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Post by Vene on Sept 22, 2011 15:39:44 GMT -5
I'll be more concerned about people not speaking English when we have a national language. Although, if you live in an area with an official state language and that language is only English, then you have a valid complaint.
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Post by N. De Plume on Sept 22, 2011 16:09:56 GMT -5
To be fair, the government can't really supply every school with a translator for every language someone who happens to move into the neighborhood happens to speak. No, you can’t be reasonably expected to do that for every language. But as I alluded to earlier, if you happen to have a sizeable population of first and second generation immigrants that all speak one language, it would be helpful for all involved to be prepared to deal with that language. No one is asking the Miami school district to have an interpreter for some obscure African bush language. I doubt they would have a large enough population of native speakers to make that worthwhile. But if they have a large enough population of native Spanish speakers, then it just might be helpful to provide a service so they aren’t out getting in everyone’s way because they don’t know what the fuck is going on around them. When you've been here that long and still rely on your kids to translate everything because you're too lazy/proud/whatever to learn the local language, the fault is on you, not on the people who don't have time to cater to your bullshit. And that's true no matter what country you're in. Or maybe it just has something to do with the fact that it is easier for a younger brain to pick up new languages and that going to school often creates a whole level of immersion that the parents can’t achieve. And as long as you have waves of new immigrants coming in and entering your society, you will still need to have the infrastructure to serve them. If that infrastructure is there, does it really matter if it is being used by a young woman fresh of the boat or if it is being used by a 65-year old grandfather who is still having trouble switching between the language he only started learning 15 years ago and the one he used exclusively for the first 50 years of his life? I'll be more concerned about people not speaking English when we have a national language. Although, if you live in an area with an official state language and that language is only English, then you have a valid complaint. I fail to see how putting this sort of thing into law makes it any less xenophobic. |
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Post by Vene on Sept 22, 2011 16:14:07 GMT -5
I'll be more concerned about people not speaking English when we have a national language. Although, if you live in an area with an official state language and that language is only English, then you have a valid complaint. I fail to see how putting this sort of thing into law makes it any less xenophobic. It makes the complaints about it less stupid. |
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Post by anon87311 on Sept 22, 2011 16:34:13 GMT -5
where I live it's been argued about for a long time. I don't really care, I just think that if you're going to live somewhere you should learn the damn language. I wouldn't go to france and never learn french, or spain and never learn spanish. As long as they make an honest effort to learn, then I really don't care.
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Post by N. De Plume on Sept 22, 2011 16:43:14 GMT -5
I fail to see how putting this sort of thing into law makes it any less xenophobic. It makes the complaints about it less stupid. How is it less stupid? where I live it's been argued about for a long time. I don't really care, I just think that if you're going to live somewhere you should learn the damn language. I wouldn't go to france and never learn french, or spain and never learn spanish. How long do you suppose it would take you to become as fluent in French or Spanish as you are in English? I would imagine most immigrants are making an honest effort. It’s hardly easy on them to be unable to tell what the hell is going on because they don’t understand what’s being said. |
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Post by Thejebusfire on Sept 22, 2011 16:50:25 GMT -5
You can't be absent for 30 days and expect a passing grade.
Unless you have a good reason letting your child stay absent for that long.
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Post by Vene on Sept 22, 2011 17:01:26 GMT -5
It makes the complaints about it less stupid. How is it less stupid? You don't see how a complaint about a government body not using the language(s) it is required to by law has validity compared to a complaint about a governing body using some language when there are no laws dictating which language it needs to use? |
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Post by tolpuddlemartyr on Sept 22, 2011 17:14:34 GMT -5
In the real world of course anyone who told people to move to a country where they speak your language would be rightly declared a racist idiot and sacked! In Australia anyway.
I don't know how it works in Queensland but in Victoria interpreters work in the same faculty as English and ESL, though they work for the region not the school. They are available once a week, if for whatever an interpreter cannot be found locally one is sent from Melbourne on a case by case basis. Parent teacher evenings should always have interpreters available, I've heard of cases where the kids interpret for their parents-though there is an obvious conflict of interest here.
Think "Fatemah is always helpful, brilliant and on time...Did Mr Tol really say that?" ;-)
This is why we have interpreters.
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Post by nightangel1282 on Sept 22, 2011 17:34:36 GMT -5
In our school, my sister was known as the Invisible Student by her teachers because she was frequently sick, and yet managed to get straight A's across the board because she always completed her homework while sick in bed, and gave it to me to hand in to her teacher the next day. She even had a case of tonsilitis that had her in the hospital for two straight weeks until my father finally screamed at the doctors to "JUST CUT THE FUCKING THINGS OUT!!!!!" because she couldn't swallow anything except liquids.
