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Solving the National Language Problem KISS works it's miracle.

Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 6 months ago to Education
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First of all the overwhelming majority speak English and the bulk of the documents, laws etc. are in English and English is the world for economics, banking, aircraft operations, ship piloting and maritime operations etc.

So divide the country into groups

1. Citizens and long time residents who speak a. English b. English and one other language. c. No English but one or more other languages.

2. Residents coming into the couontry on a work permit, immigration program something of that nature.

English number one, Spanish Number two the rest are negligible but valuable.

Methods of attacking the problem. Public schools, public schools with night classes, private schools, enlightened schools such as Berlitz Total Immersion. All the rest are stone age lump them together.

Who? Fact of life it doesn't take a language major to teacha language. It does take someone fluent in a particular langauge.

Illiterates need not apply.

The rest will sort itself out and initially perhaps with a little funding for a year or two .

Next the goals.

Everyone speaks two languages with no exceptions except those over 80 or here temporarily.

TheGovernment will not hire anyone nor accept in to the military ayone who isn't bi-lingual. That's the stick and the carrot.

Next Rule. No citizenship without complete fluency in English and one other language.

No one passes 8th grade without some foreign language training, 12th grade without at least a level two fluency a foriegn language and Level three proficiency in English. Any university degree with out a level five in English and level four in at least one foreign language.

Public schools will not be allowed to teach any subject whatsoever until the new student has gone through the English language course. Loss of credentials and public funding is the punishment. Doing their job for a change is the reward.

Now thinking I've short changed the Latinos guess which language is a. most prevalent in the western hemsiphere and b. easiest to learn. SPANISH! hint hint.

So here's Johnny Dimwit who can't get in the Army without a foreign langage and geater than valley girl grasp of what passes for English. Does he choolse Portuguese? Maybe, italian Maybe,French Maybe Russian No Chinese No. Mongolian Hell no.

But the other students will and probably some of them speak a foreign language coming into the country, English in preparation or upon arrival and then do a third and many will have three or four from the get go.

The homies have to learn English as a foreign language and back to Spanish. as the easiest one.

the unfair part but that's not my problem is the original citizens will be behind the eight ball But not draftable? No. The Army takes them they go to language school period. No pass discharged.

the other ha ha unfair part is the foreign students will zoom to the top of the pack.

The advantage is we reduce the national language need to what it truly IS Mostly English with a helluva lot of Spanish.

what do you think they will teach in Mexico or Canada? Same thing they teach now Spanish and English or Canadian and English.

That's a fracking joke.

Berlitz schools take one week for easy languages up to Russian and twoweeks for exceptionally difficult language using total immersion. The concept is simpile. Monday morning you walk in a fully furnished apartment and the teachers start rotating in. Only the subject langugae is allowed. By Saturday evening 2,000 word vocabulary comprehension speaking, reading and writing.

Where do you get the instructors? Language Departments of any college and all those educated people immigrating in country. Another blow for Spanish as the second choice.

by the way....in the westeren hemisphere HALF the world there are three major languages . Spanish, English, Portuguese.

In the other continents they number from a hundred or so to as many as a hundred iin one country. Count your blessings it's an easy fix and a great melting pot and that's the real problem. Those who want diversity to divide and control will be against it. those who want to honor the ethnic cultures and backgrounds of the world will enjoy the lerning experience of the North American Culture. If we can find where we put it.


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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    If you want to be accepted in a tribe, and USA is definitely a special tribe, you presumably moved here because you wanted membership. So learn the language. Its that simple.
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I use it to help translate assembly instruction for my hispanic workers. Its a lot better than MY spanish for sure....
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  • Posted by MurraytheDog2757 9 years, 6 months ago
    "Who? Fact of life it doesn't take a language major to teacha language. It does take someone fluent in a particular langauge." Perhaps this is why if you ask a 15-year old to parse a sentence they ask you what parse means. Most could not tell a noun from a verb. One's ability to reason is reflected in the way they speak. Not a teacher myself but wife has a Master's in French from the Sorbonne and it is a bit simplistic to suggest that any native French speaker can match her skill set.
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  • Posted by ChuckyBob 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Studio C on youtube has a comedy sketch on online translators that overstates the potential problems. I have used online translators to go from English to Spanish when I have a large document to translate. However, I ALWAYS go through it afterwords to correct the translation because some of it comes across kind of oddly.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 9 years, 6 months ago
    The problem with an English-only rule would be the territories we took from Mexico and later from Spain (Puerto Rico). After the Mexican war the US made a treaty agreement that Spanish would always be allowed in the conquered territories.

