The point is that if we have English as an Official Language in the future that it would send a message in the future: If A, then B. And if we sent that message, then more people would make an effort and/or work harder to learn the language, and fewer people would find themselves ina situation where they are unable to communicate: If B, then C.
This has nothing to do with the guy in the hospital today.
It depends on the number of people. Still I don’t think it’s a hospital’s job mirror the U.N. Other than the most popular languages, I’d leave it to immigrant groups to provide translators to hospitals and other parts of the infrastructure that they might come into contact with. On the other hand if someone wants to take it upon themselves to learn a language and the hospital sees some value in having a speaker of that language in thatjob function, good for them. They should get a raise, as they increased their value to the hospital.
First of all, there is nothing in eleanorrigby’s post to indicate that this patient was using any kind of social services. He could easily be here legally, have a job with insurance, and NOT be fluent in English. Like the janitor in my building, for example.
And, in three cases that I care most about - health care workers, police departments, and fire departments - it is fucking stupid and careless to not know you have a population that is either not fluent or not able to speak English at all. It makes a hella difference when it comes to public safety and the healing of your patient. In these three areas, no one should give a shit about the politics. What should matter is public safety and the safety of those in your care/protection/need. This is not a new situation in the Midwest, and you can bitch all you like about coddling or whatever the fuck else, but the fact of the matter is, you have a patient population with a language barrier. Are YOU, as the public health/public safety person, going to care more about what the patient should do or what YOU can do to ensure the patient/victim gets the best care possible??? Are you going to accept the reality of the nature of your patients or are you going to put your fingers in your ears because it pisses you off? I say again, if you don’t want to learn Spanish even if it could help your patients, then I think you suck as a health care worker.
magellan, where in your post do you make it clear you’re talking about the future? Plus, if you read the last thread on this topic (learning English in America - apologies to FRM, I know your an Aussie) you’d see that immigrants ARE learning English in greater numbers and faster than earlier immigrants did. The community college here in Omaha’s ESL classes are overflowing.
And I’m talking about Spanish, magellan, not every conceivable language, and I’m sure you know that. I specifically referrenced the influx of Latin American immigrants, BTW.
Are the majority of the Spanish speakers in your area citizens?
In her post, the son was demanding that a translater be available 24/7. Does this seem reasonable to you?
If you were in a country that spoke a language unfamiliar to you, would you demand that the medical staff accomodate your ignorance? How many languages should they learn?
Forget about social services. If you are planning to move to a country where your native tongue is not the norm, does it not behoove you to make the effort to be understood? Who, exactly, is asking for help in this situation? Why should everyone bend to your will? What if you want some bread? Should the baker be multi-lingual? The grocer? The butcher? The mechanic? If an American were to move to Finland and demand that everyone speak English, would you plead his case?
It is incumbent upon the communicater that he states his case in such a way that it can be understood.
I know people who have lived in this country for generations in the backwoods of Tennessee who still haven’t learned English. It’s a losing battle, this one. Some people just won’t never learn how to talk good.
Are you aware that English is not the Official Language now? Assuming so, the reality in which having English as the Official Language, and thereby would be able to “send a message”, would have to be in the future, as well, no?
Of course this ignores the posibilities offered by time machines or the control of quantum mechanics by a genius scientist of comic book proportions.
I’m talking about health care workers and then added police and fire departments.
No, English is not the official language. Even if it were, the above-specified professions have an ethical duty to their charges and the public to speak Spanish if they have significant populations who do.
Yes, I do think that if hospitals have patients who cannot communicate fluently in English, then they have a responsibilty as providers to make sure they understand their patients and patients can understand them. Do the workers have to be fluent? No, but you sure as hell can learn Spanish for health care providers, etc. And a hospital can sure as hell make sure there’s at least one staff member who speaks Spanish on a shift.
My sister is a nurse who has a number of Spanish speaking patients. You know what she’s done? Learned some frickin’ Spanish. You know why? Because she takes it as HER responsibility to provide the best care she can. And that means that she gives a shit enough to care that her patients thoroughly understand her and that she understands her patients.
So, Contrapuntal, what do you suggest? That people not go to the hospital if they can’t understand the nurses? Should they wait until they have proficiency to have their health taken care of? And you’re damn straight that if the situation were reversed and there were millions of Americans immigrating to Mexico I would expect the same damn thing.
And resident aliens can use social services, not just citizens.
As for the rest of your bullshit, Contrapuntal, go back and read the qualifications I’ve stated over and over in my posts.
Further, educate yourself and research the realities of the immigrant populations’ very earnest efforts to learn English.
Lastly, magellan I’ve read what you wrote originally about this supposed future and you don’t communicate clearly. But why should I expect more of you than you expect of Spanish speaking communities…
My apologies. The next time you are in the thread and I am talking about a change happening, something which is not the case at the present time but might be the case in the future, and then proposing that the said thing or event would have an effect, by definition, in that same future, I will be sure to explain that this thing or event (which does not exist in the present time), as well as it’s subsequent effect (which, therefore, cannot exist at the present time), is not to be confused with the present (also known as the here and now), in which said thing or event in question has, as of yet, no manifestation.
I don’t really care if the immigrants learn English or not. I just want them to understand that if they don’t, I won’t be able to do business with them or help them. And I don’t care if they speak it well. Just that they try. If someone comes in where I work and tries to speak to me in English, I will trot out my terrible Spanish and try real hard to converse with them. But when they call on the phone and begin by saying “someone there speaking Spanish??” and when I say no, they hang up, well, I don’t need to help that person as they have decided their language is more important than communication, so I’m done.
