In California it is at the point where if you look like you might be a Latina but in fact, are not, people get actively pissed off when you gently tell them you can’t speak Spanish. I don’t have the blood pressure points to spare outrage but it does make me weary to have to fend off “Spanish! Spanish!” because I look hispanic and have to deal with the accusatory looks afterwards. We have a social welfare benefits agency below us and I am constantly accosted in the elavators.
I am not het up about the idea that people dare to speak foreign languages on American soil, that organisations (including my own) offer foreign language options-I do understand how easy it can be to enclave. I simply do not want to have the frustration in not being able to communicate directed at me.
However, I really really really regret not learning Spanish and just taking French for an easy A-foreign language skills are increasingly important in my field and I’m staggered at how many law jobs these days are asking for “Spanish language skills” or “Chinese language skills” or “Korean language skills”. I am seriously toying with trying to pick up Chinese, which is most likely the language I’m going to push my kids into learning (either that or Spanish). I suspect it is going to become the most commercially valuable language in the future.
Uh…I can’t be bothered to read that whole post, could you point out the part that supports that statement? I mean yeah, I’m all for global panlingualism, but I didn’t think I’d exposed my agenda yet.
The only things I need to know to stock books in these neighborhoods is when they’re open, but these people act like Americans have no right to know this.
As I said, I know “abierto” and “cerrado” and that’s all I should need to know, but when these people close in mid-week, they don’t tell me when, or if they’ll be “abierto” again. I do this part-time. I don’t have an unlimited amount of time to keep checking back to see if they’re open. And if I just say"Fuck it" these supposedly English-ignorant people manage to tell the publisher, in English, that they didn’t get their books.
I like it that the books all go away at these locations, but I dislike that they’re run by people with no manners who could make things just a little easier on their
hosts in this country by at least clearly posting their abiertos and cerrados. It’s like such info is something that, if your not Mexican, you don’t deserve to know it.
I have a very low opinion of Americans who move to walled/gated communities in Mexico, hang out exclusively with other “ex-pats”, and don’t bother to learn Spanish, as well.
Should I ever travel to Mexico and find a business there with English-only signage and no opening/closing hours posted, I’ll make a point of calling them out for their impolity.
Heh. BBC America has started running notices before their programming saying that people with English accents are hard to understand so we Americans should turn on our closed-captioning.
Can’t help you with that translation, but I strongly recollect us having this “Americano” discussion previously. I still tend to think this bit of pedantry is highly regional, probably mostly localized in the minds of would-be-clever Unitedstateseans who’ve learned a bit of Spanish and noticed (one lonely night at home finger-spinning the illuminated globe, a real garage sale find) that hell if there ain’t TWO whole continents that got the name “America” in 'em.
Leastaways every Brazilian I’ve met so far has used (and and seemingly understands) the term “Americano/a” to mean someone from the U.S., and would no more refer to themselves as American than they would Westernhemispherean.
Let not the nitpickers tarnish the memory of your flirtatious encounter. These are the joyless offspring of the sadists who chanted back “I don’t know— can you go to the bathroom?” as you stood, knees-a-trembling, near the classroom door as a yellow puddle spread beneath your ankles.
Well, no. Related languages, for a start. And insofar as “race” has any real physiological referent, the Khoikhoi and Bushmen have physical adaptations not common to humans without K/S descent. I think I will politely leave the details to Mr Dibble, if he chooses to address them.
United Statesians have appropriated it, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us gave it to them.
More seriously, this wasn’t an issue until we got such easy, steady global communication, and it still isn’t much of an issue - most people understand readily enough that when you say American, you mean a citizen of the United States of America. It doesn’t make it wrong to call Canadians, Mexicans, Cubans, Brazilians, etc.* Americans as well, just like Germans, French, Italians, etc.* are all Europeans. America is two continents, not a country.
In my job, I support a small handheld computer. We get customers of every stripe. I mean across the board. English, Japanese, Chinese, Middle Eastern, African, Spanish.
I never once had a customer yell at me for not speaking their language. Not a single time. Every time I hear these stories I …welll, not to say I disbelieve. But I am wondering if maybe it is something in the rep’s demeanor that is causing the customer to become upset?
I have customers get angry with me for almost ever conceivable, real or imagined, infraction. And I have muddled frustratedly through some of the thickest accents on the planet. But I never, ever had a customer yell at me for not speaking their language.
Nzinga, Seated - if you are saying it’s Otto’s fault he got yelled at, simply for being an opinionated blow hard, then you are blaming the victim, dude, and that is “not cool”.
Enjoy my regards,
CK
If Otto were being yelled at because he was a bad communicator and wasn’t able to get his point across in ANY language, that would make him, by default, not the victim. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening, but if it’s never happened to Nzinga, Seated and she has roughly the same type of job, it’s reasonable for her to speculate on it.
And when is blaming the victim not cool? It happens at the Pit every day. I must have missed the memo.