    So I would make us officially a two-language country, like Canada before they allowed Quebec to go French-only. And I would teach kids both languages in the schools. Most of the government offices already offer both and several others.

    But I wouldn't require people already here to learn another language. And I would make it legal to discriminate, so that neighborhoods and apartment houses can go all one language, thus solving the problem for the people who live there.
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  • Posted by ChuckyBob 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I do not believe learning another language should be compulsory, but should be strongly encouraged. If, in the end, you don't want to, or do not have the aptitude, that's just the way it is. However, you will miss opportunities and experiences that the language learners will get to enjoy.
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  • Posted by ChuckyBob 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Los que no quieren aprender otro idioma me parecen como un chiquito quien dice "No me gusta espinaca!" Y su mamá le pregunta "Jamás has probado la?" Y el chiquito dice "Nunca!"
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  • Posted by TheOldMan 9 years, 6 months ago
    I think a programming language should count towards the foreign language requirement. I grew up speaking French to my mother and English to everyone else (I wish that my father had spoken only German to me). I certainly never expected anyone outside of my family to speak anything but English.
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  • Posted by OldScar 9 years, 6 months ago
    What would happen to those (such as myself) who would refuse to learn a foreign language? Re-education camp?
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree with all of this. I am proficient in Spanish. I use it to talk to software engineers in Latin America. 15 years ago people used to ask me to read Spanish e-mails and sometimes respond to them. That has decreased. On-line translators have somewhat deceased the value of being bilingual.

    I wholeheartedly agree with your five points. Regarding #5, I find it's easier to learn the very basics of a foreign language before travelling now that I know two languages. I may say to myself, "oh, this is one of those languages where they use the past participle more than the simple past if the action has been completed." Spanish has pertérito and imperfecto, but it uses haber + participle more than in English to mean almost the same thing as the pertéito. I think having that in my mind makes it easier to learn phrases and structures in other languages.
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  • Posted by ChuckyBob 9 years, 6 months ago
    Interesting concept, almost sounds {shudder!} European! (Disclaimer: I am NOT a Europhyl)

    Reminds me of a joke:
    Q: What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
    A: Trilingual.
    Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
    A: Bilingual.
    Q: What do you call someone who speaks only one language?
    A: American.

    When I was in high school I belonged to a club called "Lingua Honoraria". We had a motto that in Spanish was "Quien habla dos linguas vale dos hombres." For the "Amur Ricans" out there this means "Who speaks two languages is worth two men."

    My arguments for learning other languages are: 1. You learn SO much more about your own language by learning another language. I learned very little in my English classes. However, in my seven and a half years of studying Spanish, plus two years of practical experience in the barrios of Chicago, I learned a huge amount about English through a compare and contrast experience. 2. Your English vocabulary, and therefore thought process, will be expanded. 3. English has a somewhat Germanic structure. The vocabulary is a hodgepodge, but the major contributors are germanic (anglo saxon) and latin. The latin root words are typically viewed as being "higher class". Therefore, people who hear you speak subconsciously view you as higher class if you use latin based vocabulary. You learn such vocabulary learning Spanish and looking for English cognates to your new Spanish words. 4. The world is getting smaller and knowing multiple languages will give more opportunities. When I worked in the world of international shipping my Spanish fluency helped tremendously. I went to South America several times for business. For me it was no big deal; today I'm speaking English, tomorrow Spanish, not a problem. 5. Knowing only one language limits your abilities to learn and experience the world.

    So, if you want to stick with just one language, this is not a problem for me, but your life experience will be suboptimized.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Right on!
    Me dino just half-read half-skimmed over a lot of silly dancing around and--no, call that clowning around.
    "Payaso" is my favorite Spanish word.
    Call someone that in a Tijuana bar bar and you may gain a shrug, maybe even a middle finger.
    Call someone that in a Pittsburgh bar and someone may knock your block off.
    Yeah, yelling "payaso" really sounds bad but all it means is "clown."
    Hey, all this silly I just wrote? Someone freaking actually learned something amid all the huffing and puffing bloviation here.
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 6 months ago
    People are tribal by nature. Language and culture are tribal manifestations. People feel more comfortable around people in their own tribe. And there isnt anything wrong with that.

