language. So a frenchman's french is really like a pittsburgher's pittburghese. Its useful for talking to those around you, and shows your culture, but really doesn't help you in the grand scheme of things.
So will yinz guys help me worsh the spicket on this jagger bush of a topic. And while we're at it my car needs worshed. Djou want to help?
And by the way i live several times closer to quebec than i do to Mexico, so why shouldn't my children be required to learn french if they are going to mandate what they learn - after all they will actually have opportunities to utilize the french |
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Triangular_Trees
What is right is sometimes found on the left.
Joined: Jul 18, 2007
Posts: 2053
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| Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 3:15 pm Post subject: |
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| skafather84 wrote: | on second thought, i think italian might be more useful because it seems to have similarities to both modern french and spanish* and like a more evolved latin...while still being somewhat source to the other romance languages.
*at least what i've gathered from my limited knowledge of all three languages and what phrases i know and how they structure. |
and italians don't know english. As sort of a liason with another organization website in the past I was the contact person for the various language forums. Even the italians who knew english had a hard time with it, and most didn't know it. So combine that with my lack of knowledge of italian and our conversations were sort of like this:
etw arwr asdfer help?
I don't want help I just wanted to see the features of the chat room."
iuyi kjbkbd, don't know english......shksdhf Rui help
you team football like?
and then there are the dutch who i'm still talking with today, they even understand my american slang and typos. And they understand my dutch that i'm learning from speaking with them. (even if i do mainly write about things like needing help because the criminal investigation deparment stole my counterfeit money) |
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jamesohgoodie
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 18, 2007
Age: 28
Posts: 702
Location: Chicago IL
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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i live in a Hispanic neighborhood right now and back home i worked with a lot of dudes who came from Mexico. i had to learn Spanish by default. i think there's merit in learning it. and to a lesser extent i think there's merit in learning French because of our proximity to Canada. French is also a more popular language than people realize. a lot of countries in the Middle East and Asia have French as a second language, so there's hope for communication there.
most of said Mexican people in my neighborhood don't speak English though. this is a very conservative idea, but if they're going to live in a country where the majority of people speak English they should learn some English. if i went to France, where everyone speaks French, and expected everyone to speak English I'd be rightfully branded a pillock. this isn't exclusive to Mexican people either. i got into a car accident years ago and the woman in the other car spoke only Russian. all i could think was "how did this woman last in America speaking only Russian?".
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SuperSteve
Blue Jay
Joined: Sep 12, 2007
Age: 25
Posts: 94
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:22 pm Post subject: this is ridicilous... |
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Someone hints that learning a second language in school might be a good idea, and this kicks in? come on! Here in Sweden, we have two mandatory languages starting from the second grade, and in seventh a third one of our choice (Spanish, German or French) is introduced. And while I'll admit that I've forgotten much of my Spanish, both English and Swedish are still going strong. I think a little more language-training will do the US some good.
And I think it's ridiculous that Spanish isn't mandatory in the US already, when half your continent speak it, not to mention almost 11% of your own population.
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skafather84
Platypus God
Joined: Mar 21, 2006
Age: 28
Posts: 11156
Location: New Orleans, LA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:33 pm Post subject: Re: this is ridicilous... |
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| SuperSteve wrote: | | And I think it's ridiculous that Spanish isn't mandatory in the US already, when half your continent speak it, not to mention almost 11% of your own population. |
and i think it's absurd to legislate culture according to immigration trends.
learning a language is good but not something that should be manditory other than learning the language of the land be it english in the US, french in france, italian in italy, german in germany.
to say that the natives should legally be forced to accommodate a large immigration population is just stupid.
half the continent? north america is mostly english speaking other than mexico and quebec. |
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jamesohgoodie
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 18, 2007
Age: 28
Posts: 702
Location: Chicago IL
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:53 pm Post subject: Re: this is ridicilous... |
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| SuperSteve wrote: | Someone hints that learning a second language in school might be a good idea, and this kicks in? come on! Here in Sweden, we have two mandatory languages starting from the second grade, and in seventh a third one of our choice (Spanish, German or French) is introduced. And while I'll admit that I've forgotten much of my Spanish, both English and Swedish are still going strong. I think a little more language-training will do the US some good.
And I think it's ridiculous that Spanish isn't mandatory in the US already, when half your continent speak it, not to mention almost 11% of your own population. |
i agree. thing about America is we kinda don't like to acknowledge there's anything outside of America (kinda like how the French don't really like anything that's not French). Sweden you're bordered by what, half a dozen countries? at least? you HAVE to learn the other languages. America we're only bordered by Mexico and Canada, only two countries with two different languages. and since Americans never really venture outside their American bubble there's no real incentive to learn the language of either country.
it also doesn't help that Spanish and French are taught in American public schools, institutions where students realize by secondary education that they're never going to use this crap in their lives ever so they file away foreign language along with everything else.
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skafather84
Platypus God
Joined: Mar 21, 2006
Age: 28
Posts: 11156
Location: New Orleans, LA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:00 pm Post subject: Re: this is ridicilous... |
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| jamesohgoodie wrote: | | i agree. thing about America is we kinda don't like to acknowledge there's anything outside of America (kinda like how the French don't really like anything that's not French). Sweden you're bordered by what, half a dozen countries? at least? you HAVE to learn the other languages. America we're only bordered by Mexico and Canada, only two countries with two different languages. and since Americans never really venture outside their American bubble there's no real incentive to learn the language of either country. |
that's flawed logic right there. france is surrounded by the UK (and piped in with them), italy, belgium, germany, and spain. they have a very diverse set of languages around them.
and french is more just in quebec than anywhere else. not like mexico where spanish is the primary language.
it's cute that you think that learning languages makes any difference but the difference is more in learning the culture than the language. a rude american fathead is still a rude american fathead whether it's in english or broken spanish or messed up french or ruined italian or embarrassing japanese.
and you know what? if you're not doing international work and travel, there's no need to learn another language. i have friends who've worked abroad and learned japanese while they were there and could speak it fluently towards the end and have since forgotten it being out of practice in the states and only able to understand a few phrases here and there. |
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Flipmode
Sea Gull
Joined: Jul 16, 2008
Age: 23
Posts: 206
Location: Houston, Texas
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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The majority of children in the world are taught the English language at an early age. Children in Europe usually can speak about three languages fluently. Meanwhile only a small amount of Americans know a second language, most people are only exposed to about two years of language in high school.
