Posted on 02/18/2017 4:05:31 PM PST by JHL
Link to YouTube video. First lady's speech starts at 3:40.
https://youtu.be/dxIBnfgwj90
So many children in this country, I feel, are NOT being mothered appropriately.
We are sticking them in daycare centers before they’ve been allowed to form that all important attachment. Kids continue to be shuffled from one place to another, all so mommy can go out and work, either to pay the taxes or to support the whole dam family.
No wonder so many of them have turned out to be self centered out of control brats.
How bold you are. That does not mean you are correct, though. Archie Bunker called them like he saw them, so what?
As it so happens, I have a Slavic sister-in-law who came over here on a green card and eventually married my brother. When I first met her, her English was pretty sketchy.
In the twenty plus years she has been here, she managed to obtain a masters degree for which she had to write a theses. She now teaches her specialty at a small state college.
She also is fluent in five languages. What is more amazing to me is that 95% of the time, you would never be able to tell she wasn’t born here. Not only does she have practically no accent, she has all of the idioms down.
Could she have accomplished all of that without good English skills? Perhaps people who marry billionaires are more insulated from the effects of less than perfect English skills.
But for most of the rest of us, they are crucial. Anyone who says that heavily accented, and ungrammatical English is not a severe disadvantage in the job market, probably is only used to hiring janitorial staff.
I am also a volunteer literacy tutor who works with ESL students. I know of what I speak.
And this will be my last comment on this thread.
Lived in Indialantic from 90 to 98(loved it) and went back to Broward on a techie promotion
We were in Cocoa Beach from ‘87-’90 then bought a house in Canaveral Groves where we stayed until Sept. 2011 when the shuttle program ended.
Everyone is different.
Don't be judgmental. You don't know the each individual's story or person. You just think someone should behave, act and talk like you demand. Life does not work that way.
We will keep the power
I thought Milo’s response to the liberal outrage was funny -— “Triggered by Jesus.”
The left really does have people who just sit around waiting to be offended by something.
Doesn’t sound like that much fun.
She sounded very sincere to me.
“I’m sobbing. Our long national nightmare is over.”
—Thank You God!
Has a first lady, ever. I mean ever recited the Lord’s Prayer? I mean think about that for a minute?
“She needs to put an end to the speculation about the state of her marriage.”
What is that supposed to mean? I love her accent. Her grammar is almost 99% perfect. That’s the important thing.
Don’t be rude.
Greta when she was on Fox was doing an interview of the Trump kids and Melania. Every time the kids came on, I take bathroom or kitchen break. When Melania came back on, I would listen.
She was extremely confident and articulate with her. Highly intelligent.
Can you, for a minute, just imagine what little girls in Slovenia are thinking?
I hate to compare her with Lady Di, but let’s face, she is our Lady Di, and she’s married to a guy who loves her, not like that imbecile who married Lady Di, and cheated on her.
Melania, can speak to any person, any setting, and that includes business people, street people, fashion world heads and oddballs.
I don’t think we’ve had anyone, I mean anyone in her position ever in my life time, and that includes Jackie O.
“We have older German friends, both academics, who have been in this country 50 years & they still have a strong accent.”
I never heard the media criticize Henry Kissinger for his thick German accent when he was the national security advisor or Secretary of State.
Henry Kissinger has been in the US for almost 80 years, and he still has a thick German accent. I don't recall Kissinger being ridiculed for his accent; maybe for some of his policies, but that's a different matter.
It depends on the individual.
I know older German women who were war brides, came over here in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Many of them have had successful careers and though they speak English well they still have a heavy accent and speak with some non-standard English phrases.
Others immigrants I have met speak English with no accent at all but if you read something they write it is clear that English is not their first language.
I don’t think it’s that big of an impediment to have an accent. We have many non-American scientists, engineers, doctors etc. working in this country at highly technical jobs who still speak with accents from their country of origin.
Yes, you do need to be able to communicate but I don’t think you need absolutely perfect English diction to be able to do that. It certainly helps but there are other factors as well such as one’s competence in a given field.
For example we had many German and Polish scientists who immigrated to the US after the war who never spoke perfect English but who nevertheless did valuable work.
I have worked with many people who have strong foreign accents and it doesn’t seem to keep them from getting hired.
Where it does make a big difference is in written language. To be able to write perfectly in a second (or 3rd, 4th) language is very difficult. Very few can master that. But then many people who are native English speakers cannot write well in English.
Less than perfect English skills may not be an impediment to someone who already has professional credentials before emigrating to the US.
That is not the case if you are bright and hardworking, but without those credentials.
Perhaps persons in technical fields where human communication isn’t important can escape this general rule. But they are the exception.
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