Posted on 06/12/2005 9:44:42 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The official languages of Switzerland are German, French, Italian, and Romansch, but only about 1% of the population speaks the last. Is your girlfriend from that 1%, or does she count "Swiss German" as a separate language from standard German?
Bienvenidos a Amexica. Oprima el numero dos para Ingles.
They've already "cleansed" our own history to make sure that the kids have no access to heroes like the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Just ask any third grader about Rosa Parks, however, and they can tell you plenty.
I speak some Spanish, too; but that's because I travel to Mexico a few times a year. It's passable, certainly not fluent yet.
Nothing wrong wtih having a second language or two. What's WRONG is that these types of schools (and most public schools these days) are not expecting immigrants to assimilate; they're expecting English-speaking Americans to accommodate.
It's back-@sswards, IMHO.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but near as I can tell the kids themselves are busily pre-empting the whole argument by evolving "Spanglish" into a lingua franca.
I'd heard that young children were most adept at learning languages, so teaching them when their young instead of waiting until High School makes sense.
Those who speak Spanish & English will be better off than those who only speak one language..
The borders will remain open...Illegal Aliens will continue to flood in...they will be given amnesty or relative amnesty
And in ten to twenty years they will dominate the US..
Just a fact of numbers and birth rates...
The Republicans accept this as fact and are working toward trying to please the 'Hispanics'..and make them the new Republican Party
The Democrats are waking up to the idea....but have too many other legacy minorities and 'others' Hispanics wont warm up to hanging on running their party...
There's the way it oughtta be..and then there's the way it is.
IMO
Our "educational" system has a severe flaw when it comes to foreign languages. Young children can learn languages easily and without an accent from native speakers. Old guys like me, can try to mangle every language. Russian, Japanese, Spanish, or German are my tries. I will always have an accent, thick as molasses. Just like my Grandfather's Danish accent.
I would love to have an after school language academy for youngsters. Russian, Spanish, German...and what the market would bear. Give kids that speak those languages a freebee for being in the class, the adults that run the classes would be native speakers. Give it a homelike setting...spend a class in the kitchen, making something to eat. Spend a class in the living room, watching TV from another country. Spend some time the den, being read stories, spend some time ETC.
Schools should already being doing this. Instead they wait until Jr. High or High School? And then they teach it in the most boring way possible, learn the grammar by rules...yuck.
Sorry for my rant, but the Educational System ignores what we KNOW, with respect to language acquisition.
It is the same with bilingual education. Immersion works, after a year kids can compete. But Bilingual programs are the rage in education. It ignores not only what we KNOW about language aquisition, but the wishes of the parents. Bilingual teaching requires not only the language skill but the subject skill as well. We have a shortage of science and math teachers. So they are taught those subjects by teachers who aren't qualified in those subjects.
DK
My high school spanish teacher became mad at me when I spoke pig latin Spanish one day. It was a hoot.
As I read it, that is EXACTLY what they are doing. "Total immersion" means that the only language of instruction is the target language to be learned (i.e. Spanish for the native English speakers, and English for the native Spanish speakers). Now, this is good for the native Spanish speakers, as it gets them up to speed quickly, but it DOES hold back the native English speakers, as it uses instructional time that coild better be spent on REAL SUBJECTS, like math, science, geography, social studies, and so forth.
Just another case where non-immigrants are punished by politically correct b***s***, so the poor, downtrodden immigrants (and probably most of them are illegal) can "get a leg up".
What is being done for the Hispanics must be done for the various Asians and their languages.
And the Pacific island communities? What about them and their native languages.
What about the self-esteem of the children of immigrants from all over the world and the hundreds(?) of languages?
Even if it's only one family that speaks a language are we so bigoted, mean-spirited, evil, uncaring, racist, xenophobic that we'd see those children condemned to a life of poverty and despair?
Push one for English and two for Spanish? No! Mr. Businessman, you are not going to get away with that! Give us more choices. We need hundreds of buttons.
I am not kidding. If you are going to do something, DO IT RIGHT!
Or, are too many of today's Hispanics (unlike prior Hispanic immigrants and all other immigrants today) just too damn dumb to learn English?
Or, another reason? Like the corrupt government of Mexico's policy that Mexico governs its non resident citizens, its "nation beyond borders." The Mexican diaspora.
I am fluent in German. Swiss German is totally not understandable to me. She counts only four languages but if even native German speakers cannot understand her Swiss German, to me, it's a different language.
She was born and raised in the Berne area so she hails from the German speaking portion. But her father is Italian so she has Italian and Swiss citizenship. She grew up speaking Italian, Swiss German and German.
Here in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, we have a school who FIRST agenda item is to teach Spanish to kids.
If mexicans want to come to the US they should be required to learn Wnglish, otherwise they are just trying to invade and convert the US into MExico.
Imagine the French in WWII telling their kids they must learn German. Mind you, it wasn't an invasion, it was just the Germans wanted to live in France and speak German, so the French should just buckle down and learn German.
This is BS. This invasion by Mexico has got to stop before this country finishes becoming a third world nation, and the Quislings here in the US who think it is "cool" to learn Spanish are just aiding Mexico in their hostile plans.
I agree and I am not making it up about the corrupt goverment of Mexico's "nation beyond borders" and Fox's National Council for Mexican Communities Abroad. It is their decade-old Mexican diaspora.
Maybe the corrupt goverment of Mexico does not want to physically "take back" parts of the U.S. but they sure as hell want their citizens to remain loyal to Mexico and do the corrupt goverment of Mexico's bidding.
The corrupt criminal class that rules Mexico feeeeeeeeeeeeeels that it provides the U.S. with virtual slaves and Mexico sure as hell expects a lot in return. The corrupt goverment of Mexico and its toadies here constantly meddle in our affairs. Our busnesses demand subsidized labor. Who pays, in more ways than one.
It's time for the Minutemen Project to start fielding candidates to run against the legacy parties' candidates when neither legacy party has an American running.
And we need to watch carefully for signs that the MSM and the legacy parties (the media/government complex) are beginning to Davidianize the Minutemen Project.
Apropos of nothing:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum20/4316.htm
No!
No hablo Ingles? Adios, culeros.. no regresar.
"Two of my grandsons (whom I am raising) are in summer school."
Pats on the back to you! I'm proud of ya! I raised my two nephews, as my SIL was in and out of prison due to drinking and drugs while they were growing up. I'd do it again in a heartbeat if I had to. One is 19, the other going on 16. They're with their bio-Dad now (don't get me started on HIM!) and seem to be doing pretty well, but the door is always open to them.
I dearly care about kids, but dernit! Why don't non-hispanic American kids come first? (Don't bother to answer that. I know the reasons, LOL!)
I once read about an American woman who lived in a small Swiss town long enough to become fluent in the local Swiss German dialect. Then she moved to another place not far away, and the Swiss German dialect there was so different that she just gave up and didn't even try to learn it.
Aye, it's my understanding the dialects can vary greatly even from one valley to the next. (sorry it took me that long to reply- busy Sunday ;-)
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