What is your feels and or thoughts about this?

Question

Ok I might get into trouble over asking these questions, but I am very curious as to how other people think or feel about this.

How do you feel or what do you think when you see street signs in English and in Spanish every where?

What about the products that we buy in the stores that has other languages plus the English language? The writing is so small so that they can get it all on there.

What about when you are trying to call a business and the person that answers the call has a hard time speaking English to the point that you can't hardly understand them?

Just wondering what other people think and feel about this. Sorry if I offend anyone here, cause I don't mean to, I am just curious.

Just so the folks on here that are answering my curious questions that I have asked here, I do live in the US and I also live in Oklahoma. I am not trying to get any one mad here at all.

Things are changing here in our state, we have a new law that is going to be in effect Nov. 1, 2007.

I have always lived right here where I live now all my life and I am a white American. I was born and raised right here. Don't need folks getting upset with me for asking a question that I am just curious as to how other folks feel.

Answer 1

i agree with you 200%
if they want to live in this country, then they need to learn the language. i would rather have to try and wade through a thick accent than to have no clue at all what they are talking about. and why should i have to be the one to press a button on the phone if i want to continue in english? let them press it if they want to continue in spanish
it has also come down to job discrimination if you don't speak spanish - i was recently rejected for a job because i wasn't "bilingual". why should i have to be ? i was born here and speak the language that is spoken here.
also your point about calling a business and not being able to understand the person who answers is right on the money. try calling dell tech support - it is all outsourced to india. i have actually had to ask for another rep because i couldn't understand the one that originally answered the phone.
more and more jobs are being outsourced to save money - well in my opinion companies that do this should have to pay extremely high taxes to make up for all of the Americans that they have put out of work. there is a factory in Indiana that is about 20-25 miles from here that is closing and moving to mexico. it will put approx 200 people out of a job. there have been several factories here in the town where i live that have closed the doors and moved to mexico also. a friend of mine worked at one and had been there since she got out of college - 20 years - and here she was mid 40's and had never done anything else in her life. it is just criminal that these companies get away with this

Answer 2

I have not seen a street sign in English and Spanish except in Texas, close to the border of Mexico. Many stop signs will have Alto as well as Stop.

I have experienced foreign languages I don't understand if I try to get a response from Yahoo or ATT on the chat service. They try to help but I cannot understand what they are saying. I have started a conversation with some who will tell me where they are located. If I happen to call at 11 pm, it will be 7 am in their area. It is interesting. I do think that when people do a job for companies in the USA, they need to have a good command of the English language as well as Spanish.
If I get to the point that I realize there will be no way we will communicate, I just thank them and say goodbye.


Thanks for the question. I did not feel offended. I have to say it is becoming a real problem for tech support on this site.

Answer 3

Is it just the Spanish/English thing that gets you angry, or every other language other than English? I ask because I have a problem with understanding other accents also. I've spoken to East Indian people, Chinese, Jamaican, and believe it or not, English! LOL. I think it can get kind of funny actually.
And as far as all the Spanish signs? The only time I got really angry about this was when a local pharmacy hired nothing but Spanish speaking people in our pharmacy. I tried to buy some aspirin and the lady didn't know how to give change and didn't know what a quarter was. I asked for an interpreter so I could explain that she gave me the wrong change and I needed an interpreter for the interpreter. I finally called the big chain pharmacy national management and told them they had to do something and they did that next week.
crickette

Answer 4

In Canada It has been this way for as long as I can remember only we have French and we just turn the box over to the English side. They are the two founding languages but if we get really technical, we should also have on the aboriginal languages. In the US, the spanish language was used in California before English.All government workers in Canada must be bilingual. Where I live ,In the last 10 years.newcomers from India,Pakistan and Sri Lanka have become the majority and a nurse applying for a position at our new hospital was turned down because she did not speak Hindi or Punjabi . It would seem easier for people coming here to learn English than for us to learn many different ones. This is just the way it is here now.

