English is the language of these United States

[Peikko 1,575]

Judge people all you want.

Personally, I'd rather not live in a neighborhood where the lingua franca was a language I don't understand.

Spanish is not some complicated language that's impossible to learn if you're worried about what people are saying about you. We all know it's not as if the Spanish speakers are going to exclusively speak Spanish either.

[Ban Hammer 13,656]

You mean, you believe that there will be parts of the US where speaking Spanish is mandatory? No English allowed? You and your paranoia Danno, unbeatable

actually, i do recall lisa d saying something to that effect about parts of miami.

[FortLaudy 10]

yup Charles, I was just driving through there Thursday, you better know Spanish if you want to live in Miami, that's why we love it here just between Ft.Laudy and Miami, just the perfect mix of spanish and english to get by in but far away from the the concrete jungle that's become Miami.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Spanish is not some complicated language that's impossible to learn if you're worried about what people are saying about you.

I agree, it is not. Nevertheless, with the huge diversity in this country comes a lot of choice of where to live. Given all that choice, I wouldn't pick a neighborhood where the predominant language was Spanish or Vietnamese.

yup Charles, I was just driving through there Thursday, you better know Spanish if you want to live in Miami, that's why we love it here just between Ft.Laudy and Miami, just the perfect mix of spanish and english to get by in but far away from the the concrete jungle that's become Miami.

Miami sucks.

[FortLaudy 10]

Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm is da bomb !

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

My wife is a big fan of Fort Lauderdale. We were there a few weeks ago, she always loves it. The only part of Florida I like is the Keys.

And the Everglades is fuсking fascianting.

[FortLaudy 10]

My wife is a big fan of Fort Lauderdale. We were there a few weeks ago, she always loves it. The only part of Florida I like is the Keys.

And the Everglades is fuсking fascianting.

Yup we love the keys, we go there to dive and fish and camp in the glades a lot, you should see some of my pics from Fantasy Fest this year at Key West, OMFG !!

The only city where Spanish is very dominant in FL is Miami.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Of course, I mean it is kinda a sink or swim scenario for most that come here. But, there is no official language of the US. So..... To tell someone to speak English or get out is kind of silly since there is no established official language. The US is on the record for recognizing both English and Spanish, So it doesn't really bother me.

I do not think anyone should say "Speak English or get out" but it would be more accurate to say "Speak English or wash dishes" Promoting the use of other languages with phone messages, bilingual signs etc. is only oppressing people and keeping them from excelling.

Official languages where they are imposed cause problems for the people. Need we re-hash the language problems and disputes in Canada? How is it beneficial for Canada to have two "official languages" as opposed to none? How has it been benficial for Ukraine to declare Ukrainian the official language and require all government records be in Ukrainian and all education be in Ukrainian when vast portions of the country do not speak Ukrainian??? Imagine if Vermont suddenly said "All education must be in French because that was the original language of this area" Who would teach it? Who would learn from it? Often this "official language" thing is just a political club to beat over someone's head anyway (as it has always been in Canada). They REASON we do not have an official manguage is it is not the responsibility of the federal government to tell us what language to speak. It is English by popular demand.

Thank God we do not have bi-lingual signs in Russian and my wife never had any choice but to learn to speak English properly. She is now getting her masters in English and starts student teaching ENGLISH this semester. Pretty soon she will be teaching US kids to speak English as well as Russian kids do!

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Spanish is not some complicated language that's impossible to learn if you're worried about what people are saying about you. We all know it's not as if the Spanish speakers are going to exclusively speak Spanish either.

That said...

Spanish is a language that has very little use outside of speaking to Spanish speaking people in the US, Mexico or Spain. It is virtually unheard in Europe (except Spain) and English is accepted and used everywhere and is the official language of the EU even though it is not the official languge of any EU member. Enlgish is fairly well distributed and understood in Russia and the FSU and more so every day. Sanish is an economically useless language and is not the official langugge of an major world economy. Economically speaking, the best thing Mexico could do is make English the offcical language. Even tiny (population wise) Canada makes it into the G8. Of the G8 only ONE country does not have English as either the official or as a woidely spoken language...China, and China was only added when they made it the G8 instead of the G7 and as the world's most populous country it should be ashamed to be an "expansion team"

[thongd4me 69]

I have two things to say about that:

#1 - English SHOULD be the only language in automated telephone answering systems.

