Except that many of these small places are family owned and run. It’s not like they hired an outsider.
(slight hijack, because the person described did not own the business.)
A few years ago my son was in a preschool where the late-room lady was Russian. She was learning English, and I usually came upon her reading a story to the 2-year-olds, which seems like an okay way to learn English to me. But there were some communication gaps. Like the day I couldn’t find my son’s pacifier in his stuff. Pacifiers are vile things and I always swore my children would never have them and certainly wouldn’t be depending on them, but so much for good intentions. This was during a period of extreme dependence and it was the last pacifier.
The Russian lady did not recognize the word.
Now I have studied Russian, and once before, my attempt to ask her what my son liked to play with so I could get him a present, failed utterly until I hit my Russian/English dictionary and came up with “Kakia egrushki Sam lyoobit?” at which point the Russian lady hugged me and then went around the room pointing to trucks. But I didn’t have my dictionary and I’m not sure the word “pacifier” was in it anyway. So finally, in desperation, I stuck my thumb into my mouth and made loud sucking noises. (And the OP thought it would be humiliating to point to a menu item, hah.) This worked!
But the preschool worker’s lack of precision in English led to a couple of things that, frankly, I laughed at, although not in front of her. This was a place where the kid’s day was written up on a sheet of paper, to wit: “He had good day. Ate all lunch. Beef, green bean, peach. Napped 1 hour.” For October 28, 1997, we have: “He had good day. He threw up 5 time.”
Does anybody else also pronounce the “r” in YEE-roe as a hard r? I’m no linguist, but I think that’s how you would describe it.
Sort of like rolling the r, but with only one “roll.”
Ever heard a Ukrainian/Russian pronounce the name Uri? Kind of like that. “YOU-rdi”
I guess gyro would be: “YEE-rdow”?
This says that you don’t like it that someone would run a business and rely on a customer base of non-English speakers.
Unless you mean:
"The only thing I have a LEGITIMATE beef with is people who own businesses in America and rely heavily on COMMUNICATING with customers but do not speak a WORD of English. Accent or no accent. "
Even then it doesn’t make much sense, with the part about the accent. Which is a bit ironic in a thread about people not being understood well in English.
We should probably keep these two facts in mind:
-
It IS much harder for people older than age 12 or so to learn a new language. It’s a biological thing - not their fault.
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If it’s frustrating for you to deal with someone with limited English skills, think how difficult it is for them to communicate with practically everybody to get through life!
I guess when it comes right down to it, those of us who live in immigrant-rich parts of the country are lucky to have access to all the exotic food and culture they bring to the US.
:rolleyes:
I see we’re in semantic nitpick territory. I apologize for my lack of previewing, as the overworked hamsters barely let me get a post through in the first place. I take it most people got what I was saying. It does nothing to undermind my argument, as I’m arguing a loose grasp of english, enough to be able to effectively serve your customers. I’m not proposing grammer tests for cryin’ out loud.
I honestly don’t understand why this is such a big deal for some people in this thread. If I were going to move to Italy and start a customer service based business there, I would make an attempt to learn enough Italian to be able to understand what my customers want from me. Sounds reasonable, yes? So why is it unreasonable when it’s reversed? My father moved to Guatamala a few years ago and still barely speaks any spanish (something else I have a hard time understanding as I was down there for a little over a week and was able to communicate with the locals enough to get by) but I digress. He started a business down there that relies on being able to communicate with his customers. He got himself a partner that speaks fluent Spanish, who handles communications with the customers. My father works on behind the scenes stuff that doesn’t require him to interact with the customers on a regular basis. Why is this so unreasonable for some of you on this thread?
And the accent comment was due to the poster who had a mini-meltdown over people making fun of his parents for having accents.
Have you read the entire thread?
[minor hijack] Back in the days when I was a travel agent, 3 Chinese cooks came in to book airline tickets for their summer vacation. Their English was nominal and my Mandarin nonexistent. After much mutual confusion, I booked them to what I thought was their destination of choice -Dayton, Ohio. However, I did ask them repeatedly to have a more fluent friend check the itinerary to ensure that they were going to the right place at the right time. Just couldn’t figure out what the big attraction in Ohio was for these guys.
Three weeks later, I got a call from a United Airlines agent who had three incensed passengers on her hands.
Turned out that they really wanted to end up in Daytona Beach Florida.
After much begging and pleading, I managed to persuade United to fly them to Daytona only to have the cooks miss that flight because they were looking for “Union Airlines”.
