"Germany's multicultural society has utterly failed&quo

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Racism disguised as patriotism. What an amazing and original idea. I'm sure that the Chancellor wouldn't dream of suggesting this unless it was backed up by intensive study and objective reasoning.

Though I'd have thought it was pretty obvious:

/sarcasm

In Canada they given classes if they need it, and chances are they were never approved for immigration if they dont. Thats in modern times of course.

In the case of my family they went through exactly what you are talking about. German speakers in Canada had it pretty rough right after WWII. My province in Canada was used to host internment camps for Nazi prisoners of war. My family weren't your typical cosmopolitan Europeans either, having come from a backwater colony not far from Iraq. They talked funny, they dressed funny and they sounded suspiciously like those fascists. I suppose you can could get more negative than that, but...



Thats why I said it!

But seriously, an aspie that assumes they are not going to fit in is going to have a harder time than one that makes an effort. Saying "That dog dont hunt!" is pretty lame if you never take it into the field. You are not exactly a "woe is me!" sorta guy and you seem to be progressing nicely in life. Are you making an effort?

I think it ought to be Spanish, since most of the nations south of the United States speak it. Also I'm proficient in Spanish, so I wouldn't have a problem. Perhaps it could be like Canada where French and English are the recognized languages, except here it would be Spanish and English.

Most of the nations that aren't South of the US, and the rest of the world don't speak Spanish. Except Spain, Equatorial Guinea and some people in the Congo. Even "South Of the Border" they don't speak it in Brazil, one of the largest Southern American nations. Even the nations bordering Spain don't speak Spanish. So no, Spanish would be a poor "Official Language." The ability to conduct business slightly faster with a collection of Banana Republics would probably not be enough of a positive to encourage a change to the use of Spanish.

Sure, but you don't always know everyone's situation, and it's hard to make a valid assumption about what difficulties someone else has.

You have any idea how many Cubans I know who can't speak a word of Spanish? I mean, perhaps we can have recognition of Spanish as an important language in the US, but the lingua franca here is still definitely English.

Eh. Only about 24% of Canadians have French as a first language. And Switzerland is tri-lingual (or do they have four)? But the point is making a country multi-lingual is not at all harmful, and its a great way to increase education and make it easier for minorities to fit in. I'm pretty sure you already have special signage in the Orleans and Hispanic areas.

Also, by having the acquirement of Spanish along with English it would, after education, allow for the possibility of better communication and less hostility between that which would otherwise be just English-speaking populace and people who are immigrating here to work from allied nations which have higher unemployment rates than the US.

Honestly, i see no harm in learning at second language (although, i have been told from my linguistics class that french is a bit harder compared to english because you have to memorize quite a bit of stuff that was lost frrom latin out of laziness (compare french / english with spanish words, something as simple as the gender is pretty easy to spot in "spoken" spanish, not so much in french).

Being a french canadian (oh ,the honor? ^^; ), i feel it opens up a lot more opportunities to learn english than to shun it. But then again some people have a tendancy to overthink matters in an emotional light (as in "screw them!, i hate -insert gentile-!") instead of considering the practical aspect. Meh.

I personnally didn't have any major difficulties learning english (but then again, when the rest of North America does so except you...) but i have to admit that the amount of readily media at one's reach helps a LOT. <.< American movies (with varying quality) has been very helpful for my studies. I'd pretty much play the movie (DVD format) with different audio settings (french language, english language) and subtitles (again, french or english, i'm a hearing impaired person btw). =/ It's a shame that not every cultural family on the planet can afford such technology (or wants to...).

My experience is the converse of phil777's, having grown up as an anglophone in Montréal.

When I was in school, graduation from secondaire V required that the student passed examinations in language and literature in the language of instruction, and oral and written examinations in a second language. One of these two had to be french.

So students (like me) who were authorized to study with a language other than French as their language of instruction nonetheless were obliged to learn French. Students who undertook secondary school in French were obliged to study a second language.

Given the saturation of English and French in Montréal, one has to be enormously insular not to be exposed to both languages in simple daily living. Even the act of watching the hockey game on television offered the opportunity for exposure to either language.

You might want to talk to Belgium about that one...

I cant! I dont speak any of their languages.

In western Canada French isnt compulsory, neither from an educational aspect, nor to function in society, but just the same, we have enough exposure from governmental signage, dual media sources and whatnot that we can at least take a stab at what simple things mean. A lifetime of subconcious reading of things like lait, fromage, sel and poivre and a million other little things tends to sink in.

I mean I can order biftek and l'eau or a few other things, read street signs and what not. If I see École on a sign its time to slow down and watch for kids. Anyone listening to me speak might howl with laughter, but what the hell, eh?

I can't talk. I am choked up with flem(mish).

ruveyn

Well, regarding the language obligations. I've read somewhere that the idea of fairness and justice are at odds regarding that matter.

You see, Quebec thinks it is "fair" to have laws to preserve its own language, even though it is not necessarely "just".

The federal government thinks it is "just" to enforce upon Quebec laws that favor the english language, because they think that doing so is "fair". =/

It's kind of complicated, but i can say that both sides can mutually benefit from learning the two languages. I mean, there was this article about an anglophone in Quebec whose family never bothered to learn french, and their son was working as a bartender (his dad was driving people or materials around, and his mom was working in a food factory iirc). And well, sure enough, he learned french and was able to eventually own his very own bar, so it kind of helps to learn the local language(s) if you want to climb the social ladder.

And obviously, this goes both ways as i KNOW that some of my french canadian brethren have moved west over the years, towards Alberta in more recent years (take a guess why, uh :p ) and interaction with anglophones becomes inevitable. =/

I think that exchange of goods and ideas across cultures is something to celebrate. Yet I still disagree with modern multiculturalism because it suffocates free speech.

In light of this topic, the Western Europeans were foolish enough to let in thousands of muslims and suddenly the native population goes ballastic as crime rises. There have been islamic suicide bombers there for 30 years. So what did they expect? At least be consistent.

Don't you know though, it's not all of them? It's, of course, only a few of them which are "extremists" while everyone else is calm and rational just like everyone else during rush hour? And then an argument ensues where everyone calls everyone else "ignorant" or "racist" or an "islamophobe" or some other derogatory catch-all term by which the authors feels better about themselves.