I love these kinds of thread!
[QUOTE=Ensign Edison]
- That coming to this country somehow obligates a person to adopt its customs. You assert this as if it is as true as the color of the sky, but why? Can you explain it? What is desirable about a culture in which everyone is the same? Do you imagine that we have this now?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t see what customs has to do with learning the language of the country you are moving too. I only saw one person saying this above in fact. It IS a good idea for people moving into a new country to LEARN the customs and culture of the nation they are moving into however, don’t you think?
[QUOTE=Ensign Edison]
2. That their not wanting to learn a language equals “not being bothered”, being lazy, but your not wanting to learn a language, or even several, is somehow ennobled because of where you had the fortune to be born. Can you explain this?
[/QUOTE]
Sure…people are lazy. They are also disinclined to want to push themselves. Living in ghetto’s also makes things easier…it helps you maintain your old ways, language, etc…and pretty much keeps you down, poor and without prospects. Some of my relatives, though they have been in the US as long as my family (I moved to the US when I was a toddler), STILL don’t fluently speak english, and still don’t fully understand US customs or ‘culture’ (not that we really have a unified culture), because spanish is still spoken exclusively in the home, and they have not made the effort to assimilate. Hell, I have a few cousins who are SECOND generation American’s, and THEY don’t speak fluent English, or really understand US customs all that clearly.
Lazy? Perhaps. Not bothering? Certainly. But there is of course more too it. You have to WANT to assimilate into the new country. When my father brought us to the US, he FORCED us to assimilate. Spanish was not spoken in our house…only English. We went to schools that didn’t HAVE dual language schools…English only. We learned to talk like American’s, walk like American’s, dress like American’s and basically to BE American’s. Oh, we kept our culture…our holidays, our religion (well, I didn’t but thats another story) and traditions. But in everything else we became just like native born American’s. In fact, my own children don’t even SPEAK spanish at all, except what they learned in school (and only one of my kids took spanish…the other 2 took French :)). Knowing how to speak spanish is a good thing, it can help you get a job, etc etc…but only if you know how to speak English fluently, without an accent FIRST. If you understand the culture and customs of your new host country FIRST.
[QUOTE=Ensign Edison]
3. That it’s hard to learn enough in other languages to get by, even multiple languages. What makes you think this is the case? Given the very many multi-lingual people in this world, and the lack of things dissolving completely into chaos as a result of many languages being spoken in one area.
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I assume you are saying that American’s should learn multiple languages just enough to get by so they can speak to their immigrants. If thats what you are saying my question to you is…are you a loon? Why SHOULD American’s (or Australians or anyone else) learn all the various languages spoken by people immigrating to their country?? Thats nuts. Its on the people moving in to learn the host nations language.
If I move to France, say, I don’t expect the French to learn my native language (which is spanish of course 
)…I would be the one who needs to make the effort to communicate clearly to THEM, not vice versa. Its up to ME to learn the ways and language of my host country…not up to them to learn mine so I don’t have to be bothered.
-XT