They ultimately made it to the beach but I was always afraid to go back to the restaurant where they cooked.
[/minor hijack]
>> as I’m arguing a loose grasp of english, enough to be able to effectively serve your customers.
>> I honestly don’t understand why this is such a big deal for some people in this thread
And I do not understand why you do not understand that in a free country he is not obligated to follow your business model. If you want that then start your own business. He starts a business with his abilities and limitations and he does what he thinks is best to attract customers. If he was right his business goes well, If he was wrong his business goes under. he has probably deternmines that he gets enough customers who do not have problems communicating one way or another and he has probably determined that it is not worth his time or effort to learn english for the ocassional idiot who does not like to point at the menu. he would rather that customer be a customer of his competition.
That is HIS business model. If you don’t like it then don’t go there. Go somewhere staffed by people who have majored in English. That is your right as a consumer: to choose what to buy. You have no right to tell someone how to run his business.
This is like the bums who hang out on street corners and do nothing and then justified the riots and lootings and general stealing of the Chinese stores on account that “they charge too much”. WTF of an argument is that? If they charge too much then don’t buy there. Go to another store or open your own store. Fucking customers think they own the business. The owner probably doesn’t want those customers anyway.
Fine, they have a right to run their businesses as they see fit.
And I am welcome to go elsewhere.
Look, I worked in customer service for seven fucking years. And let me tell you, there is NOTHING more frustrating than a customer who doesn’t speak coherantly.
It’s the same the other way around.
And you do have a right to bitch about it. If you can point to a menu item-fine. However, not EVERY restaurant has pictures of the food, btw. And what if they think you are pointing at something else?
>> Fine, they have a right to run their businesses as they see fit.
Yes.
>> And I am welcome to go elsewhere.
Yes.
>> Look, I worked in customer service for seven fucking years. And let me tell you, there is NOTHING more frustrating than a customer who doesn’t speak coherantly. It’s the same the other way around.
Yes.
>> And you do have a right to bitch about it.
Yeah. And others can tell you you’re an idiot. It cuts both ways. (You realise I am using “you” in a generic sense, not “you” in particular but “you” in general.)
>> If you can point to a menu item-fine. However, not EVERY restaurant has pictures of the food, btw.
This one did. One would think a restaurant owner would think of the need of being able to communicate with potential customers. That’s his problem though. If he puts behind the counter his wife who was born in China, does not speak a word of English, is blind, deaf mentally retarded and only has one arm, then yes, I would say that is not a good choice. But as long as customers can communicate with pictures, or hand signals or pointing at the food or whatever, then maybe the business will do OK. And those who don’t like it can go stuff their faces somewhere else.
>> And what if they think you are pointing at something else?
And what if the waiter who speaks perfect English misundertands you? Or are you telling me this would never happen? Look many of the kids working at fast food places can hardly understand English or speak it coherently and yet people keep going back and manage to get their food there.
It was lezlers who said that someone who could not understand your order is someone who
and have
I’m saying that there is a massive difference between not speaking or understanding english well and what s/he said above. A huge difference. And to suggest that someone doesn’t understand you because they have “not bothered to get a loose grasp of the language” suggests to me that you would be satisfied with nothing less than perfect comprehension.
No, I don’t think that, but it seems from this thread that any job which requires dealing with the public is out, until such time as your english improves. Which leaves you either as an executive (unlikely for recent arrivals) or a janitor. Not only is this impractical for immigrants, but the assumption that anyone has the right to tell anyone what kind of job they can have, based on their ethnicity (ie non-American, or at least, non-English speaking) is offensive.
I called the power company here in Colorado and got on the phone with a hispanic person that couldn’t figure out I wanted to pay my bill. After 20 MINUTES of TRYING to tell this person I wanted to make a payment I hung up. For FUCKS SAKE if your going to work in a call center FIGURE OUT HOW TO COMMUNICATE!! Don’t even get me STARTED on the fucking creditors that call with their mispronounciations and garbled speech. Damnit all to HELL if your going to call me DEMANDING money then at LEAST have the common courtesy of speaking a language that I fucking understand JEEZUS!!! Now someone wanna tell me where the fucking sign is that I point to when I want to pay a bill?!?!?
Just send me the money and I’ll take care of it.
sigh
You have no idea what I’m talking about. There is a difference between understanding “does this have cheese in it?” and being an English major in college.
