Considering I’m from Montreal, yes, I’m vaguely aware of the existence of unilingual francophones. And I can more or less understand why they asked me to do the exam, considering I’m from the Frenchy province, but it was very strange to have the visa review people speaking to me in English, discussing my English language transcripts from an English university, and telling me to go take a ESL exam. I’ve only ever been to English schools, for crying out loud. To her credit, the woman I was dealing with was very apologetic, but rules are rules. Still frustrating as hell, though, especially when so many others seem to make it into the country without speaking more than three words of English.
She was probably laughing at you - around here, if you were speaking to a Hispanic person and said you were Americano/a, they’d say “Yo tambien!” I’m always surprised that isn’t more of a terminology issue, with us calling ourself the name of two whole continents. What I don’t get is how “Norte Americana” means me and not the Mexican girl, but “Americana” would get a laugh.
Romanes Eunt Domus
Well, thank you for sharing that, Debbie Downer!
Any other Spanish speakers giggle a little when they read “Estoy Americano”? I mean "Yo soy, El es, tu eres, nosotro somos, ellos son…
Okay, bottom line is, I don’t believe you.
That’s all I got.
-FrL-
Seriously? Why not? Chinese, Spanish and Polish. . . seems pretty common to me. Why does it not sound believable?
It remains true that the U.S. has the largest monolingual population of any industrialized country.
(And if the caller happened to have been a U.S. resident of New Mexico, their ancestors may have been hanging out around Santa Fe a couple of hundred years before Otto’s ancestors struggled out of Europe and may have been speaking the same language legally for that whole time, since New Mexico is bi-lingual.)
I don’t see any calls for cultural relativism and the whole “PC” thing is your invention. Otto’s company is quite willing to accept money from people who do not speak English. (I wonder if they even translate their advertising into Spanish to lure in more [del]marks[/del] customers?) I do not think that Otto, personally, should be required to speak another language, but if his company is luring customers who sperak Spanish, it makes good business sense to hire personnel who can speak with those customers.)
(I don’t even think his rant is out of line in terms of blowing off steam. I just note that it is probably a situation that is more common in monolingual U.S. than elsewhere.)
I don’t believe his claim that he has been yelled at repeatedly by people who were angry at him for not knowing these languages.
(Out of curiosity, what is it you thought I was saying I didn’t believe?)
-FrL-
I had another call from our Hong Kong branch my last shift. The same guy always calls; I assume he’s the resident English speaker, which doesn’t bode well for the language ability of the other people there. Nowadays I know what he wants when he calls, but the first time was a frigging nightmare.
Hong Kong: Hi. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah thisis<name>callingfromthe aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah HongKongbranch. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah wehavetrouble aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah <pause for breath> aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah printingfrom<obscuresoftware> aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Not “umm”. Not “er”. No. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah”. The parts that are supposed to be intelligible speech (amounting to a few percent of total speaking time) are delivered at extreme speed, with low volume and the pronunciation of a lemur with a throat infection. Luckily, I don’t need any information from him when he calls; I know what the problem is and how to fix it, but God help us both if he ever calls about anything else.
Last shift, however, was the first time I heard him speak Chinese (he was talking to one of his colleagues). I thought the “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah” shit was part of his natural speaking patterns, but no. His Chinese flows like rain on a day I meant to spend on the beach.
Now, if I had to call someone in a language I was very bad at, I’d prepare. I’d decide what to say before I dialed. When the other guy picked up the phone, I’d be all “This is Priceguy calling from the Hong Kong branch, and we have trouble printing from <obscure software>”. Probably still with the pronunciation of a lemur with a throat infection, but at least I wouldn’t do my utmost to make myself less comprehensible than absolutely necessary.
Whether in Spanish, Polish, Chinese or Kalahari Bushman Tongueclick, this is one meme that should never have seen the light of day.
I’m currently living in, uhm, the area where Switzerland, France and Germany collide. I don’t speak German; I took three years of German classes but they were completely focused on grammar (which poses me no problem) instead of vocabulary (if you use the right words in the wrong order, people will understand you, which is the whole point). Apparently my French sucks less than I thought, I can’t talk politics in it but I can conduct business.
In every other job and location, if someone got sick they got assistance from their coworkers. Sometimes it was institutional: there were procedures that “anybody who’s leaving because he’s not feeling well must not be allowed to drive, someone else will drive them home or to the nearest medical center and accompany them”, sometimes spontaneous. Here? Damn, they won’t even tell you where the bathroom is, much less help you find a doctor.
The company offers in-the-office classes to workers at a discounted price. You can only access them if your job description includes “speaking German,” which mine doesn’t (all business at my level is supposed to be conducted in English). The working hours I had until recently, combined with rules like “no washing clothes on Sundays”, meant it was impossible to attend other classes.
I am SO leaving when my contract’s over.
No, it makes perfect sense in British: “The customer is always shite.”
I’m so disappointed. I thought this was gonna be much more like the Kids in the Hall sketch I so love.
That sounds like bullshit to me.
[QUOTE=tomndebb]
I don’t see any calls for cultural relativism and the whole “PC” thing is your invention.**
I note you’re not disputing my contention that having a single language that everyone can communicate is a huge advantage for America (just ask the former Soviet Union, with its 200+ dialects) which is my major point. I do think cultural relativism and PC are drivers for some elements of the notion that we should accommodate Spanish as much as possible. We should in fact make it difficult for people who only speak Spanish to get by without learning basic English – and we should make it very easy for them to learn basic English.
I find your contention that, of all people, **Evil Captor **, invented “PC” rediculous.
I’m not questioning that. But it’s a big step to then accuse the OP of being snobbish about being monolingual. We’re talking about John Q. Citizen doing his job in America. If The OP was on the border of, say, Mexico he might well be expected to know Spanish. But to be in middle America and be expected to field whatever language comes in is a bit much.
People called the Romans they go the house?
- draws sword and prepares to teach Latin *
I’m in New Jersey, and people have told me I “have” to speak Spanish. I have no problems with the idea that people should be bilingual, provided:
One of the languages they speak and understand ishould be English (at least in the USA) &
Nobody tells me what the second language should be.