<p>During a town hall meeting yesterday in Powder Springs, Ga., Obama said the following:</p>
<p>"Now I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But understand this: Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn Englishtheyll learn Englishyou need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. "</p>
<p>Now, I think every well-educated person should study another language. I studied Spanish for 6 years myself, but my own children have chosen to study Latin. And German is also very popular at their school. It appears to me he is pushing Spanish because of the large influx of Latino immigrants in this country, and I have a problem with that. Anybody else?</p>
<p>One of my kids learned Latin, the other French; both learned some Spanish. I don’t have a problem with promoting learning Spanish. The reality is that there are a lot of Spanish-speaking people within the US and south of the US. It’s a pragmatic decision.</p>
<p>One of mine took French in HS, the other Latin. When the later had to take a language in college, he chose Spanish for purely pragmatic reasons. At around the same time, the elder was looking for jobs, and lost many because they required Spanish. So, whether you resent the present reality or not–for practical reasons, learning Spanish makes a whole lot of sense.</p>
<p>My d is majoring in Spanish (& Econ) and I want to learn Spanish myself. I always encouraged my children to learn many languages. My s knows 3 and d knows 4, though to be honest, I think they are only fluent in English, despite $$ I shelled out in immersion in foreign countries. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Having said that, I feel we should have very strong encouragement (esp from our leaders) of all people to know English well. I’ve heard in parts of the country now, Spanish speaking has reached a critical mass where one do not have to know English at all to function pretty well. If that is in fact true (I don’t actually live in those places) I am not sure that is good for the country.</p>
<p>I saw the video, and my impression was that he was promoting learning foreign languages in general, and only mentioned Spanish as an example. He also makes the point that children can learn languages much more easily when they are younger than the ages at which languages are usually offered in schools.</p>
<p>It was a stupid response. Obama strangely turned a question regarding the necessity for immigrants to learn English into a surreal discourse on how Americans look bad in Europe for not knowing the local language when visiting on vacation. He also repeated the demonstrably false canard that everyone in Europe can speak multiple languages and nearly everyone speaks English. I’ve been in several countries in Europe on business, and outside the UK I found at best half of the college-educated business people I met with spoke English, and far less than that did outside of tourist areas. They might have more years of mandatory foreign language education, but it doesn’t necessarily stick – any more than three years of Latin or four years of Spanish made WashDadJr fluent (he’s not).</p>
<p>He was saying how instead of worrying about immigrants learning english, which they do my the second generation, we should even moreso be paying attention to the fact that when it comes to world languages American students are exceedingly behind. </p>
<p>The mentality that all other cultures should learn english is imperialistic, elitist, and stems from racism.</p>
<p>I think to link worrying about immigrants learning English and Americans learning another language is comparing apples and oranges.
Immigrants who don’t speak English cost the US and other businesses money in providing translation services. Just because you want the immigrant to learn Enlish doesn’t mean that you are against Americans learning another language.<br>
I see second generation immigrants who don’t speak English quite frequently at the hospital where I work.</p>
This is wrong on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin. </p>
<p>Racism? Please.</p>
<p>I am sure that it was racist imperialism that forced most Swedish high school students to become fluent in English.</p>
<p>Would it then be a form of Spanish imperialism, or even racism, for Senator Obama to suggest that we should be learning Spanish? …just in case.</p>
<p>Yes, knowing another language is a marvelous thing; as is a thorough knowledge of Russian literature. It is not, however, a necessary condition of civility to be fluent in either one. Just nicer…usually.</p>
<p>Everyone in my family is fluent in a minimum of two languages. My daughter is completely fluent in 4 languages. She enjoys learning other languages. Not everyone does. </p>
<p>It does help, however, to be able to speak English in the United States.</p>
<p>I suppose one would do well to learn Spanish in Honduras…or Portuguese in Brazil.</p>
<p>My 3 sons who are otherwise very intelligent struggle with languages and not for lack of trying. Mandatory language courses have dropped their gradepoints in both high school and college. Son #4 on the other hand did well. Same teachers, same level of intelligence and effort.