Answer 5

First of all, I bought a watch yesterday and English instructions was not the first, not the second but THIRD in line. I was thinking I'd have to learn Spanish and French in order to set the time.
Did you all know that ATT never has people help you from the US? It's always India... (in case u ever need 2 know that)
I live in a high rise bldg and they also have blacks and Hispanics here (which I kinda like) but this one lady...everyday she sees me and starts speaking a looooooooooooooong stream of Spanish words just as if she were talking to someone who knew the language. I don't mean to be rude but I walk away. LEARN THE LANGUAGE!
From reading some of the younger peoples questions on Y answers, I observe that they don't have command of ANY language. How are they going to learn Spanish in order to speak to those that don't know English? One good thing about this question, if Y! has so many people who don't speak English, you won't get reported because they won't be able to read it.

Answer 6

I live in the American Southwest (Nevada), so those signs pose no problem to me. The State of New Mexico requires that all of the laws they pass be made public in English and Spanish.
I do feel put upon when the person I'm calling cannot speak intelligible English. Sometimes I revert to the use of Spanish. When I lived in Japan I had to do the same thing and also had to deal with signs in Japanese and English.
As for the products, many of them contain what I call "NAFTA" labels: written in English, French and Spanish to cover the three main languages spoken in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
Purging Spanish from the lexicon of the state next to us (California) would cause quite a revision of their map, including the very name of their state. We in Nevada would be in a similar pickle.

Answer 7

I have never been out of the U.S. but I know a lot of people who travel and they tell me about countries where a lot of things, including signs are also printed in English.

When I worked at a university library at least 80% of our international students spoke three or four languages -their own, English, French, or German. One of the problems in the U.S. is that unless we choose to learn another language, or it is required, we don't have to take any language courses. I think in a global economy where many young people are going to have to do business with people of other cultures it would be to their benefit to start learning another language in grade school when the mind is most receptive to learning language.

I totally agree with the poster from Canada. Every culture has something to offer. As of 2005 35% of Californians are hispanic, and the numbers will continue to grow. Other ethnic groups whose native language is not English add to the mix. I don't have a problem with bi-lingual signs. Big deal. If it makes it easier for others to make a sound decision, or keeps them from making a mistake, what's wrong with that?

Answer 8

Personally......I'm sick of it. Come here learn English. I don't care what you speak at home but there's just too many foreign languages to expect citizens to learn to please them when all we ask is to learn 1. There's a wide variety of immigrants here and I'm seeing more and more signs and different languages popping up all over. Some people might find it wonderful but I don't. If I wanted to travel the world.....I would. But this is my home and it's getting frustrating feeling like a tourist in your own country where you can't even order a hamburger anymore and have someone understand you. I mean god forbid in your travels you stop at a McDonalds in a non-English neighborhood or need to ask directions. I suppose if everyone feels this need to have their pocket with just their people where you must speak their language in your own country fine.....just stay out of the English speaking area then. I too, like to hear my own language and be understood and understand what's being said.

Answer 9

Try calling or having an online chat with Norton/Symantic. that will give you a bit of insight to where we are. I for one am way tired of it. I got 5 phone calls in the middle of the night a few days ago, the person spoke no English--Finally I said in my best attempt to stop the calls---Hombre, Nada Numero. Not the best response but it did stop the 3 am calls. I know very little Spanish, just what I learned from a friend over 40 years ago. Upsetting to me!!

Answer 10

I will try to keep this short. I am offended when I purchase items that also have instructions in Spanish. I am offended when ...... all of the other things you mentioned are in Spanish. My mother came to the US from Germany.... she HAD to learn the language. There were no special classes for her, she had to learn it on her own. I have on many occasions made calls where I had to say "I'm sorry, but I cannot understand you, could you transfer me to someone else?". I do not hate the legal immigrants. I do think that they should take it upon themselves to learn English though. The illegals though....... that's another story.