[Mikitv]

I agree great video and English only here. If you go to other countries you have to learn their language. We have all worked hard, paid our taxes and then see those hard earned dollars pay for illegal immigrants is wrong. We give them benefits our own citizens can't get. We are putting Spanish in some of our schools so their kids can be taught because they don't understand English. Just wrong.

[Hyacinth Bucket]

:bigthumbsup:

Like many of you my background is similar to yours. Also like many of you my relatives learned to speak and English. They became American Citizens. My Grandmother saved an article from (I think) the New York Times that had her picture in it and others - first women to serve on a jury. She saved it because she was proud. She was an American.

If my memory serves me correctly the US does not have quote - unquote an official language like other countries do. Perhaps now is the time to make it the official language of the United States.

HB

I volunteer in teaching English

[Sidney Lanier]

As other posters have pointed out, for me too, my one regret is that my father was fluent (reading, writing, speaking) in seven languages (including English, but that of course took him time), and I ended up with only English. This is the other extreme, and I personally feel that I've lost so much because of it....

On the other hand, we travel throughout the world and find that countless people speak English, whereas we visiting Americans have to rely on that because we don't speak a word of other languages.

I had a businessman cousin in Toronto (now deceased) who was once offended to hear another businessperson scream at a French-speaking customer, "Talk WHITE!" (Yes, WHITE; can you imagine!?)

I think you'll hear "Press 1 for English" mainly in the phone systems of merchants who are in business to either 'earn money' or 'worship the Almighty Dollar,' however you want to look at it. For those who are purists, if that's the right word, and choose not to deal with such merchants, that's certainly their right. I do know not only from my own parents but from immigrant families that we've known over the years that one doesn't arrive to the U.S. able to speak and understand English immediately, and the phone systems don't differentiate between an immigrant here six months versus six years....

[ConeyIsBabe]

AGREEING with everyone's comment; it just doesn't work that way in Miami-Dade County :'( :'( :'(

[Sidney Lanier]

Me again. Earlier today I went online to the Verizon site to make a change in our account. Included on their site was a link to the list of phone numbers to reach Verizon if necessary. In New York State they gave different numbers for Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Russian. It's not my place to sit in judgment of Verizon; I can only assume that the company recognizes that these are services that they have to provide in order to deal with their customers. After all, the telephone company is a service business! Are these customers newcomers to the U.S. who can't possibly be expected to know English well enough to converse on the phone? Are they old-timers who just never learned English--or learned it well enough to converse on the phone? Verizon has no way of knowing--and naturally we don't either.

I can get by with my high school Spanish when we travel. However, we were once caught up in an emergency situation in South America where I absolutely had to make myself understood--and even more difficult I had to understand--and I simply did not have the language skills to do this on the phone. If anyone has never tried it, be assured that it's much more difficult on the phone than in person. I was just so grateful that the people I had to deal with, when they realized that I simply could not do it, instead of being judgmental or berating me would instead drag someone to the phone who had even a little English language skill, so that what was really essential communication could take place. This may be somewhat off topic (and if it's viewed that way, I apologize...), but for me it serves as a reminder of how difficult it can be for anyone to have to communicate in a language that they feel ignorant or insecure about....

[renielarson]

My gripe is this...

Why do they say press 1 for English? Shouldn't it be press 1 for Spanish? Shouldn't English be the first choice with Spanish as the alternative?

[jjdees]

You've got it Brightspot!

[Hyacinth Bucket]

Bright -

HB