    If you move to a different tribal area, you should be expected to adopt their culture and language- otherwise why move there??

    One could over come language barriers with electronics and google translate.
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  • Posted by evlwhtguy 9 years, 6 months ago
    What a load of bullshit! Why the hell should a native be required to learn some foreign language. The only reason would be to accommodate the dammed illegals. I say this as an immigrant myself. When you come here you should be required to learn our language....WTF is so hard to understand about that. If you don't want to do that, go the hell beck to your third world hell hole!
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 6 months ago
    Having sparked this one it's enouogh and I'm ducking out for a few days not like a politician no quacks please but applause is nice. Back on Sat or Sunday or who knows. Life is laid back in FNA. I'll leave you with one comment to chew over. English should be the official language is not a true statement and here's the proof. One attempt in 240 years shows the vast majority are not interested in that change. Either that or the vast majority is to busy sitting on their couch potato ass which is much the same thing. Think about it. I just stated the major problem with the USSA.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    We were north end of the state until I finished 3rd Grade went back several times and then to Bemidji State for two years. I left and beat the draft board by going RA or regular Army. did four years got out another year of college and back in My third tour I think it was the Draft Board finally caught up witih me. In Vietnam. More than of us ha ha . One of my friends kept saying PUT me in HANDcuffs send me back for trial. PLEASE. I told him shut up just cause it was his turn to walk point. Then we both walked out laughing. Bemidji though wasn't a bad school but it was where I learned to really dislike liberal professors. One of the older students and a vet said they are easy just repeat back what they say throw in a bs story and sure to get an A. After that I kind of like them. They were funny, peculiar ha ha and so easy to take advantage of however....what I really miss was MaidRites and a little canoeing in the Arrowhead. I do not miss the big insects or poison ivy and poison sumac etc. I really don't miss those Professors. But they made doing the rest as an external degree program student a treat/
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  • Posted by Dobrien 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The "Schmaltz art" as discribed by Chris Coleman St. Paul mayor. The Hamm 's bear a beloved cartoon advertising icon called nothing more than" the Marlboro man" by a local leader as he stopped the statues erection at Como park in St. Paul. After a so called battle over political correctness as stated by the group promoting placement ,the outdoors sportsman loving bear statute was allowed in another part of town. Funny thing is the TC bear from target field is a spitting image .Target Field a govt funded stadium made possible by looting anyone living in the area with fees and sales taxes on what ever someone might wish to purchase.
    From the land of sky blue waters , comes the beer refreshing Hamm's the beer refreshing ..Hamm's
    A cold one included.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    what it means is there is playing stupid and playing dumb and then there is following the playbook. you aren't stupid and you aren't dumb. That leaves following the playbook. Adios
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  • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Still not following your argument. Nothing in your history lesson is pertinent until you explain your reasoning which is not clear to me. Seriously. Your allusions are just not enough.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Ahh it's reframing time.....That you are not a student of history either. so back to square one. What was your point? Although i think I just destroyed it.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Norway, Ireland, Portugal and Spain should ring a bell. First Europeans, in order to discover and make use of the Western Hemisphere. Followed by France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and a host of other European countries that flocked in that direction from 1400 or so to as late as yesterday. Not much influence I'll admit but it's a limited area to work with Ahhh Russia and Ukraine and some of them over a hundred years ago. .

    One in particular settled great parts of North and Central America and thaks to a Pope almost all of South America. It's called Spain. Their descendants of a century or two were famous for a number of things and infanous for others. But their descendants todays Latinos in an earlier form were on hand to greet the settlers and immigrants from the more northern and eastrern European countries some of whom who came direct - Germans for example ever been to Luchinback Texas - and some indirectly from the United States of America. You might have heard of some of these places.

    So the saying refers to some of the descendants of the Spanish and the Spanish side of their heritage. He among you without sin maybe be the first to cast stones and also to the settlers from places like Louisiana and Tennesee.

    You personally may not have a Euro background in that case we can probably find another reason other than Euro.

    History 203 is concluded for the day. Si no hay preguntas sigue su guia. What sin? Stay tune to read the next question. I'll do that one upon my return on Saurday or possibly before or after..

    O
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