Hey, magellan, would you be adverse to laying out exactly what you mean when you say English should be our official language, and how that would be a good thing? I’m curious, because I know you don’t support the idea out of racism or anti-immigrant sentiments or anything like that, but honestly, I can’t see how the idea would serve any purpose other than a symbolic victory for the racists and blind nationalists. What would be the practical effects of such a policy, and how would you enforce it?
Pretty much everywhere in the Western half of Europe, plus other places like Poland, Finland, the US, Kenya and the Maldives. My experience is that once you get off the beaten track a little bit, or start dealing with the night shift, the number of people who can speak English drops a lot, even in countries like Germany and Spain, never mind places like Poland. If you’re prepared to waste hours of your life hunting round for the handful of people who speak English, then sure, you can manage, but having a translator or speaking the language yourself is going to save you lot of grief.
So your point that
Should actually have been written
Very insightful, and also applies equally to Portugese, Esperanto, Sign Language and Serbo-Croat.
Maybe. What job does this staff member have? What if she is doing it when the translator is needed? What if three patients at once need a translator? Why only Spanish?
Good for her. I applaud her. That’s a far cry from saying that the hospital is responsible to provide Spanish speakers, while not acknowledging that the immigrants have any responsibility at all.
They should wait until they have proficiency before moving here, or make some other arrangements. At the most basic level of communication, if I want you to understand me, it is my job to speak in such a way so as to be understood.
Are these millions of immigrants legal immigrants?
What percentage of the Spanish only speakers that come to your local hospitals are resident aliens? Citizens? Illegally in this country?
As brilliant as this suggestion is, and as much as it surely represents your very best attempts at rhetoric, I must confess that I do not consider any of it to be bullshit. You will need to be a bit more specific.
Could you point me toward research that supports this earnest effort by the immigrant population? If they indeed are making an earnest effort, and, as you have stated, fluency is not required, just enought to get by in a health care setting, why do you think the communication problem exists? If your sister can learn some frickin’ Spanish, why can’t they learn some frickin’ English?
I don’t hate you. Are you speaking of your hatred toward me? Hate is a strong word, and I don’t bandy it about needlessly. If we were to meet, I doubt highly that you’d HATE me. I’m pretty nice and sometimes overly so, to the point of fawning. I hate inconveniencing people. I hurry across crosswalks. I don’t cut people off on the freeway if I can help it. I donate food and clothes and toys to organizations for the mentally challenged. I donate money and time to local schools. I tip well. I smile at just about everyone I’m faced with. I don’t kick puppies. I do, however, stand up for what I believe in.
I disagree with some of your positions about immigrants who don’t feel the need to converse in English. When I worked at Grand Auto I frequently had to deal with people who couldn’t speak a lick. They’d approach the counter asking “habla espanol”? This was fifteen years ago. I would sometimes become indignant, because I’m as white as white can be (excepting Albino). If someone needs to buy something, they need to say what they want. Filter, oil, alternator, plug wires, air freshener, whatever. If need be, ask a friend/family member to tell you the word for what you want. Don’t gesture to me trying to explain a fuel filter.
I expect that if people want me to help them that they can communicate with me. Even if it’s on a seriously stunted level. Al-ter-na-tor. Simple, yes?
As do I. And yes, I think I would still feel the way I do if we met. I know what you’ve said, and if it was accurate, I know how you think. I know enough to know that I do truly dislike you, and would if we met. I have a strong sense that I would probably loathe you on sight if I had never read you here, but having done so, and being unable to unread anything, I can say with complete confidence that I would never feel warm or friendly toward you.
But of course hate is a strong word, and an unmitigated one. I still read your posts, because even when I can’t fucking stand the poster, I come here to expose my brain to the thoughts and personalities of other human beings, for better or worse. You are at least quite different from me, and from the people I love. So I can’t say I hate you because you still have some value to me. And frankly, I assume you are a fairly decent human being in life. I don’t have to think she kicks puppies to dislike a person.
Please list these ‘positions’ I have and why you disagree.
My aunt who lives in Miami had pretty much given up on learning English. She recognized that this pretty much made her go through life with the handbrakes on, but since she could still go through life (leaning a lot on relatives who knew as much English as she did when they migrated from Venezuela, which is to say zip) she could afford to moan and whine that “I’m just not good with languages”.
Barcelona has been a bilingual city since before the concept had a name. Both of my grandparents were born and grew up there. When they met, in their early 20s, she didn’t speak Spanish and he didn’t speak Catalan; both languages are similar enough that two people speaking slowly and willing to handle occasional rephrasing can understand each other just fine.
Still, I once heard a french language teacher say that her mind boggles when, every year, she gets at least one Year One student at the Official Language school who comes back from a trip to Biarritz (it’s just a 200km hop across the border) whinning that they couldn’t understand anybody on overheard conversations. They were able to buy stuff, which is the whole point of going to Biarritz, and make her feel like yelling “ex-fucking-cuse moi, reality check ahead! How much Spanish did you speak after 6 months learning it? GET A GRIP AND DO THE FUCKING HOMEWORK”
From personal experience, I didn’t really learn any decent amount of English in my first 5 years of studying it in school; then I got a teacher who showed us the commonalities in grammar with that of Spanish instead of making us learn everything by rote and everything just clicked into place. Two years with Micaela taught me more English than the other… counts… 11 years I’ve had English classes together.
Well of course it’s easier if you speak the language but I am not about to become fluent in Czech for a single six day business trip when English speakers are easy to find there. All that I said is that you can get by which has been my experience. It looks like you’re saying pretty much the same thing so I’m not sure why you’re arguing with me. I have certainly been in situations in my travels where English was useless but these have been the exceptions.
Um, OK. What is far more likely, finding any English speaker or an Esperanto speaker? If you were going to be travelling all over the world for business or pleasure and you could only speak one language, what language would you choose to have the biggest chance of being understood?