If foreigners who come here can't speak English, they should just come as tourists and be accepted as such.

#2 - the state of foreign language instruction in this country is deplorable; Americans shouldn't

expect to speak only English when they travel abroad but should be expected to speak the

local language where they are working or living for extended periods.

In other words, learning Spanish or any other foreign language is a good thing and should be

encouraged; just keep English as the only official language because it simplifies things for

the government and businesses. We shouldn't apologize for speaking only English here

but we SHOULD apologize for not speaking the local languages in countries we visit, especially

the ones we do business with. During the Soviet era, the Soviets were far superior to us in

their adoption of foreign languages in their diplomatic service than we were. That was one of

the few bright lights in the Soviet system. They ultimately folded because they couldn't compete

with the free enterprise system.

Good video

Edited January 17, 2010 by thongd4me

[Danno 1,228]

and i believe what danno meant...was a part of the country where english is the predominant language.

even today, many people will openly state preferences for living in areas where english (and not spanish or hindi) predominates... i read it on real estate blogs/boards all the time... "don't move there unless you speak hindi"...

Thats exactly right, while I don't mind... even enjoy, visiting countries and people who speak another language, I don't think I would live in a place where daily language is a struggle and the predominate culture is well.. like "another" country.

I and many others will just migrate to places that look and speak like America.

This plan should work for the next 40 yrs.

[thongd4me 69]

In Tokyo a few years ago, I tried to take a train. It was all of about 3 stops from the train station near my hotel to the electronics shopping district, Akihabara.

However all the signs in the station were in Japanese only. I couldn't figure out how much the fare was, how to buy a ticket, which direction I was supposed to go in, or which stop to get off. Nobody I approached seemed to speak any English either.

It made me realize what a foreigner coming to America must feel like, entirely helpless.

I've traveled in plenty of other countries but most of them use a Latin character script. So if you know you want to get off at Bbommersheim stop in Frankfurt, well that's where you get off. Even if you don't know a word of German and have no idea what Bommersheim means.

In Thailand, they use Latin and Thai characters for most public signs, including BTS (Bangkok Skytrain).

Someone on this thread mentioned that they found it disturbing to see the conjunction of the language issue with lots of American patriotic flags and military themes. I agree.

I agree the language issue should be one of practicality and economics - it is very costly to maintain a 2-language system, if it's

just there because everyone else is doing it.

For areas where Spanish may be a dominant language (bordering Mexico and south Florida) I think some accommodations

would be appropriate, but I see no reason why bilingual services are as widespread as they are. It doesn't seem to be a matter of

choice rather than following some kind of political correctness directive. If a business recognizes they need Spanish or other

language services in order to be profitable, there is no impediment to that. My feeling is that the current system

encourages people NOT to learn English by enabling them to believe that they have a right not to do so.

I also have been in Japan for more than a few weeks but I had a basic knowledge of Japanese. The Japanese are,

as the OP pointed out, the opposites of us here in the US in that while they are enthusiastic about speaking English

with English speaking foreigners (more so than Americans are at speaking other languages), yet they look at Japanese

as a way to preserve their insular cultural world-view that Japan should be for Japanese and anyone wishing to

spend their life there had better learn it. Their immigration laws, while allowing foreigners to stay for extended

periods, do not allow for easy naturalization as do American laws. Koreans living in Japan for generations will

give you an earful on that score.

The only good news for foreigners wanting to live & work in Japan is that the Japanese hiragana and katagana

alphabets are in general use throughout the country in most signs - what they provide is a phonetic key as

underscored script to Chinese characters that are not phonetically recognizable even by Japanese. Many signs

do not appear in Chinese characters but are in the phonetic scrips for Japanese to more easily understand.

Through my knowledge of the phonetic script, I was able to travel around Japan on the train system using

a 500 page paperback Japanese-only version of the master train timetable of the country. Every place name

was in phonetic script, so all I had to do was look at the map and have a detailed English language map

alongside that and match up the cities and be able to read the Japanese equivalent on the timetable.