beamends wrote: 
Esperanto maybe?

 rosedraws wrote: 
It will indeed be interesting to see how it all pans out - presumably some sort of Euro language will evolve over time. Except in France, they are a tad keen on keeping theirs intact (which is fine by me).

 rosedraws wrote:
 
I have come to realize it is virtually impossible for me to learn a new language.  Over the years I have tried to learn French, Latin, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese and Arabic.  These were all in HS or college except the Arabic which was in a class held by the company I was working for.  The only one I have any passable understanding of is Spanish

I have been in a few countries where I didn't know the language - Saudi Arabia, Austria, Greece.  I actually picked up quite a bit of spoken German while in Austria.  Living in SA for 18 months without knowing Arabic was difficult.  I really tried to learn it but it was so hard.

 beamends wrote: 
Oh yeah, I wonder how that will change things.  It seemed to me that the 2nd language all the kids are learning is English.  But I do get the sense that nationalism still rules, and a place like Denmark has no intention of offering non-Danish signage for anything.

funny story too.

 Southern_Boy wrote: 
Yes!  Thank you.  Now I remember, they talked about the implications of trying to accommodate all the languages spoken in an urban area.

 rosedraws wrote: 
It happens a lot - in some areas of England safety road signs are duplicated in Polish! The thing is any EU citizen is entitled live and work in any other EU state, so the British's steadfast refusal to learn foreign languages is probably causing chaos over there too. It's still taking getting used to, but if I decided to go and live in France I could just load the car and go.

It can all be funny though

 

 hippiechick wrote: 
Yes.  When I go to another country and participating in their civil system (like driving), I better know some of the language *and* have a translation dictionary with me.  

One of the reasons I didn't want to rent a car in the Netherlands is that I don't know the language at all.  Fortunately, Mom knew enough to help us maneuver the train system (when we got to the countryside, the English evaporated).  

And now that I think about it, I don't think I would go to a country where I don't speak the language.  At least, not without a guide or companion who knew the language.  When I was a teen, we went all over Europe, and when our van broke down in Yugoslavia, it was quite a nightmare because we couldn't explain what we needed and we had no idea what the repair guy was saying to us.  (We ended up with a motorcycle gas tank mounted to the roof of the van... or something like that ) 

 rosedraws wrote: 
Happened in New Jersey. Ruling just issued on 7/12/10.

 hippiechick wrote: 
Again you comment without the full story.  The guy stopped had been living in this country for a number of years.

 hippiechick wrote: 

No!

But if you get caught by the police it is no valid excuse not to speak french! You have to stand the consequences in the country you travel to/live in, even if you don't know the language.

There is a appropriate saying in German: Unwissenheit schützt vor Strafe nicht. (A lack of knowledge does not prevent punishment)

 rosedraws wrote: 
So, if you went to France, and you rented a car to drive around the countryside, and you got stopped by an officer who only spoke French, and you couldn't communicate with him, so he hauled you into jail, should you not have rented the car because you couldn't speak French?

In a decade or two, I believe it is, more people will speak Spanish in the country than English, so everybody had better start learning Spanish.

And there is no real alternative to the demand to learn the leading language of the country you live in.

Everything else is silly and far away from logic and reasonable community-building. We have similar problems in Germany, where i.e. many immigrants from Turkey just refuse to learn English, even their kids don't know our language when they come to school.

Last year I had to be in a conference of my daughter's school class and two mothers were accompanied by some people who translated for them. Both women have been living in Germany for more than 10 years each....

US is english, so English schould be the language everybody tries to speak. That makes life in the society doable.

 

 mzpro5 wrote: 
My parents came here when they were 19 and 23.  They would not have dreamed of not learning English.

It's not an infringement of rights to require learning a language.  But it's a costly and problematic issue when places like the classroom have to accommodate other languages.

I'm also totally FOR everyone learning multiple languages, especially schoolkids.   

 rosedraws wrote: 
I heard the same story and thought the same thing.

There was a time when immigrants considered it a badge of accomplishment to learn English.  They may have spoke there native language in their own home but they strived to learn English. 

I heard a story on NPR about a person getting a traffic ticket (or maybe he was arrested?) because he did not follow a rule told to him by the police officer.

The driver did not speak English.

The court ruled that the driver was guilty only of not speaking English.  Had he understood the rule, he would have followed it.

So, it was found that the Police Department has to find a way to deliver rules in the language of the recipient.  

I think that is absurd.  The cost and complication and wasted time in this?  It's gotta be pretty damn irritating to the Police.  

I do not understand why English is not our official language, and that it should be required for citizenship and a drivers license.  Why is it on the municipality to accommodate all the different languages that might come our way?  Why is it not on the individual to learn a unified language of the country?  I realize, that we have not claimed English as our unified language, but I can not understand why not. 

 romeotuma wrote: 

Well, I think it's just natural to try to finish defacating before the subway train comes to a complete stop.

 smokinsean wrote: 
 
This reminds me of trying (sort of) to learn Spanish in college.  I'd go to class, think I was maybe starting to get it, and then to up to the radio station and tune in the Spanish version of the AP news feed, where I'd hear . . . ONE LONG WORD!

 oldslabsides wrote: 

BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!...BLAM!BLAM!...stupid fly...

 romeotuma wrote: 
I'll hurt a fly....and enjoy it.

 romeotuma wrote: 
yup