How can a person live in a country for 30 yrs and not learn the language?

Question

Personally i think its lazness and stupidity. but wat do you all think?

PS its not racism

doesnt matter about a persons situation they aren't wrkin 24/7 for 30 yrs if a person really wants to they would make the time to learn the language e.g. through night classes. if they dont its means they just cant b bothered

no there is no excuse i heard of a man who lived in spain for 30 yrs and when he went to hospital was asked in castellano what was wrong he had to answer in english cause he didnt know the language, because he couldnt be arsed to learn it. the is NO excuse. No one is busy for their entire life

because the 1st language of everyone who speaks welsh and gaelic is ENGLISH
there are no welsh or scots who only speak welsh and gaelic

and i only know English & thats because i live in an english speaking country :)

Once again ill say this for the sake of the DENSE http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dense

ITS NOT RACIST TO ASK THAT QUESTION! it applies to all races including white people manly English speakin people

i see that some people didnt read the addtion....it is not racist to ask why someone, no matter what colour their skin is, doesnt learn the indigenous language of the country they are living in

i have no need to learn a language i live in UK and i speak English

Answer 1

yes, it's somehow strange. this person gonna miss something from every day life. Points that support not learning the language:

- when this person is only around people that speak his mothertounge.
- when language skill is not necessary at work or even the mothertounge is predominant
- colonies (I met germans in south Brasil that spoke weird german dialects and really had no intention to try portugues.. they moved there ~100 years ago)

Answer 2

That's a bunch of crap!
my parents have been in the states for 15 years and they don't speak the language fluently, they kinda of understand it.
My parents do not know english because they are lazy and stupid. They don't know the language because they are always working. My parents have degrees in Spain, but when they came to the states, the only jobs they could get was as custodians at the police station and a factory making belts, with fellow spanish people.
The only reason I know the language is because I had to go to school in america, I was humiliated in middle school by fellow students because I didn't understand what they said..like I was retarded or something. I learned the language in 1year 2months, I made myself watch tv in english, and although all my friends were spanish, I still didn't give up. If my parents had the time I had, and the chance I had in school, they would have learned english in 6months. Now instead of having 3 jobs, my dad has only one, and he's back in school..,learning. My point is, you don't know the circumstances of someone's choices, I'm know NOone likes to live in a country they don't understand the language, no one wants to feel alone..but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to survive.
I am very proud my family and I are citizens of the USA and Spain, and will be even more proud when my parents no longer have to feel alienated.

Answer 3

No, it is not laziness or stupidity. Have *you* ever learned a new language? It isn't easy!!

Some people can learn a language in a few weeks. For others, it *takes* over 20 years and they still won't be very fluent in it. And when someone is sick and in pain, he doesn't want to have to translate something in his head into--what is for him--a foreign language. He also may speak pretty good Spanish, but *still* not know the word for "small intestines" (or similar types of vocabulary) except in English. I know a lot of people who *did* learn the local language, but they *all* still think in their native language. Speaking the language of their country will *always* be more work for them, even if they live there a hundred years!!

Answer 4

No one can be that lazy for 30 years, and even stupid people take less time than that to become quite functional in the language of their environment, with or without classes.

So the obvious answer is that the person's "environment" is in his/her native language. Reasons for that include xenophobia, by which I mean either dislike of people from other cultures or actual fear of them, or sometimes a specific need to keep up your own culture. (For example a language teacher or a tour guide would normally speak to his/her clients in his/her first language--in the case of language teaching, it can be very ineffective to become more proficient at the students' first language than they are at yours.) Or else there can be a big enough minority population that speaks your language that your own "environment" is in that langauge. (My dad (from England) has lived in Quebec--a French-speaking place--for at least half of the last 40 years but always in English-speaking areas. He can understand a bit of French and can order a beer, but basically doesn't speak it. (Part of his problem is he's quite hard-of-hearing.)

However, I think the example you give is decidedly NOT telling. If someone is sick and scared, asking them to speak a language they're not native in is really hard. In times of stress, most people's language abilities go down (including in their first language), plus as the person above said, most people don't know the names of internal body parts in their second language. It's much easier for a doctor to learn doctor-words in a second language.

Answer 5

from your statement this is what I get: You're not only racist but also very ignorant. I hope someday you end up in a similar situation. karma is a biacth. I bet you have never even left your state and your sitting there judging, like you have some sort of right. There's no excuse, man I wish you would say that to me in person...I would show you the reality of things, and also go back to school and learn how to spell!

Answer 6

Racist. To learn a language and appreciate it, one needs to get into the culture of the country. It means putting off some habits and practises and embracing new ones. The person you describe thinks he is culturally superior and expects all around him to learn his langauge instead. How esle to communicate? If I were the government, I would have drive him out of the country long long time ago.

Answer 7

regardless of which country you live in the language you speak is the language used by your family and friends.

i lived in zambia for four years once. i never learned ci-nyanja. all of my family spoke english and anyone i needed to talk to who spoke ci-nyanja, si-lozi, or ici-bemba also spoke either french or english - so we communicated through those languages.

there are english people living in wales who never learned welsh, and english people living in scotland who never learned gaelic. they can get by without doing so, why would they need to?

you get more from a country if you learn its majority language certainly - but some people are happy just sticking to what they already have.

how many languages do you speak?

Answer 8

Oh I have had this problem for 5 years i lived in Georgia and didn't know Georgian but it is not because I am stupid , but just because everyone around me was speaking Russian spacial for me to understand so I have no contact with Georgian.

Answer 9

It's not lazyness or stupidity but it's a kind of shitty attitude towards the language, country they lived for 30years.
Ignore them. Not worth even thinking about them.
It's a Waste of time.

Cheers!

Answer 10

maybe that person dont want it or dont have the need to.

Sometimes a person just dont have the hability (not stupidity) to learn a new languaje.

Maybe u should ask that person instead of being stupid and racist and critizated first.