Obama thinks your kids should learn Spanish

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Thats only if you live in areas that already have a large spanish speaking population, and if thats the case there is no reason for you to learn spanish in school, because you can easily pick it up around you and from your exposure to those media you've just mentioned. Just as i picked up many hungarian words when I moved to this area, without making the slightest effort to do so. I was surrounded by them, and people using them, so how could I have not learned them?

There are no hispanics where I live (or where I'll be moving too). In fact, in the town I'll be moving to the only foreignors are from French guyana. I will however be able to enter into a largley french speaking area in a a few hours drive, spend time there and come back home that same day. So children in that area will have plenty of opportunities to interact with french speakers.

What they won't have is any opportunity to interact with a native spanish speaker. its no surprise the students studying french in our high school were able to become much more fluent than the students who studied spanish. After all the french students could actually use what they learned and practice it in the real world amongst native french speakers. The spanish students couldn't and had no one to practice their spanish on other than the students who were also studying/had studied spanish.

One must take into consideration that the US takes up almost half a continent. It would be ridiculous to even consider that whats the most useful language for those in suthwestern California must also be the most useful language to know for those in north eastern maine. In the south it is reasonable to consider learning spanish useful because of the large hispanic and spanish speaking immigrant population located in various areas there. But its ridiculous to consider it more useful than learning french in areas of the US where there is nothing resembling a spanish speaking population within thousands of miles, but there is a significant french speaking population right next door

Fact is, the moment you make a "this language is best for everyone" claim you shoot your argument in the foot. Remember one of the most important things taught in school is to look at the big picture, not just one small part. Otherwise your going to begin doing something you think is great only to find it not only doesn't work, but even causes problems, all of which could have been avoided had you only been willing to consider everyone affected by your mandates, rather than just a select few.

Why not offer Italian under those circumstances? When I grew up in the 'German Belt' that extends from Pennsylvania to St. Louis, it was common to offer German as a foreign language. In other parts of the country, that might not be viable. In Minnesota, there is more of an interest in Scandinavian languages, so they are more likely to be offered there.

If a region has lots of people from one part of the world, it makes sense to recognize the culture there and include it in the foreign language offerings.

you're shifting your argument again.

you went from spanish as having to be taught nationally now to that foreign language should be taught depending on region? isn't that basically what we have already now?

so then what's the point of that idiocy that obama spouted about teaching the entire country spanish? that's what this discussion is about....not the teaching of foreign language in general.

skafather84:
I think that's an interesting point, one I haven't heard before. I think that every student should learn a foreign language, but should get to choose. My brother takes Japanese, because he loves Japan, and wants to live there/work with the Japanese. It would be very good if Americans spoke multiple languages. Even if it were only that every American spoke two languages, English and their choice, having part of the population speaking several/every language would be good for the economy, when working with other countries, no?

I want to learn more languages. The more I study language, any language, the better my communication skills, and as an Aspie, that's very important for me.

n4mwd:
What is wrong with you? When I'm in another country that isn't primarily an English speaking country, when I'm by myself or with another English speaker, is very comforting to speak and hear my native tongue. It is no disrespect, it is a matter of comfort. And why do you assume that someone speaking Spanish is an illegal immigrant? And on noes! Flying the Cuban flag! I happily fly many flags, including the American, Jamaican, Union flag, rainbow flag, and jolly roger. There's nothing wrong with taking pride/interest in another country. Or should we abolish St. Patty's day? I think Chicago would be averse to that. This is a nation of immigrants.

I never said Spanish should be taught nationally. Obama never said each and every child should learn Spanish. Watch the full clip - he says more children should learn foreign languages - at one point he mentions Spanish, but he also makes a statement about French, and it would be a glitch to say that he isn't in favor of kids learning different languages. Fred and his right wingnuts have tried to mis-characterize his comments. More than half of the people in this thread are too busy giving answers to see if the original question was loaded or bogus. There is no proposal to make Spanish mandatory - Obama gave a statement of values ... America should develop more language skills.

We do now have a system where schools are free to offer whatever foreign languages they see as feasible. No one is talking about changing that. The real issue is how we can improve the teaching of foreign languages.

I did say something that was advocacy for learning languages other than just Spanish:

yeah but you assume that everyone wants to retain such skill and ability. you can't force people to retain it and utilize it. it'd be nice if they retained it and quite possibly beneficial but in the end, it's not something that can be forced.

We don't have skilled interpreters for Arabic or Chinese or Indonesian - we need to rely on people whose loyalty is questionable. In the case of fighting Al Qaeda, that means simply not translating documents that might have given us valuable information. We do have lots of Russian translators, a relic of the policies that made sense in the cold war. But today, it makes no sense. If the US wants to stay a world power, we should have our kids develop expertise in a wide variety of languages.

If some one comes to the table fearing the Hispanic Hordes, Obama's statement might been seen as a call for cultural suicide. I really don't see it that way. Let's learn Spanish, French, and a host of other tongues.

So if you don't have a good argument in favor of your point, call the other guy a racist. That seems to be your policy. Exactly which RACE am I supposed to be a racist against? In case you didn't know, spanish is a language and not a race.

If they make hating a language part of the definition of racism, then I guess I am one.

just because one "should" doesn't mean it "should" be law.

people "should" go to college and get at least a bachelor's degree but people don't and it shouldn't be compulsory by the government.

i think the current language situation would be helped by introducing more functional languages for today...arabic, mandarin, japanese...these languages are important and should see some support...but at the same time, that's up to school districts to decide and for the voting public to realize to demand it of their local school boards. but it shouldn't be a government mandate to learn multiple languages.

a better example to point out the inherit racism in the statement would be italians waving the italian flag on st joseph's day or the irish waving their irish pride on st. patty's day.

that way you're not just pointing out another mostly impoverished (as immigrants tend to be) spanish-speaking class of people but a group that is much more socially accepted today and is seen as normal.

The same can be said for every subject. Some kids don't like math. Some kids don't like history. I don't like English class. But they're mandatory. Schooling is mandatory.

If we shared about 1/3 of our border with Italy, and had a lot of Italian immigrants, and Italian was the language spoken by most of the rest of our hemisphere, then yes: it would be a good idea to teach our children Italian.

The same could be said of Algebra.

(edit: written before I saw that Malsane beat me to it).

Last edited by LKL on 24 Jul 2008, 10:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I found it racist as well - or, perhaps more accurately, xenophobic. No one is harmed by hearing someone else speak a foreign language; the fact that such a thing could be considered 'offensive' implies fears beyond the concrete.

You are not offended when you're at a Chinese restaurant and the guy behind the counter gives you a look and shouts something in Cantonese to his other co-workers who in turn give you the look as well?

In all seriousness I don't see how a person can get offended when people are speaking a different language in public. I always perk my ears to see if I can understand them.

The whole "This is our country!" thing I find rather meh. I'd leave that type of argument to the people in reservations.

Neither of those is comparable. You can't operate on a daily basis without using what you've learned in english and math class. You can operate on a yearly basis without using a single word of spanish.

You couldn't disuse math if you tried. Lets see for one thing you could no longer keep track of time or look at a clock, purchase any item, count your money, read a bank statement, make a budget..etc

And if you forget what you learn in english class you wont be speak well enough to carry on a basic conversation eith your family - we've all encountered foreignors who think they speak english, but don't have the first clue. They end up speaking like an instruction manual from china. and everyone is left saying "huh i can't understand you"