Absence from school does NOT necessarily mean unresponsible or lazy.
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Post by Wykked Wytch on Sept 22, 2011 17:44:11 GMT -5
My friend got mono, and then meningitis in one year. She was gone for two months and had to make up all her classwork. She's NOT lazy.
I have a processing disability that makes it hard for me to understand verbal instructions. It's not that I'm not paying attention, it's that I really have trouble understanding information when people speak it. And I'm fluent in English. It's my first language. But when instructions aren't clearly written down, I forget a lot of important things.
I am also disturbed by the xenophobia. At my school, there are some students who do not speak English because they have moved here from another country to escape something terrible, or to find jobs. They have classes before and after school to improve their English. If someone doesn't speak the language of the majority, that's not a reason to deny them even an attempt to help.
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Post by N. De Plume on Sept 22, 2011 17:47:31 GMT -5
You don't see how a complaint about a government body not using the language(s) it is required to by law has validity compared to a complaint about a governing body using some language when there are no laws dictating which language it needs to use? I’m talking about people using an official language as an excuse to be a dick to newcomers and act like any unofficial languages are totally banned. In fact, most of the time I hear folks yammering about official languages, that’s exactly what they mean: “Make the official language English so we don’t have to provide anything for them idjit foreigners that don’t speak right!” |
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Post by Wykked Wytch on Sept 22, 2011 17:49:52 GMT -5
You don't see how a complaint about a government body not using the language(s) it is required to by law has validity compared to a complaint about a governing body using some language when there are no laws dictating which language it needs to use? I’m talking about people using an official language as an excuse to be a dick to newcomers and act like any unofficial languages are totally banned. In fact, most of the time I hear folks yammering about official languages, that’s exactly what they mean: “Make the official language English so we don’t have to provide anything for them idjit foreigners that don’t speak right!” If there's a push to make English an official language, there will also be pushes to make Spanish an official language in the years that follow anyway. In most countries with an official language, there are also "recognized languages" which are spoken by a big-enough portion of the population that they still have to provide services to them. I still don't support making English the national language, though. I also don't support international regulation organizations for English. |
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Post by TWoozl on Sept 22, 2011 19:19:51 GMT -5
Canadian perspective on language? Canada has two official languages, English and French; If I call my bank given the demographics of my home city, I can receive service in Cantonese, French, Punjabi, and English. This isn't immigrant accommodation, it's quite simply good sense. We have a very large Chinese-Canadian population, some of whom have been here for twenty years and are indeed very fluent in English. We have a large Indian population here. By and large, most of them are fine with English. Then we have their visiting family, or recent immigrants, or the elderly who have language troubles, who can't grasp English readily.
This is not an inconvenience for the bank; Because we have huge representative contingents of bilingual Canadians who have successfully adapted, they aren't exactly hurting for a hiring pool to draw on to fill these language needs. It doesn't harm anything, English is still an option, and the service is offered above and beyond a minimum level. If the local culture of an area dictates that multilingual services should be available? Let them be. It doesn't seem to do a damn bit of damage to integration, from what I've seen.
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Sept 22, 2011 21:35:05 GMT -5
Considering that America is right next to a Spanish-speaking country, I think it's safe to say that it would be very good manners to make Spanish an official language, right next to English.
First of all, knowing multiple languages helps in many ways.
Second of all, it makes it easier for people from Mexico who come here to learn English, which is always a good thing. Also vice versa for those of us who decide to move down there for whatever reason.
Third, it may encourage better relations between our two countries.
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Post by priestling on Sept 23, 2011 2:10:12 GMT -5
As a would-be scholar, I'll be the first to say that I'm doing my level best to learn Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, trying to remember Spanish, picking up Norwegian, and attempting to wrap my head around Russian, Egyptian, and French.
The reason I got so into languages? As a kid, I got told 6 months in advance that we were going to Mexico for Christmas one year. I checked out a few textbooks and audio tapes, and taught myself as much as I could. We went down there, and I was translating for 23 relatives that went with myself and the rest of my family. I got a 'thank you for bothering to learn our language, you're quite fluent for your age, we'll be giving you a 10% courtesy discount' from one of the managers of a restaurant we went to.
After that? I lost most of my Spanish skills, but I still love language. I want to re-learn someday, because it's FUN!
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