Do you speak spanish?

Bird · Mar 21, 2006

I'm not sure it would help an old fellow like me to know another language now. As I've gotten older and my hearing had deteriorated, there's another small problem in this country. Every time I call tech support for anything, I usually get someone who speaks English, but with such an accent that I can hardly understand them. I currently have a problem with my Dish Network satellite TV, so I called today and I know that lady was speaking good English, and I'm sure her first language was Spanish, so with her accent and my hearing, I had a devil of a time understanding her. And one our best friends is French; been in this country for over 30 years, married a GI who was a friend of mine before he died, and although she was a neighbor for 11 years and been a close friend for 19 years, I still have a real problem understanding her much of the time. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

MossRoad · Mar 21, 2006

Bird, half my relatives are Hungarian. The old ones are hard to understand because they still have the accent. They say it is hard to understand me with my American accent. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

But at family gatherings, everyone gets along just fine... must be the Paprika! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Bird · Mar 21, 2006

David, at family gatherings all my family get along just fine, too. Of course, I have no idea what they're talking about. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif They tell me I have "nerve damage" so plenty of volume doesn't mean I "hear" and understand what's said. I usually have no problem face to face, one on one, but if two people talk at the same time, I have no idea what either of them said, even if they are speaking good English. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Alan L. · Mar 22, 2006

I don't care what language people speak, but for my tax dollars the schools in Texas should only teach in English. Learn it or leave. Unfortunately this is not whats happening.

YanmarFever · Mar 22, 2006

I speak castillian spanish well, however its my opinion that if someone immigrates to another country that they should learn that countries language. Instead its a real burden on the school system & on tax payers to teach them if they live there. This applies to all countries of the world. lets be fair.

1948berg · Mar 22, 2006

Here in Norway children start learning english when they are very young, about 8 years of age. When you are 13 you can choose another language, usually german or french, but spanish is getting more and more popular. Spain is much like Florida for us here, people retire there, or spend their holidays there. Trouble for me and many others is to speak the language right, it sounds "norwenglish". If you travel in Norway most people under 60 speaks some sort of english, kids speaks very well. The norwegian language is "infected" with a lot og english words! Funny thing though, a lot of the english words the norwegians of today are picking up origins from the viking. old norse, era in England, so we are in fact getting the words back

lrunge · Mar 22, 2006

I had two years of high school spanish but that was 40+ years ago. I have taken an 6 week course on conversational spanish that was good but you need to practice. The best course I found to help is from pimsleur.
http://ww3.pimsleurapproach.com
You can listen to the cd's while you are tractoring and no one can hear you talking to yourself. I was trying to improve my spanish because of all the hispanics in the area now and because my grandaughter started spanish lessons in kindergarten and continued through the third grade. Unfortunately, due to cost cutting they laid the spanish teacher off. I know she was always correcting some of my pronunciation. I don't trill my r's very well. I need to start back into it again with spring starting.

BB_TX · Mar 22, 2006

I found China to be a real oddity with its multitude of dialects. The company I work for does business in China. Attending a meeting in China, there would be a translator for us. Then if there were Chinese from different regions of China, they would have translators for the different dialects. If they had any difficulty in the translation, they would just write it down. They all read that same written text, just pronounce it so differently they can't always communicate with each other. Sort of like a Texan and a New Englander. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

pennwalk · Mar 22, 2006

I speak castillian spanish well 
Ernie.
Castillian is Spanish spanish correct? Is it hard to talk to people from other spanich speaking places?

Chris

JDGREEN4ME · Mar 22, 2006

( Learn it or leave )
Amen! I just cannot be "politically correct" on this topic.

MossRoad · Mar 22, 2006

"nerve damage" 

I understand. I have problems with my right ear due to shooting indoors without hearing protection. When I listen to people in a noisy environment, I tend to cock my head so my "good" ear can hear them better. So sometimes it looks like I'm giving people a sideways look. Kind like this... /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

sneaky_pete · Mar 22, 2006

Swear words and enough to order food; it gets me by in the oil fields of Texas and New Mexico. But I wish I was fluent. If my hearing wasn't so bad I'd take Spanish classes.

MarkV · Mar 22, 2006

I certainly understand the comments from those who say ‘if you live here learn the language’ and for the most part agree. I have found that much of the Hispanic population in my area is trying at least on some level to learn. My wife and I also travel out of the country often; she goes several days a week as a fight attendant. In my travels I have been struck by how limited we as Americans are with languages outside of English. In every country I have been in there were people who were willing to help and spoke at least limited English. I think our friend 1948berg from Southern Norway could walk my county for weeks without finding the bathroom if he only spoke Norwegian. Maybe it is time for us to become more bi-lingual if we are going to keep up in the global economy we all speak of.