Get a clue. And some perspective while you’re at it.
:wally
shut the fuck up. have you read the entire thread? When i see jokes predicated solely on asians that can’t pronounce words right, or have 2 phrases in their vocabulary and don’t see a flaming car in front of a gas pump, it gets on my nerves. HAHA, laugh at the Korean guy that only says “dolla foty-ni” and is too stupid to comprehend that fire+gas=bad!! Hilarious! Best joke ever! Wanker should write a script for a Charlie Chan movie and sell it to Fox! That shit’s GOLD! :rolleyes:
leslers-
You in fact, are the :wally: . The united states has no official language. A person coming here can do just fine never speaking a word of english, particularly spanish speakers and mandarin or contonese speakers. I don’t know the situation you were in because you didn’t give very many details, butwhat if an english speaking customer was the exception?
If i walked into a little mom and pop owned place in Little Italy, I wouldn’t be that surprised if they didn’t speak english. They speak Italian, which is fine because the majority of their clients speak italian. If the restaurant you went to was say, in Chinatown, it wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t speak english. When I’m in Chinatown I rarely see caucasians, when i do they’re accompanied by an asian person 90% of the time. If they’re serving a niche market (asians) and doing well at it, why would they learn english? My dad has lived 25+ years here without speaking english and he’s doing fine.
Standard answer-“well they came to this country, they should at least learn the language.” Well, demographically speaking, someone immigrating right now to the united states should learn spanish, not english. I blelieve it was The Economist that had a demographic survey of the United States. If trends continue, in 25 years spanish will overtake english as the most common native language IIRC. Assuming that you’re a young guy, are you prepared to learn spanish when this happens? After all, it will be the country’s language.
I’ll put this in italics to make it look important. If you don’t like it, why don’t you go somewhere else? Why is that so hard?
If i get what i view as crappy service, i go somewhere else. If i wanted to start a big and tall clothing store staffed entirely by midgets, that’s my perogative. You have no right to tell me who to hire. You may not like it, and it may be bad business, but that’s my problem. I’m the one who stands to lose everything, not you. Get a clue. And some perspective while you’re at it. If not having english-speaking staff doesn’t hurt them enough in the pocket book, why should the staff HAVE to speak english?
TLW-
You’re right, somebody had to be proficient in english to help a non-english speaker get everything set up for a business. I don’t blame you for not knowing this, you’ve probably never read or seen a chinese newspaper, but there are chinese real estate agents, lawyers, financial planners, etc. When my mom bought her condo she went to a bank branch staffed entirely by asians. She could get service in english, mandarin, cantonese, vietnamese, or thai. Her mortgage documents were bilingual. No, not english/french like most up here in Canada, they were english/chinese. Every major bank has at least 1 branch in the city like this.
Something else i wanted to add. My mom speaks english, my dad doesn’t. Why is that? It’s because my mom was a waitress, my dad was a cook. Alot of people are saying “Put them in the back until they learn english.” Well, they’ll learn english faster in the front, when they’re forced to speak and hear english. My dad’s english consists of cooking terms, because that’s the only english he ever had to use. By condemning them to “the back” they may never learn how to speak english. The best way to learn a language is to get thrown right into it.
Someone needs to take a valium…
Yeah, the story about the fire was funny. Someone who is standing right in front of a fire but keeps insisting the person trying to put it out is stealing the extinguisher is funny
Pull the stick out of your ass, you’ll feel better.
My god you’re a motherfucking bigot. People like you make baby Jesus’ pants less perky. I’m truly sad for you 
I also like how you ignored everything else in my post. <—please note that was in italics, so it was important. It’s how I emphasize things. Maybe if it’s like this people will believe it.
PS. The joke was not funny. It was the most anti-climactic joke ever. After reading all that set up, the punchline is “Well no, he didn’t mention that.” Major case of humour blueballs.
And before you start, I’ll begin your next post for you.
I’m not a bigot, I have alot of asian friends. All i’m saying is [insert inane comment here, complete with italicized text]
pure, if you read my posts in this thread you will see I am very much on your side but, come on, the fire extinguisher is a funny story. Taken on its own, per se, it is funny. Of course we know bogots can laugh at it out of bigotry but that is their shortcoming; the story is not inherently bigoted, it just depicts a funny and exagerated situation. If someone tells that story trying to make a point against people who do not speak good english then that person is a bigoted idiot. Hate the sinner and enjoy the story.