The Spanish language is highly important in America because there is a significant minority of people who speak it. It is to our advantage if we become a bilingual society. Why? because a bilingual society has a clear competitive advantage as opposed to other societies. But not just Spanish, we could also try to expose kids to languages such as: French, Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, etc. before High School.
Spanish is a good start for many students in America, as opposed to another foreign language. People here have many opportunities to speak Spanish here on a daily basis.
But still, I really dont know if Obama can pull it off.
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skafather84
Platypus God
Joined: Mar 21, 2006
Age: 28
Posts: 11156
Location: New Orleans, LA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Flipmode wrote: | The majority of children in the world are taught the English language at an early age. Children in Europe usually can speak about three languages fluently. Meanwhile only a small amount of Americans know a second language, most people are only exposed to about two years of language in high school.
The Spanish language is highly important in America because there is a significant minority of people who speak it. It is to our advantage if we become a bilingual society. Why? because a bilingual society has a clear competitive advantage as opposed to other societies. But not just Spanish, we could also try to expose kids to languages such as: French, Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, etc. before High School.
Spanish is a good start for many students in America, as opposed to another foreign language. People here have many opportunities to speak Spanish here on a daily basis.
But still, I really dont know if Obama can pull it off. |
many opportunities? you haven't traveled around the country very much, have you? |
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Flipmode
Sea Gull
Joined: Jul 16, 2008
Age: 23
Posts: 206
Location: Houston, Texas
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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Alright good point, the are some states that lack a significant hispanic population. That still doesn't diminish the importance of learning spanish (even in these areas). A large amount of people in our hemisphere do speak Spanish, and compared to every other foreign language it is still perhaps the easiest for American students to learn (b/c of hispanic tv/population etc.) even if you do live in a state such as Wyoming or Wisconsin. I am not saying this will work, what I am saying is that if we want more Americans who are bilingual Spanish is a great language to start with.
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skafather84
Platypus God
Joined: Mar 21, 2006
Age: 28
Posts: 11156
Location: New Orleans, LA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Flipmode wrote: | | That still doesn't diminish the importance of learning spanish (even in these areas). |
actually, it does. if your argument is large concentration then that's your argument...you can't all of a sudden say that even if your argument is wrong, you're still right. can postulate a new argument...but you can't insist on being right without anything backing it.
for functionality, it'd be much better to learn arabic languages, dutch, german, french, chinese, and japanese (high business traffic).
particularly chinese lately. but then again, if you don't need it for work/business/living, you don't need it and that's the bottom line. it's extraneous. |
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Flipmode
Sea Gull
Joined: Jul 16, 2008
Age: 23
Posts: 206
Location: Houston, Texas
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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[actually, it does. if your argument is large concentration then that's your argument...you can't all of a sudden say that even if your argument is wrong, you're still right. can postulate a new argument...but you can't insist on being right without anything backing it.]
I still insist that Spanish is the most important language that Americans can learn even in areas where Spanish is not as common, that is my argument. I back this opinion up by saying that Americans have by far more access to more Spanish media and material than any other language, thereby making Spanish a more useful language to learn.
[The Spanish language is highly important in America because there is a significant minority of people who speak it.]
I agree that the other languages you have listen (with the exception of Dutch) are very useful, however most Americans would have far more of a reason to speak Spanish.
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monty
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 05, 2007
Posts: 3170
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:09 pm Post subject: Re: this is ridicilous... |
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| skafather84 wrote: |
it's cute that you think that learning languages makes any difference but the difference is more in learning the culture than the language. a rude american fathead is still a rude american fathead whether it's in english or broken spanish or messed up french or ruined italian or embarrassing japanese.
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I think it would be cute if the US had qualified, trusted interpreters to translate the mountain of Al Qaeda related documents that are sitting in warehouses. Maybe we could have nailed bin Laden by now. And I don't trust the Chinese, the Iranians, the Indonesians, or the ...
One of the problems is that we know the best way to teach/learn a foreign language (immersion, when young), but we pretend that it is just as good to wait til high school, and break the learning into 30 or 45 minute sessions spread out over 8 months, with a 4 month pause in the summer for forgetting. |
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skafather84
Platypus God
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Age: 28
Posts: 11156
Location: New Orleans, LA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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immersion works at any level. you just have to actually be immersed in it. ask the people who get visas to work overseas and pick up the language as they're living there. it's not uncommon...just that most people don't take that route in life.
and what does interpreters have to do with what we're talking about? that's a skill work position. not the job of every citizen. the people who are into languages do that and the people who want money are most likely flooding to it. the lack of talent and lack of manpower is the administration's fault, not the market's. stay on topic. kids learning spanish won't magically turn into a flood of interpreters in the market.
and again, learning the culture and understanding it rather than simply out and out rejecting it is the most important thing that should be stressed to kids. not simply to learn spanish...that's worthless. |
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oscuria
Verbal Guerrilla
Joined: Feb 01, 2008
Posts: 2194
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:52 pm Post subject: |
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I feel everyone should speak more than one language. It could even reduce the horrible accent english speakers have when attempting to speak other languages.
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