MarkV

EastTexFrank · Mar 22, 2006

Yea Pete, that oilfield Spanish will get you into trouble. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I took 2 years of Spanish in school in Scotland. That was Castillian Spanish. When I worked in Venezuela and Peru, eveyone said I spoke Spanish like a priest so there is a very marked difference betwen the two. My Spanish still isn't very good. I always say that I speak enough to get fed, get drunk and get my face slapped. You just can't use that oilfield Spanish in polite conversation very often.

What I've noticed in our area is that second and third generation Hispanics speak English very well, especially the 3rd generation. In fact some of them don't speak Spanish very well at all. I know some that can understand it, speak it a little but can't write it. Strange isn't it? It's a product of our educational system where they have to learn English to participate in school and that ends being their primary language. They only speak Spanish to communicate with their grandparents.

It's always amazed me just how many people in other countries can actually speak English and what I've found is that learning even a few words of a foreign language helps in getting along with the locals. In fact my French is so bad that it can even force the French to speak English. Now, that's an achievement. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

1948berg · Mar 22, 2006

Two old Norwegians sitting on a bench watching traffic pass by. A car with foreign plates stops and a young man comes to ask for the direction to the nearest town. He tries english, no answer, he tries german, no reaction, he tries french and spanish, but the two guys just keep shaking their heads, so the foreigener drives on. "Sometimes I wish I could speak a foreign language" said one of the old guys, "nope" said the other," that young man that just drove away knew four, it didnt help him much!" /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

midlf · Mar 22, 2006

Yeah I agree we (US) would benefit from knowing a foreign language. However in our defense figure out how much area we can cover with one language and then compare European areas for each language. Over there you can hit several languages in the time it take us to get out of one state. So not as much need here, in the past, for multi language talent. How many did have foreign language instruction in school but lost it due to lack of opportunity to use it.

(this is from someone who's parents were told by the French teacher to get him out of the class after the first quarter so he did not get a failing grade on his record. Shoulda taken Spanish but the teacher was Japanese, go figure.)

MossRoad · Mar 22, 2006

In high school we had a Spanish teacher with a southern drawl...

Se habla espanol, y'all?

rox · Mar 22, 2006

Bird,
I am pretty good wih understanding people with accents, espcially since I arried my husband and he has a storng French accent. What I really love now days for tech support is on the internet where you can have a chat session. I find it much esier, een though I am pretty good with accents, to type out my requests and to read the responses rather than, especially the telephone makes an accent worse, trying to speak over the phone to anyone who is not Aerican. Even the British on the phone can be hard to understand.

I love the new Chat features so many businesses have now.

rox · Mar 22, 2006

Oh my gosh, Moss Road, when you wrote about a southern drawl and y'all. It brought back a funny memory.

When my daughter graduated form college, she wanted to get here first teaching job in a warmer climate. She was hired as a French teacher in Hampton Virgina. One day we are chatting ont he phone and she says, "mom, did you know that y'all is singualr?" Being from Wisconsin we didn't hear many "y'alls" I replied, "Really it is singualr, hmmm isn't that interesting"

She continues, "mom do you know what the plural of 'y'all' is?"
Me- 'Why no I don't think I do"
Daughter- "Mom you are never going to believe it, it is 'All y'all"
We laughed so hard our sides almost split, "All y'all" is plural for "y'all!!!" /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif To a non southerner, it is just so funny.

She heard another teacher use it and cracked her up.
So I guess even in the USA we have some local variences that make life interesting.

it was interesting to hear abot the Chineese, though wasn't it? How they jsut write it down, since they all read it the same but speak it different. I didn't know that!

California · Mar 22, 2006

( I took 2 years of ...Castillian Spanish. When I worked in Venezuela and Peru, eveyone said I spoke Spanish like a priest so there is a very marked difference betwen the two. ... You just can't use that oilfield Spanish in polite conversation very often. -EastTexFrank)

True!

In the 60's I spent 2 years in Venezuela as a Peace Corps volunteer. After about a year I was eating lunch in a boondocks bar, a couple hours out of Maracaibo, and the waitress was fascinated with my accent. She finally asked 'Are you from Spain or someplace? You sure don't sound like from around here!' That made my day, it was the first time I wasn't immediately pegged as a NorteAmericano.

After I got back and returned to college I enrolled in an upper-division Latin American Literature course to meet the graduation requirement of a foreign language. The class was mostly sheltered girls 3 years beyond HS and every time I would start a sentence with the conversational Spanish I had learned overseas, they would blush and giggle. I guess they just weren't used to talking about their body parts as punctuation in ordinary conversation.