Some people are programmed better I think for learning languages.</p>
<p>I think that’s troubling as well. When there are large pockets of a nation’s population separated by a major language barrier, that barrier inevitably acts to erode national unity. I too, believe that everyone should be multi-lingual, if possible. But I think we proceed down a wrong path when we insist on being so completely accommodating to large segments of the population who either refuse to learn, or are indifferent to learning the language of the dominant culture. It provides little incentive to them to linguistically assimilate, and costs governments (state, local, national) staggering amounts of money.</p>
<p>The argument that “people living in the US should learn English” is somehow related to the argument that “Americans should learn foreign languages” is what I thought was stupid. They are no more linked than “people living in the US should learn English” and “the US should spend more on roads.” There is no policy connection at all. Talking about US racism is just throwing dirt and grass in the air, unless you think that not learning Finnish before a trip to Finland is racist.</p>
<p>“I’ve heard in parts of the country now, Spanish speaking has reached a critical mass where one do not have to know English at all to function pretty well. If that is in fact true”</p>
<p>It is true. In general new immigrants tend to form their own bubble. Then there is cable and satellite. One can watch TV programs in their native language 24/7. When we came here TV was the best ‘teacher’.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is imperialist or racist at all to ask people to learn the language of a country they are living. I find it rather arrogant to suggest that your kids should learn spanish.</p>
<p>Obama is right - studies have shown that aside from older immigrants - ALL immigrant groups learn English (makes sense, since one needs in order to compete).</p>
<p>And it’s not only English - but culturally as well. For instance, children of Hispanic immigrants don’t watch the Spanish language channels (like Telemundo or Univision) nearly as much as their parents and end up watching what the general populace watches.</p>
<p>I think linguistics would immediately find this remark problematic.</p>
<p>For one, how do you define “language of a country”? One country can have many cultures. All of Spain does not speak one dialect – you have Castillian, Aragonese, Catalan, Occitan, Basque (a non-Romance language). The “Italian” you have come into contact with is really only the Tuscany dialect of Italy. You do realise that a single Romance continuum once existed (before the Unification of Italy in the 19th century messed up things) running from Portugal to Romania? Each village could communicate with the village before and after that, but the ends of the spectrum could not communicate, of course. Language transcends political boundaries, which are superficial. </p>
<p>The other assertion of bubble-forming is also problematic, as it ignores the work linguistics has done in language acquisition. A good book to read about this is Pinker’s “The Language Instinct”. The Skinner concept of “conditioning” as a model for even child language acquisition proved insufficient in the 1950s, and linguistics has long since moved past it. </p>
<p>Take for example the case of two deaf parents who acquired sign language imperfectly in their adulthood and constantly made grammatical errors – their child, having been exposed to sign language only from his parents, ended up repairing the errors himself. How did this happen? Well, human language isn’t a blank slate – there is a module that gives children a sense of “universal grammar,” even without having mastered any pre-existing L1. This isn’t a fluke either – linguistics has seen parallel cases in creolisation and the spontaneous development of Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, which was independently pioneered by children three generations ago (it has a vastly different grammatical logic and word order system than from their native Berber); members of the original pioneering community had a higher risk of having a gene that causes deafness, which created interesting pressures for language acquisition for the children who pioneered them. Biology’s use of children is often how cultural and language change occurs in response to new pressures.</p>
<p>Now toss immigrant children who DO have outside influences for English as an L1 into the mix. Shouldn’t the acquisition effect be even better (assuming that “better” exists)? It certainly wouldn’t be worse. </p>
<p>To be worried about the effects of Youtube and telecommunications media would ignore all previous work linguistics has done on language acquisition. What is the effect of modern communications media? A stronger mastery of Spanish perhaps, but not at the expense of English. (Linguistics long ago disproved the myth that improving the grasp of one language as an L1 will hurt the mastery of the other L1.)</p>
<p>Uhh, the “old immigrants” did as well (i.e. - the Irish, Jewish, Italian sections of NYC).</p>
<p>And the new immigrant groups - like the old groups, also disperse once they achieve some economic stability (and for those who come w/ means tend to skip that step).</p>
<p>Once again, younger immigrants and their children pretty much all learn English and the younger generation eventually become “Americanized”.</p>
<p>If anything, it would behoove more Americans to watch foreign programming to get a better sense of the rest of the world.</p>