I can't stand the whole, "You live in America; speak English" nonsense. It is an asset to speak more than one language. Your friend's post reminds me of this:

What do you call someone who can speak 2 languages? Bilingual
What do you call someone who can speak 3 languages? Trilingual
What do you call someone who only speaks 1 language? American

I gotta say you wouldn't believe the amount of patients we have come in and ones that came into the hospital that I worked at before that live here and speak no english at all. They always have someone with them that does or barely does. And when we get work done to our house, it's always a large group where only one of them barely speaks english. I don't mind bilingual but if you are going to live (not visit) in a country you should really know the language. Hell I was only visiting france for a week but I learned enough to get by to order food, go to the hospital or get myself redirected if I got lost. At least speak enough to get by. I don't mind if you want to speak your own language 90% of the time, but be able to speak english in situations where it is necessary.

Yes, we have always been a diverse nation. However, historically, immigrants have learned to speak English. My great-grandmother never went to school, was illiterate and spoke Italian when she came to the US and she learned English.

It's important for a cohesive, functioning society that the people who live in it can communicate with each other. And since we have immigrants from every nation on Earth, is it easier to choose one language and we all learn it and speak it or to have every American learn the language of every immigrant?

I'm certainly not against people being able to speak many languages. I'm all for it, in fact. But I do think immigrants should learn English and I would not be against making it the official language.

It's important for a cohesive, functioning society that the people who live in it can communicate with each other. And since we have immigrants from every nation on Earth, is it easier to choose one language and we all learn it and speak it or to have every American learn the language of every immigrant?

Very good point.

I think that all government institutions should read, write, and converse only in English. Just because a larger group of minorities, regardless of where they are immigrating from, are not fluent does not mean we should cater to them in that fashion. Language binds people and if we let this premise that we will accomadate mexican or chinese immigrants by changing our language travelling from state to state will be an even more foreign experience. No one offered my forefathers a driving test in Greek or Russian and they were proud to learn the langauge of the land and thrive in it.

But as far as the OP who was angry about the job, app, that is a different discussion. Private businesses should be able to compete and if offering more language choices increases profits, good for them. If it bothers you immensely to push a button on an ATM for which language you want, you don't have enough to worry about in your life or you are just a rage machine that needs something to complain about.

Now, to be clear, I am not in any shape or form against teaching foreign languages in our schools. Quite the contrary. I really wished I would have picked up greek as a kid, but never did.

I gotta say you wouldn't believe the amount of patients we have come in and ones that came into the hospital that I worked at before that live here and speak no english at all. I don't mind if you want to speak your own language 90% of the time, but be able to speak english in situations where it is necessary.

Many of these people are uneducated to begin with. I believe most of them TRY to learn the language. At least that's my experience in Texas. I've never run across someone who doesn't speak English because of principle. (I speak Spanish conversationally)

That's pretty remarkable considering you are in TX. Our local paper just did a story on the overloaded teachers who are responsible for teaching the non-english speaking young kids in our public schools. Then again, when you have local factories that advertise illegal employment here on the border from Mexico, there is bound to be a language barrier with immigrants in schools. As a matter of fact, my hispanic neighbors have a 5 year old who doesn't speak english but her older siblings do. :huh:

I'm really surprised you'd have a lot of Indians who don't speak English, especially considering it was a British colony for so long. We have a large Indian population here -- with the best restaurants!!! -- and they all seem to speak English very well. There's one young guy at one of the restaurants who always uses me as his English sounding board to ask me word meanings and make sure he's pronouncing the words correctly.

The Spanish-speaking population in Florida is another story, though. There are areas that if you walked into them you would think you left the US entirely. And in Miami, there are more Spanish billboards and street signs than English.

If I were going to move to another country, where the primary language was not English, I would feel obligated to do what I could to learn their language. That said, I would very much appreciate it if there were services available for me there that didn't always rely on my understanding of secondary language. And if such services did exist, it seems logical for those employees to be bilingual.

Agreed. I've never met someone here who only knows Spanish refuse to learn English. I sincerely believe they all try and they all want to. And when I travel to other countries, I try my best but I sure appreciate it when there's someone there who can also speak English! When we visited Loyola, Spain (Basque country) I was speaking my Tex-Mex to someone who knew some Spanish and Basque. She then interpreted to someone who only spoke Basque. It was pretty funny, and I really appreciated the help.

Saw this on a friend's Facebook status today.

