Obama thinks your kids should learn Spanish

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Do you?

Let me state right off the top that I think
Spanish (Castillion) is a beautiful language

but I dont see how learning to speak it can benefit a child. In the growing global economy languages like Japanese, Chinese, even Russian could come in handy, but not Spanish. As Mexico continues to deteriorate into madness, Spanish has become only a language of "drugs and thugs". Common sense would indicate that if there arent any jobs for Mexicans in Mexico, there sure as hell arent any there for Americans, unless perhaps you are a large business owner looking to slap American workers in the face by exploiting cheap foreign labor or something like that. Schools dont even teach Latin any more, they shouldnt teach Spanish either. I think if American children do business with Mexicans they should do it on their terms in English. Why must Americans always have to "accomodate" 3rd worlders? Why must American children stoop to the level of Mexicans, by learning Spanish in order to do business with them? English is the language of the future not Spanish. Just like Latin, Spanish is a dead language, Obama must believe that it will eventually replace English in the American workplace. If that happens America will be well on its way to ruin. Dont believe Obama's hype, dont give in, dont make your children learn Spanish. Dont let some refugees from a dead country with a dead language break in to the United States and change the rules because it suits them.. even if Obama likes the idea. He has it backwards anyway. The whole world should learn to speak English the language of the greatest nation of the face of the Earth, the primary language of global commerce.

In case you didnt know:
87% of Americans want English made the
official language of the United States.

http://www.proenglish.org/resources/polls.html

Be one of them or go back to
wherever people speak your language

Remember the Alamo
SAY NO TO MEXICO!! !!

Could you please provide your source where Obama said this? Thanks.

Wow, Fred2670. That post seems pretty offensive to those who speak the Spanish language.
American's speaking Spanish to Spanish speaking people to do business is stooping to their level?
That is pretty harsh and downright offensive.
I think that Americans should learn more languages. I can't think how learning another language or two could be a bad thing. I don't think that we should shift most of schooling to Spanish, but we as a nation could do well to study more cultures and languages. It would be a good eye opener for many people that the world doesn't just revolve around America.

You realise that Spanish is the second most spoken language spoken in the usa, and it is not due to Mexican immigrants alone. its been that way since America was first colonised.

it's hard to say because unless you're immersed in a language, you forget it really quickly and it's pretty much a waste. might be better to focus more on the cultural side, if anything. reaching an understanding of different cultures is much more important than just learning the language.

Also if your in the usa its the most practical second language to learn.

you seem to approach this as if learning languages in school translates to everyone knowing at least two languages. most people forget as soon as they're done with the class.

i'd say latin is more useful.

Spanish isn't just a Mexican language, it's spoken throughout South and Central America. The only exception is Brazil which speaks Portuguese, but Spanish and Portuguese are closely related so if you know one, learning the other is fairly easy. In addition, as part of the Romance language family (descended from Latin) knowing Spanish makes it easier to learn Italian and French.

In economic terms Mandarin (Chinese) may be more useful though.

actually italian would be the best to learn there because it's more of a bridge between spanish and french. portuguese is very different from what i hear from people who study languages.

Poll is unbalanced

Noone should be "forced" to learn Spanish (or any other language) ... but equally, everyone benefits from exposure to more than one language ... as such, I voted for learning spanish - it's better than not learning it.

you need more options on your poll!

I saw the video of O'bama saying that, and he didn't say each and every child should learn Spanish ... he mentioned Spanish but was referring to other languages and said "We should have every child speaking more than one language." He also said that immigrants to this country should learn English. I have no problem with either statement. Methinks you are taking a fragment out of context.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/v/BZprtPat1Vk[/youtube]

Well, we can know how to take such brilliant comment that seriously or not, I wouldn't give such argument so much value, especially comming from someone who claims you can snap out of being an aspie.

Well. one thing about Latin is that it gives you a head start in understanding most other European languages - especially French, Italian and, indeed, Spanish - as well as a lot of things about the underlying structure and meaning of English.

I'm all for as many people learning as many different languages as they can handle. I can see why Spanish would be practical in the US, but then you are a melting-pot nation, and some areas are undoubtedly more Spanish-influenced than others, so there might be areas in which other languages would be as, or more, appropriate. (In quite a few places, that would be Mandarin Chinese.)

It's not for me as a British person to say whether English-speaking American kids should learn Spanish, but I will point out some of the inaccuracies and wrong assumptions in this screed, because I've encountered things like this before and they annoy me.

One, Spanish has been in the Americas, and in the USA, more or less from the very beginning, so it's not a 'new' foreign language. By a series of historical accidents, it probably very nearly missed actually being the main language (along with Dutch, Portuguese and a few other contenders).

Two, I doubt if most Hispanics would want Spanish replacing English in the workplace when they don't even all speak it! One survey found that 95% of the children of Mexican immigrants speak English, and over half of their kids speak only English. (1985 study by Rand, cited in Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson - an excellent book with a large section about exactly this kind of prejudice.) Simple logic - if you're an immigrant, not learning the local language puts you at an immediate, huge disadvantage, so it's in your interests to do so.

Three, this person, whoever actually came up with this, doesn't sound like they'd take kindly to them, or their child, having to learn any foreign language. In my experience it's generally this way round: I know of English speaking British people who, quite seriously, think that if they want to move to Tuscany or the South of France, the locals 'should' speak English to them rather than them having to learn French or Italian. In contrast, they're always quite voluble that 'foreigners' over here should be forced to learn English. (Although in our experience of local migrant workers, most of them are happy to make the effort.)

I'm a bad person to ask about this, because I'm all for anyone learning languages, period - the earlier the better, because that's when we're primed to do it. (I'm also a terminal optimist. This is why I'm a 39-year-old white, British person attempting to learn Coast Salish. )

Incidentally, to count as a dead language, a language has to have no native speakers. Spanish has 300-400 million native speakers, globally second only to Mandarin. Whoever wrote this knows nothing about linguistics.

Last edited by ThatRedHairedGrrl on 22 Jul 2008, 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think it would hurt to learn a second language, but trying to turn america into a non-english speaking country just because others don't learn english is rediculous.

on second thought, i think italian might be more useful because it seems to have similarities to both modern french and spanish* and like a more evolved latin...while still being somewhat source to the other romance languages.



*at least what i've gathered from my limited knowledge of all three languages and what phrases i know and how they structure.

Its no surprise that citizens of other countries typically know english as well as their own language. If you lived in an area the size of France you couldn't get everything modern society needs within your borders, and English is the international business language. So a frenchman's french is really like a pittsburgher's pittburghese. Its useful for talking to those around you, and shows your culture, but really doesn't help you in the grand scheme of things.

So will yinz guys help me worsh the spicket on this jagger bush of a topic. And while we're at it my car needs worshed. Djou want to help?

And by the way i live several times closer to quebec than i do to Mexico, so why shouldn't my children be required to learn french if they are going to mandate what they learn - after all they will actually have opportunities to utilize the french