Check out this wanker’s argument against Americans learning a second language.
“We should have every child speaking more than one language. It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beacoup, right?” says Obama.
Ignoring the terrible construct of Obama’s own extemporaneous English (a man so praised for his eloquence when reading from a teleprompter), we are now told that every American child should learn to speak Spanish. (Personally, I would prefer if they learned to speak proficient English first.) Like most liberals, Obama believes that to be multilingual is to be worldly, educated, sophisticated, inclusive, progressive, futuristic, admired, and respected in the world. Really?
Why learn Spanish? Why not the most common language in the world, Mandarin Chinese. Why not Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), the third most common language after English? Better yet, why learn another language at all?
During two tours in Germany, I was frequently asked if I spoke German because of my last name. When I said “no,” the always somewhat haughty and abrupt Aryan reply was, “Too bad.” I invariably responded with, “Maybe. But I was born during the Nuremberg trials.” This response, which is perfectly true, invariably produced a richly ironic pregnant pause, which I enjoyed to no end.
The rest of his essay is even worse. He attempts to explain that he speaks fifty languages because the United States has fifty states, and then suggests that the reason no one is suggesting we all learn Portuguese is because Brazil doesn’t border the United States rather than because there are millions of Spanish speakers in our country and millions more Spanish speakers in this hemisphere than Portugeuse speakers.
Did Obama say everyone should speak Spanish, or did he say what this ass quoted, which is that every child should speak more than one language? I presume the latter. The reason everybody else in the world speaks several languages is that they start early. Obama is absolutely on the mark here: Put English speakers in xxx as a second language classes at around 3rd or 4th grade. Put speakers of other languages in English as a second language classes (as needed) at the same time. Poof — end of the stupid arguments about English-only, and all the rest of the nativist nonsense. This is the kind of new thinking I was hoping Obama was promising all along.
As to the “essay”, I don’t detect anything that might be called an argument. Didn’t click the link to read any more, though — it’s painful enough listening to Dems these days without going all the way into idiotlandt.
This whole “study a foreign language when you get to high school” nonsense is due to the paranoia and xenophobia of World War I. The thinking was that younger children could be led astray into disloyalty and worse by learning another language and literature, but teenagers would be more mature and patriotic and less susceptible.
So laws against teaching languages to children were passed, and generations later, we’re still taught on the J. Edgar Hoover model and look like dunces to the rest of the world.
(I copyedit scholarly books for a living and pick up the most amazing bits of knowledge!)
Religious education starts young, too. Can’t let kids grow up thinking for themselves, can we?
Where’s the ‘terrible construct’ of Obama’s English?
Looks perfectly fine to me.
[But then, I am a multi-lingual elitist, born and raised in Europe.]
You forgot to mention ‘worldly, educated, sophisticated, inclusive, progressive, futuristic, admired, and respected’.
Shouldn’t that be “terrible construction”?
“Construct” is OK as a noun in many linguistic situations, but frankly, I don’t care enough about this clod’s remarks to deconstruct whether he used to word properly or not.
watch it, next week this same wanker will be decrying the defects of the American public education system and comparing us to European schools. Wait for it.
There are so many thing wrong with the excerpt that it really makes the point for teaching American citizens to be more aware of other cultures and languages.
The one I want to dwell on is the German “too bad”. I is not in my experience a consequence of German national arrogance, but a quirk of the way most Germans speak English. From what they wrote later, most likely they appearance of arrogance came from the authors internal prejudice and fear of being perceived as inferior.
Actually that “pregnant pause” he was talking about was most likely their trying to parse this guy’s non-sequitur and coming up with the German equivalent of “what a maroon.” IIRC the German word for “fool” is “Narr” but that word just doesn’t seem to go far enough.
Yes, and I’m still trying to figure out what being born during the Nuremberg trials has to do with speaking German. No doubt his “haughty and abrupt Aryans” were just as puzzled as I am — and thus the pregnant pause. Could someone please explain this one to me?
I took it to mean that he was ashamed of his German ancestry because of Nazi atrocities. A classic “ugly American” and a self-hater to boot.
Why do you send me to these places, BooMan? It scares me…
I think a second language opens a whole new world possibilities. If other countries are making their children fluent in English, they have an advantage.
Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Hindi, Pashtun, Arabic, who cares which one, if you have a second Language you are more competitive in the real world.
Being more competitive in the world is likely the most common reason for people to learn a second language, particularly if their first language is spoken by a limited number of people.
But I think one of Obama’s points, as I recall from his speeches, that language is a window into culture. And by learning other languages, you learn about other cultures.
That only speaks of his ignorance: the Nurmberg Trials was possible thaks to the translators,as well as those who spoke several languages in the US forces who were able to capture the war criminals after posing as German citizens.
Dad spoke Russian, German, French, and English as the natives of those countries, and Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese with a slight accent. And I am still upset that they only taught me English.
I speak German about as well as one might expect for being thirty years out of high school and carrying a chronic inability to keep the various genders and tenses of German nouns straight.
I speak Esperanto about as well as one can when one has never had anyone to practice with, although I can read it pretty good with a dictionary at my side.
I don’t know nearly as much Chinese as I would like, but I’m occasionally surprised that I can still pick out a word or two here and there when I hear it spoken.
I know a smattering of a handful of other languages, but not enough to carry on a conversation.
So I’m afraid I completely fail to miss the point of this essay, unless the publisher just put it up to show the rest of the world what a mulr-headed lout he is.
Won’t we be enabling terrorists if we speak more than just english?
How can the Authorities understand us when they spy on us and torture us if we’re speaking some alien tongue? I mean, what do you expect, the Intelligence Community should have agents that know other languages?
Hmm… that IS a thought isn’t it…
Now, where did I put my Danish language tapes….