Extremely aggravating when you go to apply for a job in your OWN country where you were born, have lived your entire life, gone to school, paid taxes, are a LEGAL citizen and not qualified for several jobs because I am not Bi-Lingual. What the @#$#.. I am sorry it was and always should be One Nation, Under God, with ONE LANGUAGE!!!

Now never mind the whole "under God" issue, since of course that was added well after the original Pledge was written to perpetuate the Red Scare. Or that the Pledge did not come about when this nation was founded. (And I'm sure it would irk her even more that it was written by a Socialist!!)

But I've never understood how people demand/expect to have an official language when we're such a diverse country, and we always have been.

I really want to respond to the FB post with this: OST-GAY-HAEST GO-EE-GAH, which means "Have a nice day" in Cherokee...

English was proposed by convenience as the "official" language when this country was establish.
As diverse as this country is becoming, the reality of the situation is that one is going to have learn other languages to interact or even become marketable in the work field.

As someone who is comepletely fluent in English and Spanish, it has been very helpful to know both languages. Also, unless you live in a very secluded area up in the mountains, you are exposed to different languages everyday!

Have you been to Miami lately? Last time I went, it was almost impossible to hear anyone speaking English.
What about Texas? I live in Houston and a lot of schools have bilingual classes. Go to chinatown/Asian area and most streets have street names in English and Vietnamese/Chinese. Some business in those areas don't even bother to put signs of their businesses in English. Which restricts access to non-speakers because you have no idea what kind of business it is (unless you enter of course).

Go to Spring Branch in Houston and most businesses are Spanish speaking businesses catering the Hispanic population.

So what does this say about your FB friend? That they have to become more cultured and learn another language. UNFORTUNATELY that is the reality of this country. This country is comprised by immigrants from MANY different cultures. Not just one culture but by Russians, Mexicans, Haitians, Nigerians, French, Argentinians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Salvadoreños, Colombians, Cubans, Dominicans, Turkish, Greeks, etc. How many languages do these people I just mentioned speak? 3-4 at least.

So what does this say about your FB friend? That they have to become more cultured and learn another language. UNFORTUNATELY that is the reality of this country. This country is comprised by immigrants from MANY different cultures. Not just one culture but by Russians, Mexicans, Haitians, Nigerians, French, Argentinians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Salvadoreños, Colombians, Cubans, Dominicans, Turkish, Greeks, etc. How many languages do these people I just mentioned speak? 3-4 at least.

On the flip side of that, there are just as many people who live here and don't speak English. As you pointed out in your post there are areas that advertise their storefronts in other languages. Should these people not do as you suggest for the FB friend and also become more cultured and learn English as well?

What about Texas? I live in Houston and a lot of schools have bilingual classes. Go to chinatown/Asian area and most streets have street names in English and Vietnamese/Chinese. Some business in those areas don't even bother to put signs of their businesses in English. Which restricts access to non-speakers because you have no idea what kind of business it is (unless you enter of course).

You're so right. I work off Belliare, between Chinatown and Vietnamese town. Officially called the "International District". Our street signs are in Vietnamese around here. The food is amazing, and the people are kind and welcoming of all.

This same conversation occurred during the Italian immigration around 1900 and the Irish immigrations of the 1860s. I agree that if you are going to live somewhere, you should learn the prevailing language of the land. If you notice, the youth are learning the language of the land for the most part and this is how immigration waves evolve and assimilate.

that's a lot of big words and smart talk...

I had a speech all prepared for these situations. It went something like, "This is not an ESL course, and I not qualified to give that kind of instructions if you need it. I can work with you on the problem areas I'm seeing in addition to directing you to campus resources for second language learners. It would be unfair to the other students, though, if I gave one student more time or different allowances for the quality of their work. The grading guidelines are outlined in the course syllabus, and they apply to all students equally."

That's actually very similar to what I say to some of the parents looking at our school for their sons.

Bah! We live in too small of a city for that to fly around here... people get into a tiff because the street names change because you go from one muncipality to the next (we have two small towns in the middle of our larger city).

Houston and the surrounding areas are interesting. I had to serve jury duty a little south of here, but only 15 minutes from where I lived. Entered "downtown Angleton" and the street names were "This Way" and "That Way". I *kitten* you not. I was so confused! Ha!

What language people speak doesn't bother me. The real debate here is how should government and businesses accommodate people that do not speak English?

What to know something else that might tick you off, I have seen a couple of business' accepting Mexican Pesos! Yep!